Academic Honesty

Academic honesty is an issue that schools have been struggling with whether it is cheating on tests or assignment, coping answers from a friend, or plagiarizing on a paper. There are many different forms of academic honesty. Why do student do it? Well, some are unintentional others just lack putting effort into their work. There are several reasons why students do it but as innocent as these acts may seem they are all wrong and should not be taken lightly.
One of the most common forms of academic dishonesty is plagiarism. Plagiarism is when an individual uses someone else's thoughts or ideas and presents them as their own. Although this is a basic definition there is more to it than this. There are several different ways that a student can plagiarize, and a lot of the time a student may not realize that they are actually committing the crime. One reason plagiarism has become more common is because of the Internet. Now that students have the web to gather information it makes reporting information correctly a little tricky. Most of the time it is because of improper citations and incorrect not taking which is all unintentional. Unfortunately some students go as far as trying to copy papers are information straight from Internet sites. In these cases the student should know that what they are doing is wrong and should stop.
Because plagiarism is a growing issue schools are cracking down to catch dishonest students. They are promoting academic honesty by addressing the issue instead of ignoring it. One way plagiarism is being prevented in school and is also one that i have experienced is with student's papers. Instead of them being printed out and handed in to the teacher they are submitted to a site - turn it in.com -that specifically detects plagiarism. Students are also being reprimanded for being dishonest by either not getting full credit on assignments or no credit at all.
I feel that academic honesty is an issue that is showing up in schools and it seems to be getting worse. I am glad that it is being taken seriously and that there is so much awareness with this issue.