Essential Question: Why are there more issues with cheating, plagiarism, and related incidents now than before the web? Or are there?
I feel that that cheating, plagiarism, and related incidents are much more prevalent now that the Internet exists. Students have access to the information at their finger tips. There are so many websites out there with information on all sorts of topic imaginable. With our society becoming unmotivated with doing work, they rely on people and sources(such as the Internet) to do the work or gather the information needed. How many times do you see a student reading a book? In English class when a book is assigned, if you polled students, how many honestly would say they did not use the Internet to get information about the book? How many actually read the book? If I was a betting person, I would say more than half, used the Internet to write a paper or just get information without reading the book. Pretty sad. It is so easy to just look something up, why should they think. I feel that we as a society allow this to happen. Yes, we all use the Internet to look up information and get factual information from there. But, it has become apparent that as the technology increases and people have the Internet at their finger tips by use of smart phone, pda or other devices, they just use the information they find. Do not get me wrong, the Internet is a wealth of information. I use it daily. But, I was also brought up to go to the library look up information, write a rough draft and then do my final copy of a paper. Nowadays, students write it once, using the Internet and just copy and paste. They edit as they go. I guess I am old fashioned. I still like to write things on pen and paper.
It is not just the Internet that allows students to cheat and plagiarize. Students can send each other answers. Sometimes you do not even know they are using a device. Ipods and allow e-mail, phones can text, they can go to the restroom and send the answers. You would hope they have more common sense and sense of pride than that. Unfortunately, some students do not and just want a good grade.
. So in the end, I believe cheating is easier and is done more frequently as technology gets more accessible.
