Honor Codes in Academic Institutions Throughout the Essay

Honor Codes

In academic institutions throughout the world, there are systems of codes which dictate how administration expects the student bodies to behave. These codes can be different based upon the specific rules of the institution in question. Some have clothing rules, others alcohol or narcotic rules, but there are certain dictums which are more universal. Many schools have rules which dictate that students must behave in ways which the institution considers to be honorable. These honor codes can include different components, but it is primarily a pledge against cheating in any sense of the word. Students in many institutions must sign honor pledges wherein they promise that they will not cheat on their assignments or their examinations. Also, if they are witness to any dishonesty on the part of their classmates, then they are responsible for revealing that duplicity to members of the staff or administration. The students pledge to the school that any assignments that they turn in will be their own work and that their performances on examinations will be based upon their own academic determination, rather than cheating. In return, the university or college pledges to believe that the student's work is his or her own (McCabe (585). There is an agreement then in place between one student and their school, until students are ordered to watch over their colleagues. This becomes a question not only of ensuring the keeping of one's own pledge, but then also being responsible for the honesty or lack thereof of others. Although honor codes are essentially fair because they establish a policy between student and institution that the former will be an honest and honorable student, requiring students to also be the police of their classmates are not an acceptable component of the honor codes.The idea of the honor code is an old one but modern challenges to the honor code are partially because of the influx of new technology. With the advent of the Internet, students are able to literally type in a few key words into a search engine and find all the material which would be necessary in order to complete an assignment. Indeed, it is no trouble to highlight a large quantity of text, copy and paste those words into a document, and then claim those ideas as their own. In Elements of Argument, authors Annette Rottenberg and Donna Winchell have collected a large amount of articles from those in the academic field in which they express their views of the potential for cheating in the modern world. There are companies even who a student can pay in order for a writer to do the work for them, instead of having to invest the time or energy themselves in the academic process.

With so many students using the Internet to shortcut their assignments, the institutions have had to crack down on plagiarism, whether intentional or not, so that their students actually do the work that they are assigned. Websites such as turnitin.com provide a service wherein a teacher or professor can input a paper from their students and the computer program will scan it and examine it closely for any similarities between this assignment and all others that are in the computer's database (Rawe 577). Students who….....