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Why Students Cheat—and What to Do About It

A teacher seeks answers from researchers and psychologists. 

“Why did you cheat in high school?” I posed the question to a dozen former students.

“I wanted good grades and I didn’t want to work,” said Sonya, who graduates from college in June. [The students’ names in this article have been changed to protect their privacy.]

My current students were less candid than Sonya. To excuse her plagiarized Cannery Row essay, Erin, a ninth-grader with straight As, complained vaguely and unconvincingly of overwhelming stress. When he was caught copying a review of the documentary Hypernormalism , Jeremy, a senior, stood by his “hard work” and said my accusation hurt his feelings.

Cases like the much-publicized ( and enduring ) 2012 cheating scandal at high-achieving Stuyvesant High School in New York City confirm that academic dishonesty is rampant and touches even the most prestigious of schools. The data confirms this as well. A 2012 Josephson Institute’s Center for Youth Ethics report revealed that more than half of high school students admitted to cheating on a test, while 74 percent reported copying their friends’ homework. And a survey of 70,000 high school students across the United States between 2002 and 2015 found that 58 percent had plagiarized papers, while 95 percent admitted to cheating in some capacity.

So why do students cheat—and how do we stop them?

According to researchers and psychologists, the real reasons vary just as much as my students’ explanations. But educators can still learn to identify motivations for student cheating and think critically about solutions to keep even the most audacious cheaters in their classrooms from doing it again.

Rationalizing It


First, know that students realize cheating is wrong—they simply see themselves as moral in spite of it.

“They cheat just enough to maintain a self-concept as honest people. They make their behavior an exception to a general rule,” said Dr. David Rettinger , professor at the University of Mary Washington and executive director of the Center for Honor, Leadership, and Service, a campus organization dedicated to integrity.

According to Rettinger and other researchers, students who cheat can still see themselves as principled people by rationalizing cheating for reasons they see as legitimate.

Some do it when they don’t see the value of work they’re assigned, such as drill-and-kill homework assignments, or when they perceive an overemphasis on teaching content linked to high-stakes tests.

“There was no critical thinking, and teachers seemed pressured to squish it into their curriculum,” said Javier, a former student and recent liberal arts college graduate. “They questioned you on material that was never covered in class, and if you failed the test, it was progressively harder to pass the next time around.”

But students also rationalize cheating on assignments they see as having value.

High-achieving students who feel pressured to attain perfection (and Ivy League acceptances) may turn to cheating as a way to find an edge on the competition or to keep a single bad test score from sabotaging months of hard work. At Stuyvesant, for example, students and teachers identified the cutthroat environment as a factor in the rampant dishonesty that plagued the school.

And research has found that students who receive praise for being smart—as opposed to praise for effort and progress—are more inclined to exaggerate their performance and to cheat on assignments , likely because they are carrying the burden of lofty expectations.

A Developmental Stage

When it comes to risk management, adolescent students are bullish. Research has found that teenagers are biologically predisposed to be more tolerant of unknown outcomes and less bothered by stated risks than their older peers.

“In high school, they’re risk takers developmentally, and can’t see the consequences of immediate actions,” Rettinger says. “Even delayed consequences are remote to them.”

While cheating may not be a thrill ride, students already inclined to rebel against curfews and dabble in illicit substances have a certain comfort level with being reckless. They’re willing to gamble when they think they can keep up the ruse—and more inclined to believe they can get away with it.

Cheating also appears to be almost contagious among young people—and may even serve as a kind of social adhesive, at least in environments where it is widely accepted.  A study of military academy students from 1959 to 2002 revealed that students in communities where cheating is tolerated easily cave in to peer pressure, finding it harder not to cheat out of fear of losing social status if they don’t.

Michael, a former student, explained that while he didn’t need to help classmates cheat, he felt “unable to say no.” Once he started, he couldn’t stop.

Technology Facilitates and Normalizes It

With smartphones and Alexa at their fingertips, today’s students have easy access to quick answers and content they can reproduce for exams and papers.  Studies show that technology has made cheating in school easier, more convenient, and harder to catch than ever before.

To Liz Ruff, an English teacher at Garfield High School in Los Angeles, students’ use of social media can erode their understanding of authenticity and intellectual property. Because students are used to reposting images, repurposing memes, and watching parody videos, they “see ownership as nebulous,” she said.

As a result, while they may want to avoid penalties for plagiarism, they may not see it as wrong or even know that they’re doing it.

This confirms what Donald McCabe, a Rutgers University Business School professor,  reported in his 2012 book ; he found that more than 60 percent of surveyed students who had cheated considered digital plagiarism to be “trivial”—effectively, students believed it was not actually cheating at all.

Strategies for Reducing Cheating

Even moral students need help acting morally, said  Dr. Jason M. Stephens , who researches academic motivation and moral development in adolescents at the University of Auckland’s School of Learning, Development, and Professional Practice. According to Stephens, teachers are uniquely positioned to infuse students with a sense of responsibility and help them overcome the rationalizations that enable them to think cheating is OK.

1. Turn down the pressure cooker. Students are less likely to cheat on work in which they feel invested. A multiple-choice assessment tempts would-be cheaters, while a unique, multiphase writing project measuring competencies can make cheating much harder and less enticing. Repetitive homework assignments are also a culprit, according to research , so teachers should look at creating take-home assignments that encourage students to think critically and expand on class discussions. Teachers could also give students one free pass on a homework assignment each quarter, for example, or let them drop their lowest score on an assignment.

2. Be thoughtful about your language.   Research indicates that using the language of fixed mindsets , like praising children for being smart as opposed to praising them for effort and progress , is both demotivating and increases cheating. When delivering feedback, researchers suggest using phrases focused on effort like, “You made really great progress on this paper” or “This is excellent work, but there are still a few areas where you can grow.”

3. Create student honor councils. Give students the opportunity to enforce honor codes or write their own classroom/school bylaws through honor councils so they can develop a full understanding of how cheating affects themselves and others. At Fredericksburg Academy, high school students elect two Honor Council members per grade. These students teach the Honor Code to fifth graders, who, in turn, explain it to younger elementary school students to help establish a student-driven culture of integrity. Students also write a pledge of authenticity on every assignment. And if there is an honor code transgression, the council gathers to discuss possible consequences. 

4. Use metacognition. Research shows that metacognition, a process sometimes described as “ thinking about thinking ,” can help students process their motivations, goals, and actions. With my ninth graders, I use a centuries-old resource to discuss moral quandaries: the play Macbeth . Before they meet the infamous Thane of Glamis, they role-play as medical school applicants, soccer players, and politicians, deciding if they’d cheat, injure, or lie to achieve goals. I push students to consider the steps they take to get the outcomes they desire. Why do we tend to act in the ways we do? What will we do to get what we want? And how will doing those things change who we are? Every tragedy is about us, I say, not just, as in Macbeth’s case, about a man who succumbs to “vaulting ambition.”

5. Bring honesty right into the curriculum. Teachers can weave a discussion of ethical behavior into curriculum. Ruff and many other teachers have been inspired to teach media literacy to help students understand digital plagiarism and navigate the widespread availability of secondary sources online, using guidance from organizations like Common Sense Media .

There are complicated psychological dynamics at play when students cheat, according to experts and researchers. While enforcing rules and consequences is important, knowing what’s really motivating students to cheat can help you foster integrity in the classroom instead of just penalizing the cheating.

The New York Times

Opinionator | why our children don’t think there are moral facts.

Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.

What would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching children that it is not true that it’s wrong to kill people for fun or cheat on tests? Would you be surprised?

I was. As a philosopher, I already knew that many college-aged students don’t believe in moral facts. While there are no national surveys quantifying this phenomenon, philosophy professors with whom I have spoken suggest that the overwhelming majority of college freshmen in their classrooms view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture.

A misleading distinction between fact and opinion is embedded in the Common Core.

What I didn’t know was where this attitude came from. Given the presence of moral relativism in some academic circles , some people might naturally assume that philosophers themselves are to blame. But they aren’t. There are historical examples of philosophers who endorse a kind of moral relativism, dating back at least to Protagoras who declared that “man is the measure of all things,” and several who deny that there are any moral facts whatsoever. But such creatures are rare. Besides, if students are already showing up to college with this view of morality, it’s very unlikely that it’s the result of what professional philosophers are teaching. So where is the view coming from?

A few weeks ago, I learned that students are exposed to this sort of thinking well before crossing the threshold of higher education. When I went to visit my son’s second grade open house, I found a troubling pair of signs hanging over the bulletin board. They read:

Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.

Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.

Hoping that this set of definitions was a one-off mistake, I went home and Googled “fact vs. opinion.” The definitions I found online were substantially the same as the one in my son’s classroom. As it turns out, the Common Core standards used by a majority of K-12 programs in the country require that students be able to “ distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text .” And the Common Core institute provides a helpful page full of links to definitions, lesson plans and quizzes to ensure that students can tell the difference between facts and opinions.

So what’s wrong with this distinction and how does it undermine the view that there are objective moral facts?

First, the definition of a fact waffles between truth and proof — two obviously different features. Things can be true even if no one can prove them. For example, it could be true that there is life elsewhere in the universe even though no one can prove it. Conversely, many of the things we once “proved” turned out to be false. For example, many people once thought that the earth was flat. It’s a mistake to confuse truth (a feature of the world) with proof (a feature of our mental lives). Furthermore, if proof is required for facts, then facts become person-relative. Something might be a fact for me if I can prove it but not a fact for you if you can’t. In that case, E=MC 2 is a fact for a physicist but not for me.

But second, and worse, students are taught that claims are either facts or opinions. They are given quizzes in which they must sort claims into one camp or the other but not both. But if a fact is something that is true and an opinion is something that is believed, then many claims will obviously be both. For example, I asked my son about this distinction after his open house. He confidently explained that facts were things that were true whereas opinions are things that are believed. We then had this conversation:

Me: “I believe that George Washington was the first president. Is that a fact or an opinion?”

Him: “It’s a fact.”

Me: “But I believe it, and you said that what someone believes is an opinion.”

Him: “Yeah, but it’s true.”

Me: “So it’s both a fact and an opinion?”

The blank stare on his face said it all.

More From The Stone

Read previous contributions to this series.

How does the dichotomy between fact and opinion relate to morality? I learned the answer to this question only after I investigated my son’s homework ( and other examples of assignments online ). Kids are asked to sort facts from opinions and, without fail, every value claim is labeled as an opinion. Here’s a little test devised from questions available on fact vs. opinion worksheets online: are the following facts or opinions?

— Copying homework assignments is wrong.

— Cursing in school is inappropriate behavior.

— All men are created equal.

— It is worth sacrificing some personal liberties to protect our country from terrorism.

— It is wrong for people under the age of 21 to drink alcohol.

— Vegetarians are healthier than people who eat meat.

— Drug dealers belong in prison.

The answer? In each case, the worksheets categorize these claims as opinions. The explanation on offer is that each of these claims is a value claim and value claims are not facts. This is repeated ad nauseum : any claim with good, right, wrong, etc. is not a fact.

In summary, our public schools teach students that all claims are either facts or opinions and that all value and moral claims fall into the latter camp. The punchline: there are no moral facts. And if there are no moral facts, then there are no moral truths.

The inconsistency in this curriculum is obvious. For example, at the outset of the school year, my son brought home a list of student rights and responsibilities. Had he already read the lesson on fact vs. opinion, he might have noted that the supposed rights of other students were based on no more than opinions. According to the school’s curriculum, it certainly wasn’t true that his classmates deserved to be treated a particular way — that would make it a fact. Similarly, it wasn’t really true that he had any responsibilities — that would be to make a value claim a truth. It should not be a surprise that there is rampant cheating on college campuses : If we’ve taught our students for 12 years that there is no fact of the matter as to whether cheating is wrong, we can’t very well blame them for doing so later on.

Indeed, in the world beyond grade school, where adults must exercise their moral knowledge and reasoning to conduct themselves in the society, the stakes are greater. There, consistency demands that we acknowledge the existence of moral facts. If it’s not true that it’s wrong to murder a cartoonist with whom one disagrees, then how can we be outraged? If there are no truths about what is good or valuable or right, how can we prosecute people for crimes against humanity? If it’s not true that all humans are created equal, then why vote for any political system that doesn’t benefit you over others?

Our schools do amazing things with our children. And they are, in a way, teaching moral standards when they ask students to treat one another humanely and to do their schoolwork with academic integrity. But at the same time, the curriculum sets our children up for doublethink. They are told that there are no moral facts in one breath even as the next tells them how they ought to behave.

We can do better. Our children deserve a consistent intellectual foundation. Facts are things that are true. Opinions are things we believe. Some of our beliefs are true. Others are not. Some of our beliefs are backed by evidence. Others are not. Value claims are like any other claims: either true or false, evidenced or not. The hard work lies not in recognizing that at least some moral claims are true but in carefully thinking through our evidence for which of the many competing moral claims is correct. That’s a hard thing to do. But we can’t sidestep the responsibilities that come with being human just because it’s hard.

That would be wrong. Justin P. McBrayer is an associate professor of philosophy at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo. He works in ethics and philosophy of religion.

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Duke TIP Insights

The official magazine for TIPsters in 7th–10th grade

How Do You Say No When People Want to Copy Your Homework?

March 15, 2019 1 Comment

Paris Andrew, TIP’s Director of Partnerships and Engagement, is here to help gifted students. She used to run the residential programming at TIP’s educational programs, and she is completing a PhD in related areas, so she knows what she’s talking about.

Dear Paris,

Some kids always want to copy my answers to homework assignments. They say I’m the smart kid and expect that I’ll just give them the answers. One even asked me to text her a picture of the completed homework so she could copy it. How do I tell them no without making them not like me? We aren’t really friends but we get along in class. I’m not sure what they think of me, but I don’t want them to think of me badly.  I’m not sure exactly how to put it, but I don’t want them to think of me as that girl who thinks she’s too good for us or the goody goody who isn’t one of the regular kids. Thanks. —TJ, seventh grade

Thanks for sharing this experience, as I am sure other TIPsters may be going through this as well.

First of all, I understand how frustrating it can be when you work hard to study and learn the right answers– only to have someone come along who wants to take the easy way out. But the truth about the situation is that every time they do that, and copy from someone else, they are only hurting themselves and losing out on an opportunity to grow and be better. I am glad you are not like that.

On the other hand, I understand that everyone wants to be liked. The thing is: there’s a difference between being liked and being taken advantage of. Very soon, you will start to realize that there’s not enough time in the world to be friends with everyone and that not everyone is going to like you, no matter what you do. You are at the age where you start to recognize the signs of someone being a good friend to you and the signs that they are only trying to use you. This situation you are in is a good first step toward reaching that point. Would a good friend ask to copy your work, when they know you would get in big trouble if it ever came out you had allowed them to do so? No, a good friend would not. But perhaps more than that, you need to be a friend to yourself by behaving in a way you know is honorable and right. You want your parents and friends to be proud of you, but you also want to be proud of yourself. And what could be more honorable than adhering to an honor code? With that in mind, know this– every honor code, in every high school and college these days, says the exact same thing: giving people the answer to tests or sharing your homework is considered to be just as much cheating as getting the answers (or homework) from someone else. And even if your school does not have a code that spells that out, there is nothing wrong with you wanting to start following your own personal code of honor now. Let your classmates ask someone else or, better yet, do their own work so they can learn or grow. But you are better than that. You have honor.

The best thing to do with your classmates may be to think of a phrase in advance to use next time they ask to copy your work. If you have this in mind already, and even practice saying it, then you won’t be put on the spot when they ask and not know what to say. The answer has to sound like you, but maybe these might help (change into your own words): “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. But good luck.” -or- “I’d rather not be involved in something that the school might consider cheating. Sorry.” -or- “You’ll have to ask someone else. I can’t help you. Sorry.” Your parents might also be able to help you come up with a good phrase to have in mind. They will be proud of you for standing up for what’s right.

If your classmates push you on it when you decline to help: simply repeat the same phrase again and again until they get the message. Or you could even offer to tutor them or help them study, if you have the time and it doesn’t take away from your studies or what you need to be doing. Finally, explaining about academic honor codes to your classmates, if necessary, might help, but remember: you don’t owe them an explanation. You have a perfect right to behave honorably. It takes strength, but you can do it.

The most important thing for you to remember about this situation is to make sure you are not violating either your school’s or your own honor code. If your school has an honor code, privately asking the teacher to talk about it in class one day might help. I would also encourage you to ask them about how to become a volunteer tutor or teaching assistant, rather than sharing materials to your classmates without the teacher’s awareness. That way you can be a friend to your classmates in a genuinely helpful way– and being a true friend is the best way to inspire someone to like you back.  

Have a question for Paris? Use our submission form to get the advice you need.

About Duke TIP

The Duke University Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP) is a nonprofit organization that has served over three million academically talented students in grades 4–12 since it was founded in 1980. Collaborating with educators and parents, TIP helps gifted students assess the extent of their academic abilities with above-grade-level testing, recognizes them for their achievements, and provides them with a variety of enrichment benefits as well as accelerated face-to-face and online educational programs.

April 6, 2019 at 9:50 pm

Amazing, I can’t stand up for myself like that. Paris, you are an angel who provides the answers to everything.

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Academic Integrity at MIT

A handbook for students, search form, copying and other forms of cheating.

While guidelines on the acceptable level collaboration vary from class to class, all MIT instructors agree on one principle: copying from other students, from old course “bibles,” or from solutions on OCW sites is considered cheating and is never permitted .

Collaboration works for you; copying works against you.

If you copy, you are less prepared.

MIT Professor David E. Pritchard, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, has said,“Doing the work trumps native ability.” Those who invest the time working through the problem sets are better prepared to answer exam questions that call for conceptual thinking.

If you copy, you aren’t learning.

Research done in 2010 by Professor Pritchard and others showed that those who copied more than 30% of the answers on problem sets were more than three times as likely to fail the subject than those who did not copy.

(Source: Pritchard, D.E. What are students learning and from what activity? Plenary speech presented at Fifth Conference of Learning International Networks Consortium 2010. Retrieved in July 2019 from http://linc.mit.edu/linc2010/proceedings/plenary-Pritchard.pdf )

If you copy, you violate the principles of academic integrity.

Copying is cheating. When you fail to uphold the principles of academic integrity, you compromise yourself and the Institute.

If you collaborate, you learn from your peers.

Every student brings a unique perspective, experience, and level of knowledge to a collaborative effort. Through discussion and joint problem solving, you are exposed to new approaches and new perspectives that contribute to your learning.

If you collaborate, you learn to work on a team

Gaining the skills to be an effective team member is fundamental to your success as a student, researcher and professional. As you collaborate with your peers, you will face the challenges and rewards of the collegial process.

Beyond Copying

Whether because of high demands on your time or uncertainty about your academic capabilities, you may be tempted to cheat in your academic work.  While copying is the most prevalent form of cheating, dishonest behavior includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Changing the answers on an exam for re-grade.

Misrepresenting a family or personal situation to get an extension.

Using prohibited resources during a test or other academic work.

Forging a faculty member’s signature on a permission form or add/drop form.

Falsifying data or claiming to have done research you did not do.

Claiming work of others as your own by deliberately not citing them.

Assisting another student in doing any of the above.

(Adapted from: Jordan, David K.  (1996).  “Academic Integrity and Cheating.”  Retrieved from http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/resources/cheat.html  in July 2019.)

If you are tempted to cheat, think twice.  Do not use the excuse that “everybody does it.” Think through the consequences for yourself and others. Those who cheat diminish themselves and the Institute. Cheating can also negatively impact other students who do their work honestly.

If you observe another student cheating, you are encouraged to report this to your instructor or supervisor, the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards , or reach out to the Ombuds Office for advice.

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Why Copying Homework Assignments Is Wrong: The True Reason

There are a lot of times when you are told never to copy assignments. So many students never take this for granted, until that point when they are caught between a rock and a hard place, and they are left wondering why they never spent enough time trying to understand what happened. Copying homework assignments is a bad thing. It is wrong on so many levels, and there are learning institutions which will actually punish you severely when you do this.

Have you ever wondered why schools are so careful about this? Today you will learn so much about this, and perhaps use the tips that you learn to make sure that you never fall short of the same when you are working on your paper, or when you have some work to do. The following are some of the main reasons why you need to make sure that you never copy some of this work at all:

You do not learn anything

You are not able to present your own ideas, you miss out on the learning opportunities.

Some of these tasks are normally given to you so that you can be in a good position to learn a new thing from time to time. You have to make sure that you do them as you have been instructed, so that when it’s all said and done, you are able to make the best use of the learning outcomes available with the task.

One of the other things that you will realize is that as you present someone else’s work as yours, you will not be able to showcase and share your own ideas. The problem with this is that in the long run, you will not be sure whether you have made any progress it the learning process or not.

Learning opportunities are important when you are trying to work on this task. There are some things that are evaluated when you present your paper for marking, other than just your ability to get the answers right.

The teacher will in most cases look at the concepts that you have presented, how you have done the same and make sure that in the long run, you do just what is expected of you.

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Penalty for Copying Someone’s Homework

Decent students will say cheating is bad and not something you ought to do. Teachers will give you F if there’s evidence that your homework is copied or you cheated at the test. However, sometimes it’s just not possible to do all homework assignments by yourself or you lack time to prepare for test, or whatever, you name it. According to modern surveys, up to 73% of students say they cheated at least once during last 12 month. Of course, no one wants to get caught, but what if it happens? Often students are asking questions like: “Is it against the law to copy homework?”

No matter how surprising it is, cheating is legal. You won’t find yourself at court trial and end up in jail after copying homework answers of your classmate or turning in the essay entirely downloaded from the Internet or whatever. Let’s find out why.

Cheating & plagiarism vs copyright infringement

What’s the difference between cheating, plagiarism which are enforced by school/college and copyright infringement which is enforced by law? Copyright infringement means use of work defended by copyright without the author’s permission with violation of the terms of use be it video, music or text piece. The idea behind the work may be common and thus unprotected by copyright, for example, there are lots of books about physics or math, or take the essays on particular literature piece. Yet the exact way of representation, considered examples and way of thinking is what can be called the “expression” of work and protected by copyright.

Depending on where’re you currently situated, you can find appropriate legislative acts of your country. For example, consider  UK intellectual property guidance and US copyright law for exact definition. So if you take someone else’s essay and sell it to, say, famous magazine under your name, it’s copyright violation. If you submit this essay as yours at college, it’s cheating and therefore violation of honor code, yet it’s not covered by copyright protection law, so nothing worst than getting expelled can happen to you if you are caught.

Penalty for cheating

Submitting homework assignment which you didn’t do yourself is commonly called cheating. If you have copied it entirely from someone or downloaded elswhere, it’s plagiarism. Moreover, even partly copied work is considered so if adopted sentences are not properly cited. Penalty for cheating is low grade, failed class or course, in the worst case you can even be expelled. It happens because in most educational institutions there’s so called honor code which contains a paragraph devoted to cheating and subsequent punishment. Plagiarized homework is a violation of honor code and thus student caught with such thing is subject to corresponding penalty. Prohibition of cheating and plagiarism is described in honor code of school or college. For example, here’s honor code of Cambridge University. Check the one of your school/college for details.

However, sometimes disturbing things happen concerning copying homework. Recent case in China  appears to be one of the most severe: a father has beaten the 11-year old girl to death for copying someone’s homework. If your parents are normal adequate people, you don’t have to worry so much about copying homework once in a while.

Legal? Absolutely

It probably can be called non-ethical to copy someone’s homework and is certainly violation of honor code (you can find corresponding paragraph in the honor code of your college or school), yet it’s completely legal according to British and American legislature, as we can see. Check KCKR team’s piece fully devoted to websites doing homework and legacy of such kind of help.

When doing homework with someone’s help is not cheating?

Suppose you’re completely stuck with your homework and the only way out is to ask someone for help. Is that cheating? Certainly, no! If you ask tutor, classmates or parents for advice on how to do the assignment, this is not that someone’s doing instead of you and thus you cheat. The thing is that in such case you obtain an opportunity to learn how to do such kind of work on your own and apply this knowledge further on, say, midterm or finals. Thus, you get skills, mission completed. And with no cheating! Similarly, if you ask us for help and get detailed answers and explanations (which is our hallmark, by the way) there’s no cheating either in it. “ Help me with my homework , please. I’m stuck and don’t know where to start” – this is what our visitors often require. And we are always here to help you out.

bro copying homework is a must, as you said we could just not have time to do it our selves, but mostly it’s when you forget your homework at school or forgot to do it. It’s ok to copy homework sometimes I mean what can the teacher do, even if the teacher see it which is like 2 percent chance if you are not stupid, what can the teacher do? 0? I would rather take that other 98 percent to get an 100. And people say that the person you copy from might get it wrong, but unless you are dumb you probably know who to copy from.I don’t like plagiarism though because the consequence is high

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Someone Copied Your Assignment: What Happens & What to Do

After Someone Copies Your Assignment

Copying of assignment among students is a form of academic dishonesty that is still rampant in learning institutions. There are students who cannot do their assignments. They will take advantage of shortcuts to shift the burden of doing the assignment to another person.

Instead of doing their assignment, they decide to copy. Unfortunately, you can be the victim of copying whereby someone copies your assignment.

When someone copies your assignment there are some repercussions you are bound to face. The authenticity of your work will decrease drastically.

Remember, someone will have a duplicate of your assignment. Therefore, it is likely to affect your final score. The teacher might accuse you of cheating hence giving you a lower score.

What to Do if Someone Copied Your Assignment

When someone copies your assignment there is a way you can mitigate that occurrence. Therefore, do not panic. If you use the right mitigation measures, you can deal accordingly with that situation.

At times you can show them how not to copy assignment and do it on their own.

Below are some of the steps you can take:

1. Inform Your Tutor

You will need to inform your tutor immediately if someone copies your assignment. Your tutor will ensure that you get justice. You will be able to maintain your original work without someone else having its duplicate.

That means you will get the score that you deserve. The teacher will not mistake you for cheating.

2. Keep a Copy of Your Original Work

As you inform your tutor, ensure you have a copy of your original work. It does help to prove that indeed that was your assignment. That way, you can defend yourself and your hard work. You will not let anyone take credit for the great work you did. 

Reasons Why Someone Can Copy Your Assignment

There are many reasons why someone might decide to copy your assignment. Usually, copying benefits the person who is committing the act. The reasons why another student might copy your assignment include the following:

Fear of Failure

Not a single student wants to fail in their exams or assignments. For that reason, they decide to use dubious means to complete their assignments. And one of the most common means is copying. Some students will opt to duplicate their friend’s assignments to avoid failing.

5. Poor Time Management

Most of the students who copy assignments are poor at managing time. They will carelessly waste time engaging in unnecessary activities instead of working on their assignments.

Some tend to procrastinate by postponing working on their assignment. Once they realize time is not on their side , they resort to copying from their friends.

6. Obsession with Getting a Good Grade

The pressure of getting good grades forces some students to copy. In most cases, they want to please their parents. Unfortunately, they are lazy to work for those grades.

Their best option is to cheat and that is where copying comes in handy.

7. Disinterest

Some students lack the interest to do assignments. Therefore, they will wait for others to do the assignments only for them to copy. As other students do their due diligence, they will be busy undertaking other insignificant activities.

Tactics How Someone Copies Your Assignment

Mixing the answers.

Someone might copy your assignment using means that prevent the tutor from noticing. For instance, the person copying your work might reshuffle your answers, especially in questions where you need to use bullets and listing answers.

Rewriting Your Answers

Rewriting answers is one way that someone can use to copy your assignments. They will capitalize on synonyms to eradicate plagiarism. This means that their work will also appear original.

Copy and Paste

Some students will simply copy your assignment word by word. Such students do not care what lays in store for them. They only care about submitting their assignments on time. 

How to Prevent Someone from Copying Your Work

Retain proof of ownership.

Ensure you keep a copy of your original work. It will prevent anyone from copying your work. You can always prove to the tutor that you own the work if someone attempts to copy it.

Watermark Your Assignment

Using a watermark makes it hard for someone to photocopy your work. The watermark will always act as your copyright. 

Keep Your Assignment Out Of Reach

Ensure you keep your assignment away from students who tend to copy. You will deny them the chance of duplicating your work. Also, seclude yourself when doing your assignment. It gives you peace of mind and prevents other students from copying your answers.

In short, protect your original work as much as you can.

Copying is a vice that is still popular among students. Those who copy assignments do so for various reasons. Some are just lazy. They cannot spare time to work on their assignment. That being the case, they will copy from those students who care enough to do their work. 

If someone copies your assignment, you can still hold them accountable. You need to report them straight away to your tutor. The tutor will do whatever it takes to deal with students who copy.

Since teachers need to safeguard integrity in education , they have to instill a culture of independence in students. That is the reason why tutors need to discourage copying.

When not handling complex essays and academic writing tasks, Josh is busy advising students on how to pass assignments. In spare time, he loves playing football or walking with his dog around the park.

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How Do I Stop Students From Copying Each Other’s Homework Assignments?

Five steps that worked for me.

My students, like students everywhere, are smart and funny and creative and wonderful in so many ways. Also like students everywhere, they constantly seem to be looking for shortcuts on their homework. One of the bus drivers told me last year that the kids openly ask her to turn the interior lights on so they can finish copying homework before they get to school! Sigh. At least they’re motivated enough to copy, right?

This year, I made it a major goal to stop students from cheating. I put this five-step process in place, and it really cut down on the homework copying in my classroom. Here it is. 

Step 1: Check the quality of your assignments.

First of all, it’s worth taking a close look at the kind of homework you assign. If you do a lot of worksheets, you might find those work better for in-class activities. Instead, try focusing homework on in-depth writing assignments and individual written responses.

If you’re a math teacher, having kids respond in writing about how they solved a problem always works, as does having them write their own problems or exemplars for what they’ve been learning. Anything that requires student-generated content is automatically going to be harder to copy.

Step 2: Check the quantity.

Of course, this creates a lot more grading than worksheets, which led me to reflect on the amount of homework I assigned. At first, I found myself overwhelmed. I had to wonder if this was how my students felt when they looked at a night’s homework load. If there had been someone whose grading I could have copied, I probably would have done it!

The result? I assigned a lot less homework as the year went on. Put your homework to this test: If it’s not worth your time to grade carefully, it’s not worth the students’ time to do it.

Step 3: Explain the changes.

Once you’ve started assigning less homework, you’ll want to make your reasons explicit to your students. “I’m assigning less homework because I don’t want to waste your time. That means that anything I do assign is really important, and it’s important for you to actually do it on your own.” This speech went a long way with many of my students, but I had another trick up my sleeve.

Step 4: Allow time to learn and make mistakes.

You might also want to try a few get-out-of-jail-free cards when it comes to homework. My middle schoolers are still in the process of learning how to budget their time and stay organized, and sometimes they make mistakes. I gave each kid three one-day extensions that they could use over the course of the year to avoid a penalty for late homework.

There were certain assignments on which these could not be used, like rough drafts we needed to edit or group projects. It lowered the general stress level and set a culture of respect and accountability that encouraged my kids to plan ahead. For the naysayers who say, “The real world won’t give them extensions,” I would respectfully offer my disagreement. What? You’ve never posted your grades after the deadline?

Step 5: Bring the pain.

Although this cut down on copying substantially, kids will always test your limits. That’s when you move on to the final step. It works like this: Read every word of every assignment. Make sure you grade an entire class at once so you’ll know if a phrase or a creatively spelled word seems familiar, and then hunt back through 35 other papers until you find the one it’s copied from. It is important that you identify when students cheat and that your justice is swift and merciless.

I had an escalating system of consequences for cheating. First time, you split the grade. If the assignment gets a 90, each person gets a 45. Second time, each person gets a zero and a lunch detention. Third time, it’s a phone call home in addition to a zero and an after-school detention. Not a single kid made it to the third offense. They have to believe that you’re documenting this and you’ll follow through. Let them see you putting their names in your file so they know you know what offense they’re on. It is a logistical pain, but it’s effective.

So did my kids ace the standardized test because they had done their homework all year? Not to brag, but their writing scores were pretty high. And I don’t think they missed out on many valuable educational experiences when I stopped assigning worksheets. After all, they’d have just copied them anyway!

How do you stop students from cheating? Come and share  in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group  on Facebook. 

Plus, check out  how to give meaningful homework, even when it’s not graded ..

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Is copying homework assignments wrong

Cheating is wrong, yes.

• You are stealing work that someone else has done
• You are lying and saying you are doing the work yourself
• You are not learning what you need to learn in the class

Drake Kairo Bustaman... ∙

Your not learning anything, The persons answers could be wrong. That's like asking why is cheating on a test wrong. You could be copying off a person that's a complete dummy.

Similarly, posting test and homework questions online, hoping someone will provide you (and others) with correct information, is also a bad idea. If people invested as much time reading and studying as they do trying to game the system, they would have a better chance at succeeding in life. People who use this method to achieve high grades in middle- and high school, especially those attending online schools, often do poorly on the SAT and ACT tests and have difficulty succeeding in college. Unfortunately, few people realize they're cheating themselves until it's too late.

• You don't learn the information yourself. Practice makes perfect so copying another person's homework won't help you in the long run.
• You are relying on someone else's answers for your grade - bad idea!
• If you are caught by the teacher, you may be punished for plagiarism.
• In the end, you will not feel good about yourself since you knew that whatever grade you received was not rightfully earned.
• Even if you get away with copying homework in elementary or high school, you will not get away with this for the rest of your life. You really should train yourself now so you can succeed later on!

Add your answer:

Is it a fact or an opinion that copying homework assignments wrong?

It's dependent on how you use the word "wrong". If we're speaking strictly on moral grounds, it would be an opinion. If wrong refers to "against the rules", then you would have to look at the rule book. If the rule book indicated such a thing, it would be a fact.

What if your friend keeps copying you in homework assignments and she needs help because she doesn't get it but you are afraid to confront her?

Instead of giving her your work show her how to do it. This will help her and solve your problem.

Is it a fact or an opinion that copying homework assignments is wrong?

What to do if you did the wrong page of homework.

The only thing you can do is to tell your teacher and ask if you can still do the right assignment. To avoid that situation, keep a homework folder and write down all your assignments daily.

Is there a limit of questions that can be on homework assignments?

Have you ever realized that the questions we are answering are for other people's homework and school assignments.

Yep, but if I don't answer them then who will answer questions for MY homework and school assignments? ;)

How do you use homework in a sentence?

Our teacher gives out homework assignments as though they are a sentence.

Should you ignore your homework assignments?

no.... because ignoring your homework will low your marks on your repost card witch is really bad and also because the homework might be a practice for what you took in class. So you shouldn't ignore your homework/assignments

Do children in France get homework?

Yes, French children get homework. Written assignments, lessons and so on.

How do you make sure to do your homework?

Here are some tips:Keep a large calendar where you write down all your assignments and have them easily visible every dayKeep a homework notebook where you write down all your assignments dailySet alerts on your phone for important assignments

How do you make your friend stop copying?

To stop copying you, at home just ignore it or do normal things that are not attracting to the person copying and keep with the act throughout the day. If on tests or homework, one can fill in or write down the wrong answer then when the friend is not looking, change the answer to the correct one.... works every time.

Is copying homework an example of plagiarisms?

The definition of plagiarism is copying someone else's work and claiming it is your own, yes.

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55 US Coast Guard cadets disciplined after cheating scandal for copying homework answers

Officials said the 55 second class cadets distributed answers for two separate homework assignments via electronic means and were disciplined..

Dozens of United States Coast Guard Academy cadets have been disciplined following a cheating scandal in which officials this week announced they copied each other's work on assignments, violating the academy's policy.

According to a press releas e from the military force of maritime professionals, 55 Second Class cadets distributed answers for two separate homework assignments via electronic means.

Details of each cadet’s respective involvement in the scheme were investigated and reviewed during a series of hearings at the academy, the release states, and each cadet was punished "on a case-by-case basis."

The academy is in New London, Connecticut, a coastal city west of the Rhode Island border.

The U.S. Coast Guard is one of the nation's six armed forces and, according to its website, the only military branch in the nation's Department of Homeland Security.

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What happened to the US Coast Guard cadets who cheated?

Consequences of their reported cheating include:

• Six cadets failed the course
• Forty eight cadets received lowered grades
• Eleven cadets were removed from their summer battalion command positions

All 55 cadets are required to undergo a 20-week honor remediation program, the release continues, and will be restricted to the academy.

Cadets involved in cheating scandal permitted to appeal discipline

The cadets can appeal their respective disciplinary actions.

“The U.S. Coast Guard Academy is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity, honor, and accountability,” Capt. Edward Hernaez, Commandant of Cadets released in statement. “Misconduct like this undermines trust and those found to have violated our principles were held accountable for their actions.”

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X @nataliealund.