Option One: Academic Honesty In Society

ACADEMIC HONESTY IN SOCIETY Your Name Course Professor UNIVERSITY Academic Integrity Seminar Academic Honesty Research Project ACADEMIC HONESTY IN THE SOCIETY 1.0 Introduction Academic dishonesty in our society has reached near epidemic levels. Yet, academic honesty and integrity remains the fundamental pillars upon which our academic systems are built. The continued prevalence of academic dishonesty in our society has been abated by the rapid growth in cyber technology which has introduced new methods of cheating. Academic dishonesty can be presented in diverse forms ranging from falsification of borrowed ideas, information or data to support ones point of view without accrediting the original source. It goes beyond using other people’s ideas and claiming them to be your own, as it promotes a culture of mistrust and unethical behavior. This paper sets out to discuss academic honesty in our society, and it will primarily focus on academic honesty in learning institutions. 2.0 Background and Overview Simply referred to as plagiarism, an act of academic dishonesty promotes a culture of impunity as it hinders development of creative ideas. Still, plagiarism destroys the integrity of one’s academic accomplishment, rendering them unreliable and questionable (Witherspoon, Maldonado & Lacey, 2012). It amounts to violation of the intellectual property rights as it is an infringement on the ownership rights of the original author. Subsequently, it hinders intellectual productivity and the true process of learning in academic institutions. Additionally, it goes against the fair use policy as it accords the cheating students a false advantage at the expense of the honest students. Still, it erodes the public trust in the academic institutions since their credibility of an academic qualification is primarily hinged on the public confidence in the educational system (Ananou, 2014). Based on this argument, it would seem academic dishonesty eliminates the public confidence vested in academic institutions thereby rendering their academic qualifications useless. Academic dishonesty is a grave academic offense that is punishable by academic institutions and can lead to prosecution in a court of law. 3.0 Academic Dishonesty & Plagiarism The term plagiarism has diverse meanings even though the most common definition is that it entails using another person’s ideas or information without properly accrediting or citing the original author (Wheeler & Anderson, 2010). It has also been defined as the use of borrowed ideas and information or general misrepresentation of facts in the pretext that you are the original author. Thus plagiarism entails misrepresentation that can occur in different forms and is not limited to information, data, ideas or any other form of creativity (Patel, Bakhtiyari & Taghavi, 2011). To avoid plagiarism, it is important that all borrowed ideas, facts or information be attributed to the owner through proper citation and referencing. Plagiarism occurs in different forms and can encompass passing an entire paper written by someone else as your own, or copying segments or portions of someone else’s work, altering it and subsequently submitting it as your own work(Manly, Leonard & Riemenschneider, 20...