Don't Cheat: Part 1

Part one of this series will advise college students to avoid cheating, covering some standard nuts and bolts tactics.

By Xavier Royer — March 27, 2023

Tags: academic integrity, asking for extensions, asking for help, cheating, citations, communication, copy and paste

Don't cheat. Seriously. As an instructor, cheating is probably the most annoying thing a student can do. The time and effort an instructor spends catching and adjudicating cheating is never nominal. The work to identify the cheating, determine maliciousness vs. negligence (sometimes matters, often does not), and communicate the punishment is a grind only the most spiteful teachers take any pleasure in. Sometimes students try to argue against bulletproof evidence, which turns the whole ordeal into a one-sided episode of Judge Judy—except much less entertaining and more pitiful. I can stretch myself to understand why some students cheat. The pressures to perform at a high level, time constraints, and lack of self-confidence make cheating appealing. Part one of this article will advise college students to avoid cheating, covering some standard nuts and bolts tactics. Part two will focus on making wiser lifestyle choices.

Learn How to Do Citations

Most universities require students to take some version of a writing composition class in their first year, which almost certainly will go over citations. Pay attention. Learning to do citations and learning to do them well will go a long way in preventing accidental cheating via plagiarism.

Plagiarism is taking another's words and presenting them as your own. Most students often do not realize when they run afoul of this. Every time you take information from a source, you must cite it, with no exceptions. Citations tell the reader where you got this information, giving the original publication credit. It also gives the writer more credibility — who would you rather believe on a given topic, any random undergraduate or an expert or journalist whose account of the topic is published through an official source?

For those struggling to meet page minimums, citations can be a lifesaver. Not only do citations help meet word/page counts, but they can also give the writer something to discuss. When using a new source, instructors will swoon if you spend a sentence or two talking about the source and why you have chosen to use them in your paper.

Make sure you learn what citation style your major or profession uses. Most English departments will teach MLA in comp classes because that is what they use. Outside of the English field, most other departments use APA, Chicago, or another citation style.

Learn to master your field's citation style of choice, and life will be much easier. One thing almost all citation style share in common is they will typically pair an in-text citation with a larger citation at the end in a "works cited" or "bibliography." The in-text citation is used in the paper and has a small amount of identifying information. This could be used to identify the larger citation at the end, which has more information and can ideally help the reader find the source themselves if they want to. "Citation Machine" and "Zotero" are two services that can help with this process. They can be extremely helpful, but ensure the information you put in is correct. While I could drone on about citations all day, the real takeaway is that learning them can prevent plagiarism and cheating.

Never Copy and Paste

The only time copy-pasting is acceptable is pasting in a citation from a generator or using an exact quote (when doing an exact quote, refer back to the first tip). Other than those two times, just assume this is cheating. Not only is this always cheating, but it's also glaringly obvious. As a writer, you have developed your voice, which will immediately become clear within a few paragraphs. Reading a copy-pasted (aka plagiarised) chunk is immediately obvious.

For example,

You will notice that I

Have switched styles now to something

resembling

slam

poetry.

This may seem like an exaggerated example, but the jarring abruptness is equally off-putting on plagiarized papers. To avoid this, just never copy and paste. This will always force you to rephrase your information in a way that sounds like a human wrote it (still need that citation!)

Say Goodbye to AI

If no one has said this explicitly, Chat GPT and other AI scripts are cheating. They're also nonsense. From what I have seen of these "essays," they are often disjointed and unprofessional. Like a human writer, AI has its own voice. Unlike a human writer, this voice will change depending on the prompt. Even if it works once, you will eventually get caught. All it takes is one fumbled AI paragraph; the instructor will know you have utilized this intelligence.

In Part 2, we will cover cheating more introspectively. The advice given here shows how cheaters get caught. Part 2 will help us avoid being in that position in the first place.

Xavier Royer

I am currently a full time instructor at a William Penn University, a small private university in Iowa. I am the lone political science faculty member there. In my time teaching, I have already connected with an incredible cohort of students in ways I could never have expected. Partnering with SAGE will allow me the opportunity to help even more students across the globe navigate those tricky questions.

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