Academic Honesty in Society - Essay Example

Academic Honesty in Society The society in its quest to truth and knowledge, embraces honesty and the value of integrity. These are fundamental values, which must not be compromised. The trust and honesty among the society members, that is, student’s professors and the society in general needs to be protected vigilantly. Dishonesty in academics involves cheating and plagiarism, which should neither be justified nor condoned. They destroy the ideals and purposes of academic honesty and integrity. Academia’s join schools to gain knowledge and the tools necessary for their participation in the society. Academic honesty is the foundation of a society that is based on trust and integrity. Therefore, it is mandatory for the academician to maintain honesty and integrity in their future endeavors. This paper assesses honesty in the society, their importance, the core values, and the implementation in the society. Honesty is the fairness and strait forwardness of conduct. It involves adherence to facts and principles set by organizations or society. It is a gesticulation of giving the thorough statuses, which uses the influences of thinking, influencing the listener’s believe of the contrived truth, which is prejudiced and has a similarity of what is factual and realistic. It is regularly used in utmost cases during court hearings and cross-examinations of the witnesses and of course, the prime suspect of the crime. Academic honesty is beneficial only if the other party has more understanding on logic and rebuttals (University of Rochester, 2012). Being academically honest has the same importance with being honest in life. In pursuit of academic excellence in the society, one has to acquire the true knowledge and work passionately and dilligently. This will enable a person to acquire a better position in the society. Being honest in the academic life will make anyone truthful and reliable, which is the best moral practice that any person can advocate for in the society. However, being dishonest in the society and in academic life diminishes the chances of a person becoming skilled and more knowledgeable. The students should take the obligation of being honest in the activities that they do, which affects their performance on academic affairs and curriculum and co curriculum activities. Students should also take initiatives to encourage and support academic honesty, and use correct techniques for assignments and projects. Moreover, they should understand the need for appropriate formatting and initiate a model for peers to follow and comprehend the academic honesty policy (Frankel, 2005). In order to gain academic honesty in the society, responsible institutions should organize various awareness creating programs that should guide involved parties about the policies of maintaining honesty and integrity and protect copying ones work by other students. The value of academic honesty teaches involved parties to take responsibility and respect each other’s values. Maintaining academic honesty also, increases ones value at heart (Illinois Institute of Technology, 2012). Academic dishonesty involves acts such as cheating and plagiarism. Academic cheating is described as the act of obtaining or attempting to obtain credit for academic work using any dishonest, deceptive, or fraudulent means. Examples of academic dishonesty include copying from work done by other students in an examination or a paper, the use of signal to obtain answers from or provide answers to other students. Additionally, it includes stealing or arranging for theft of an examination and knowingly reviewing an unauthorized copy of the examination. The second act of academic dishonesty involves plagiarism. This is described as the act of using ones ideas, words, or the work of another person or persons as though it is one’s own original work without giving proper conduct and credit to the original sources. Examples of plagiarism include failing to give credit through the proper citation for another person’s work, ideas and concepts. This happens when the plagiarizer obtains information, data, statements, phrases, and using interpretations and conclusions from another person’s original work. Secondly, it involves failing to use quotation marks when quoting directly from the authors original work. This can involves paragraphs, or sentences. Another aspect of academic dishonesty is misrepresentation. Misrepresentation is knowingly furnishing false representation to a university official. This is often subject to discipline for academic dishonesty. Fourthly, academic dishonesty involves collusion. This occurs where any student helps the other student intentionally to perform any of the above acts of dishonesty. This involves the collusion to cheat, plagiarize or misrepresent. These are often subject to academic dishonesty and are punishable according the set guidelines. In addition, an act of dishonesty such as fabrication is highly practiced by students today. It involves falsifying or reinventing information or data. Moreover, it involves the using improper methods of collecting or generating data and presenting them as legitimate. In addition, it involves the misrepresentation of oneself or the status of a person in the society. This perpetrates to hoaxes, which are unbecoming to students in good standing or potentially damaging the reputation of the society and the members of its academic society (Burke et al, 2007). Academic dishonesty can also take another form in professorial misconduct. This involves improper gaining of the student’s papers and oral exams. It can also take the form of grade fraud and the deliberate negligence towards cheating or the assistance in cheating. Such form of misconduct can happen due to the reasons of personal biasness towards the students, which mostly amounts to favors, or a particular viewpoint also known as intellectual dishonesty. The causes of this kind of misconduct can be either bribery or to improve the teachers own perceived performance through increasing the passing rate. In order to achieve academic honesty, the academic staff members and the administration should follow the necessary guidelines to rectify these problems. It is their responsibility to promote a friendly and academic environment. They should also implement a plan as part of their syllabus to maintain integrity. Moreover, they should also educate students in creating better methods of quoting sources, and to inaugurate measures to minimize the probabilities of delinquency under any circumstances, generating, and upholding penalties for states where academic dishonesty occurs using administrative procedures to protect the infringement of course material and examination. After all the efforts are put together, the likely hood of academic dishonesty will be minimized. This will be a crucial step to building a better society. It will help to build an individual’s skills and help them to maintain a better society whereby the future of the parties concerned will be bright and competitive. The maintenance of academic honesty will increase respect and individuality among the society members such as students. In so doing, the teachers will also regard the students as a better than they were and enable them appreciate the better grades achieved by the students (William & William, 2011). Ethically, for a person to be engage in honesty in academic affairs in the society, they must be able to overcome the effects of demographic and contextual influences. This helps the students to overcome their own conscience. To achieve this, it will depend on how strongly a person disapproves academic dishonesty and the types of justifications that the student uses to evade the sense of guilt. An example is that there are students who do not have the moral guilt with academic dishonesty. They are therefore guilt free in their while cheating in the society (Pecorino, 2012). Academic honesty in the society has various advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is that it allows a person honest work to be realized thus gaining the reputation and respect that is deserved. Secondly, they gain trust from the members of the society in which their honest work will be established. Thirdly and most importantly, honest academicians gain respect from the members of the society (Valdosta State University, 2012). Among the disadvantages is that dishonest people are always consumed by guilt in that they are ashamed of showing their dishonest work as their original work. Secondly, they face the consequences of dishonesty such as expulsion from school if they are students, or the expulsion from work if they are employees. Thirdly, they damage their reputation and are mostly treated as liars in the society. Worse still is that the society losses trust in them and cannot be mandated the duty to lead the society (Knowles & Smith, 2006). In conclusion, it is always very important to maintain academic honesty and integrity in the society. This enables an individual to gain the necessary reputation that they deserve and obtains the trust from society members. Lack of honesty in the society has severe consequences if a person is considered as dishonest in the school or in the work place. Severe academic disciplines should be put in place so that they can discourage the students from engaging in dishonest behaviors in schools. This can take the form of expulsion, suspension for a certain period from the school, interrogating the student involved in the dishonest behavior and requiring them to apologize and abiding by the set laws in the constitution. References Frankel, T. (2005). Trust and Honesty: Americas Business Culture at a Crossroad. London: Oxford University Press. Illinois Institute of Technology. (2012). Code of Academic Honesty. Illinois Institute of Technology. Retrieved from http://www.iit.edu/student_affairs/handbook/information_and_regulations/code_of_academic_honesty.shtml Knowles, E. & Smith, M. (2006). Character Builders. New York: Libraries Unlimited. Pecorino, P. (2012). Academic Integrity. The Center for Academic Integrity. Retrieved from http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/Academic-Integrity-What-is-it.html University of Rochester (2012). Academic Honesty. University of Rochester. Retrieved from http://www.rochester.edu/college/ccas/AdviserHandbook/AcadHonesty.html Valdosta State University (2012). The Importance of Academic Honesty in A University Community. Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.valdosta.edu/academic/TheImportanceofAcademicHonestyinaUniversityCommunity.shtml William, T. & William, T. (2011). An outline of the necessary laws of thought: a treatise on pure and applied logic. New York: The University of Virginia. Burke, J et al. (2007). Academic Dishonesty: A Crisis on Campus Forging Ethical Professionals Begins in the Classroom. The New York State Society of CPAs. Read More