¶ … Academic Honesty Sociologist William Bowers interviewed students on nearly one hundred college campuses while doing his dissertation in the 1960s. He learned that half admitted to cheating (Hamilton, 2003). Davis (1993) found forty to seventy percent of college students surveyed reported cheating at some point during their academic careers. It is probably safe to say that the upward trend indicated by these figures continues in 2012. Learning institutions must develop an action plan designed to discourage academic dishonesty. The purpose of this paper is to outline such a plan.

It is imperative that both faculty and students have clear guidelines regarding academic honesty. Davis (1993) proposes five steps in creating and enforcing an academic dishonesty policy: inform students of standards for academics and conduct; explain the harm of cheating as well as campus sanctions; minimize opportunities for cheating and plagiarism; take visible steps to discourage cheating; and respond quickly if cheating does occur.

As a first step, the institution should prominently display its policy on academic integrity in several locations, including its website, the student handbook, and at various student centers, such as the writing center and office of student affairs. Faculty should incorporate discussions of academic honesty in their introductory material for each course. Hamilton (2003) also notes "There are also honest students whose plagiarism is unintentional, because they do not fully understand how to summarize, paraphrase, and make correct bibliographic citations." Instructors often assume students know how to do this, but many students are never sufficiently taught. Gross (2011) argues that the acceptance of cheating is "the product of a different, post-millenial, value orientation towards what education means…rather than as willful wrongheadedness on the part of students." Learning institutions can mandate instruction, perhaps through collaboration between the English department and the library, to make clear to students the guidelines and importance of academic integrity.

Faculty members can help discourage cheating by approving paper topics in advance. They can also review papers at various stages in the writing process, from outlines to rough drafts. Some instructors require students to...

When faculty updates assignments each semester, they make it harder for students to recycle old papers and projects. Instructors should require students to incorporate experiences, opinions and reflections in their work so students must include more original thinking than is necessary for a straight research paper or literature review.
Students may not realize that plagiarism is relatively easy to detect. Students often fail to remember that instructors are much very knowledgeable in their fields. They are well familiar with various resources students will potentially use in completely their assignments. Instructors may be able to identify, from memory, the ideas and writings of others. Often a simple "Google" search will turn up a paper that has been copied from an Internet source. Anti-plagiarism software, such as Turnitin.com, is used by many schools to detect plagiarism. Simply making students aware that such a program is in use may serve as a powerful incentive for honesty.

Academic dishonesty has created a challenging condition for educators. Educators must continue to provide clear guidance with respect to academic honesty and that institutions enforce sanctions when infractions occur. Students must understand that cheating ultimately keeps them from gaining more knowledge (Meilke, 2006). Students can truly enjoy a sense of pride and accomplishment when they achieve their educational goals honestly.