Plagiarism In America Analysis

The Faults Behind Plagiarism
Studies show that students across America are slowly resorting cheating to pass their courses in both high school and college courses. Due to this increase in cheating and plagiarism many schools are working to find a solution to the problem. In “Plagiarism in America”, Dudley Erskine Devlin proposes a solution that he believes has the potential to create a major drop in the occurrence of cheating. Devlin proposes an end to plagiarism through the creation of strict rules, punishments, and the use of surveillance. Although his solution is well thought and has a great deal of accuracy behind it, the proposition has major fallacies that could hinder the growth of the American educational system.
Devlin begins his proposal by stating that plagiarism has become a casual occurrence in today’s society and that many children continue to cheat after agreeing to the fact that the act is morally wrong. This concept that children continue to cheat after knowing what they had done is not entirely true though. Although there has been an increase in the

amount of cheating and plagiarizing in America, Devlin cannot so boldly claim that all those who have been accused and punished for cheating have done so knowingly. Devlin addresses the matter of arrogance in students in “Plagiarism in America” (YEAR) by recognizing that:
…honor codes and online tutorials do help explain what plagiarism is, why it is unethical, and how to write a paper that credits all sources used. Research has shown that educating students about honor code… can have a positive effect.
This information shows that, against Devlin’s judgment, some of these cheaters did not know they were cheating and hadn’t been taught the extent and rules of plagiarism.
Devlin also proposes extreme surveillance in classes and absolute punishments for those who are caught cheating.

Devlin achieves this by referencing the severe system in place at the University of Central Florida and describing some of the strict regulations placed on students. Students in class at UCF are held under conditions similar to prisoners as they are not allowed many basic freedoms such as wearing hats and chewing gum. Devlin also states his belief that,” The minimum punishment should be failure of the paper and failure of the course, and subsequent cases of plagiarism should face academic probation”(105). This punishment is far too severe for an act that, as discussed before, isn’t always purposeful and could be committed accidentally. Students shouldn’t always be afraid to be kicked out of the class whenever they submit an essay and make the simple mistake of incorrectly quoting

someone.
This proposal could be both a hindrance and a step forward for the American educational system. While the implementation of this system may highly reduce the occurrence of cheating in America, it could also cause a major spike in the amount of failed and dropped courses at the same time. This system leaves no area for personal interpretation of a situation by a teacher and could cause many students to be kicked out of classes for honest mistakes. Overall, the best solution to help the occurrence of plagiarism would be slight modification of the system proposed by Devlin so that there is room for educating the arrogant and giving consequences to the guilty.