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Is cheating a fact of college life?

Plain Dealer (Cleveland) September 18, 2007 Tuesday Final Edition; All Editions Is cheating a fact of college life? Evelyn Theiss, Plain Dealer Reporter ARTS & LIFE; Pg.

E1 1050 words EDUCATION Everyone knows that cheating in school is wrong, and anything from an "F" to expulsion can easily result.

Of course, what cheater thinks he will be caught? But it happens.

Sometimes.

As students move on to a new school year and new challenges, they likely will be faced with temptations to take shortcuts.

But they need to be aware the risk isn't worth it.

The pop culture site Collegehumor.com, released some disturbing results from a cheating survey in May.

The survey polled more than 30,000 students around the country to determine things such as the most common cheating methods, the most effective and the average GPA of cheaters vs.

noncheaters.

The survey found that 61 percent, well more than half the kids polled, cheat, with only 16.5 percent of them having strong feelings of remorse for their actions.

Only 12 percent, or one-fifth of those polled, report having been caught cheating.

The most popular single method of cheating on a test is looking over someones shoulder.

The most effective method (for math, anyway) was storing formulas in a calculator.

The least effective? Writing on their body probably because the evidence on the skin lingers longer than on a screen.

And when it comes to writing term papers, nearly 25 percent of students polled admitted to having intentionally plagiarized some or part of what they turned in as their own work.

Streeter Seidell, an editor at Collegehumor.com, says he wasnt terribly surprised at the results.

Hes 24 and a journalism graduate of New Yorks Fordham University.

"I think cheating on exams is fairly rampant, but I also don't think American colleges and universities are turning out whole classes of cheaters," Seidell says.

"Most students are pretty intelligent, but I guess they feel they need some help from time to time." A quick look over the shoulder during a test, Seidell says, "is pretty minor.

Buying a term paper online, that would be serious and very risky now.

I didn't know anyone at school who got caught doing that because it's too easy to get caught." Google can make it likely, as do sites such as Turnitin.com, which is designed to allow instructors to easily find evidence of ripped-off writing.

So what do colleges and universities do about cheating? First, most of them address it in their student codes of conduct.

That makes their policy official from a legal standpoint, giving them something to stand on when it comes to disciplining students for academic infractions.

Most of the codes are fairly similar.

They explain that students who are caught cheating or plagiarizing are penalized, with an F or possible expulsion.

Even students who haven't studied their college's student code would expect that to happen, if they're caught.

But, college administrators say, penalties are on a case-by-case basis.

Some of what they take into account: Is it the first time the student has been caught cheating? Was it a glance at another student's exam, or something more premeditated? Did a student overlook, or incorrectly attribute, a couple of sources in a paper, or did he or she buy a previously written paper online? Tammy Gocial, dean of students at Kenyon College in Gambier, puts it this way: "The most common mistake is misattribution of sources.

But buying something from a paper mill online, that's a bad thing." "Bad," as in likely expulsion.

At Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, a Catholic-centered institution, ethics takes center stage starting at orientation.

Since two years ago, new students are being asked to recite a pledge indicating they will uphold ethical standards.

Among the principles they vow to uphold are "I will do my own academic work fairly and honestly.

I will study what it means to plagiarize and will be diligent to avoid violation." "So students are making a public commitment to that," says JoAnne Podis, the college's vice president for academic affairs.

"We also have current students address it when they speak to the new class at orientation." The messages are specific, she says, in an era when it's all too easy to cut and paste online material into papers.

At Kenyon, says Gocial, as at other schools, it is usually faculty members who monitor academic honesty and catch wind of infractions.

And they rarely even have to do much online searching to find evidence.

"Faculty members are quite able to detect when 'voice' changes in a student's paper or when a whole paper seems more graduate-level worthy than first-year college student, so it's a lot easier than it might seem," says Gocial.

"Once they believe that an academic infraction may have occurred, the faculty member brings the concern to the attention of the Academic Infractions Board, who reviews the case before they issue charges." One thing that Ursuline does, as do other colleges and universities, is give faculty plenty of advice on how to make cheating by students less likely.

For example, Podis explains that they are urged to change their assignments and writing topics from year to year, and to require students to inject personal elements and experiences into their writing.

Darryll Wolnik, 21, is a political science major at Cleveland State University.

He says that by the time students get to college, they don't need a conduct code to tell them what is considered cheating and plagiarism.

"I notice every instructor puts that on their syllabus, a warning to students not to plagiarize and what the penalty would be," says Wolnik, who lives in South Euclid.

"But at this point, I think everyone knows what is right or wrong, and it'd be a conscious decision if someone chooses to do that.

"And yes, I think the Internet has made it easier to plagiarize if you're writing a paper, but it also makes it easier to get caught." Still, Seidell is one recent college student who remains somewhat skeptical about how many students actually get caught, and then penalized.

"I think universities can say all they want about how rigorously they prosecute cases of cheating," Seidell says.

"It all comes down to the professor and how much time they're willing to spend investigating it.

"Some of them don't even grade their own papers, so it comes down to 'How much does your T.A.

[teaching assistant] care?' I'm willing to bet a lot of them don't care." To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: etheiss@plaind.com, 216-999-4542 September 19, 2007 ENGLISH Newspaper Copyright 2007 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.