Writing a term paper usually involves jamming a semester's worth of research into one week, writing 15 pages in a night and emerging from a computer lab with bloodshot eyes and a stack of empty coffee cups.
But for a few students, the task is hardly this draining. All it takes is a click of the mouse.
Downloading papers from the Internet, combined with the upsurge of other incidents of cheating, has been a growing concern for the future of academic integrity in higher education.
"It's easy, and it's quick, and it's better than spending six hours writing a paper for some general requirement class that I didn't care about to begin with," said one College senior who asked to remain anonymous.
These students aren't the only ones who have opted out of conventional research and turned to online paper banks, amid the "cut and paste plagiarism" trend at universities nationwide.
According to a 1999 survey conducted by Donald McCabe, a Rutgers University professor and the founder of the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University, more than 75 percent of college students admit to some form of cheating. About one third of the 2,100 participating students admitted to serious test cheating, and half admitted to one or more instances of serious cheating on written assignments.
The pattern for high school students, the next generation of college-goers, is disturbingly similar.
Eighty-four percent of the students surveyed last year by Who's Who Among American High School Students said that cheating was common among their high-achieving peers. Moreover, studies conducted by the Josephson Institute of Ethics show that the percentage of students who admitted to cheating on a test has risen from 61 percent in 1992 to 71 percent in 2000. Research conducted by the Educational Testing Services suggests that this jump is partially due to the pressure cooker environment of high schools.
Michele Goldfarb, the director of Penn's Office of Student Conduct, said that these nationwide findings correlate with the situation at Penn.
"The figures that we've heard nationally are true here as well," Goldfarb said. "You'd like to think that that wasn't the case, but that's probably wishful thinking."
In the spring of 1999, a University Honor Council survey found that only 54 percent of Penn students considered copying homework to be cheating. Moreover, 61 percent of the students indicated that they would not report a case of cheating to the Office of Student Conduct.
National findings about cheating its implications at Penn are pretty clear: acts of academic dishonesty are on the rise at universities and Internet plagiarism is "in." Judging from the incoming wave of technology-savvy high school students, breaches of academic integrity aren't abating.
"Students are growing up with technology that makes Internet plagiarism simple. It is easy to use, and almost all written sources are available on the Internet," McCabe said. "The numbers are creeping up, and I would expect them to increase significantly as time goes by."
The technology is indeed simple -- just typing a topic name into a search engine can result in vast amounts of information. And the hundreds of term paper banks online -- from superior-termpapers.com to geniuspapers.com -- make it even easier.
To top it off, many students don't consider what they're doing unethical.
"Some students actually believe that they're not doing anything wrong," McCabe said. "They have this attitude that they're doing research. They don't think that they need to cite because everything on the Internet is public information."
These days, universities across the nation are struggling to confront and combat this new form of plagiarism. While part of the solution lies in redefining the concept of academic integrity, a lot of it involves preventing "cut and paste plagiarism" before it occurs.
Developing an honor code that clearly lays out a university's standards for honesty and the consequences for violating these rules has been a good starting point, according to McCabe.
His research shows that academic honor codes effectively reduce cheating. In several university surveys over the past decade, McCabe concluded that serious test cheating on campuses with honor codes is typically one-third to one-half lower than on campuses that do not have honor codes.
"I really think it matters what sort of community you create on your campus and how students perceive the issue," McCabe said. "What an honor code does is to transfer the issue to the responsibility to the students. Honor codes have students thinking about the issue and struggling with the issue. They get some moral education."
Having an honor code is one thing -- upholding it is a completely different story.
At Penn, for example, the Code of Academic Integrity defines seven acts -- ranging from plagiarism to multiple submissions of a single paper -- that interfere with the pursuit of knowledge. Yet a 2000 University Honor Council survey showed that only 6 percent of students were aware of the official rules. Forty-five percent of the students said that they never even read the code.
As a result, the 24-member organization has been making more concentrated efforts over the past year and a half to educate the student body. The council declares an "Academic Integrity Week" every fall and lets incoming students see the Code of Academic Integrity when they sign a "pledge card" promising not to cheat.
"As an academic institution, academic integrity is one of the pinnacles of a place that makes Penn Penn," said Wharton and College senior Alan Bell, co-chairman of the University Honor Council. "My interest is getting the message out. I'd rather do the prevention so people don't get into jams."
While some have celebrated the council's efforts, others feel as though Penn's administration could be doing a better job addressing this issue.
"The problem lies on the enforcement side," said Rebecca Kowal, a political science teaching assistant. "The cases are detected, and Penn does not seem to punish offenders of plagiarism very strongly, so you have cases where the offender has plagiarized multiple times and is still not expelled."
Many believe that it will take more than a code, signed or unsigned, to contend with the surge in plagiarism.
Diane Waryold, executive director of the Center for Academic Integrity, suggests that university professors need to openly address the issue of plagiarism with their students.
"They're the folks who can create climates in their classrooms that can get it on the radar screen," Waryold said. "If they talk about it and build relationships with their students, then people won't cheat."
Sociology Professor Nathan Sivin, for instance, passes out a style guide to students, detailing how to acknowledge sources. As a result, according to Sivin, students have no excuse for not citing their research properly.
"In large lecture courses, I have to remind students that they can do themselves irreparable harm by giving in to temptation, and that it is very likely that they will be caught," he said. "In seminars, when we discuss research use of the Web, I take care to mention that if a student can find something to copy, an instructor can find it even quicker."
Choosing not to rely solely on their professors, many universities have invested in high-tech tools that detect plagiarism. Over the past year, a growing number of institutions have signed up for a service called turnitin.com, which scans student papers to see if material has been copied from the Internet or from other papers in its database.
While this software has proved very effective at some universities, there is some concern at Penn.
"There's a possibility that it would send a message to our students that we're not trusting," Goldfarb said. "Plus, there's a potential for inconsistency. Unless you make it mandatory, which is unlikely at a school like ours, what you've got is an opportunity for real disparities in treatment."
Currently, Penn does not subscribe to turnitin.com or any other plagiarism detection service, although the subject is still under discussion.
The increases in reported plagiarism at Penn might demonstrate a need for such technology. A 1999 survey conducted by the Honor Council reveals that the number of students accused of academic integrity violations had nearly doubled over the course of a year, but both professors and students alike are aware that plagiarism occurs -- probably much more than it should.
"I have run fairly regularly into plagiarism, and even more often into cases where I could tell it had taken place but couldn't make an airtight case," Sivin said.
A professor who asked to remain anonymous has observed a lapse of academic integrity among students, as well.
"How much cheating and plagiarism occurs today I don't know, but I do know the opportunities to cheat and plagiarize have been on the rise over the past 20 years," the professor said.
A student, who also wished to withhold his name, said that it was easy to get away with cheating at Penn, especially in large classes.
"When you have an exam in a big lecture hall, it's not too hard to position yourself with a good view of another person's test," he said. "I've done it before. I think a lot of people have."
Apathy toward cheating -- and the notion of integrity in general -- has left many wondering whether it is the values of college students that should be challenged.
"Many people treat academic integrity as being very trivial," said Education Professor Joan Goodman, who co-teaches a freshman seminar on integrity. "If you're willing to cheat, then you're going to find a lot of other offenses that you're comfortable doing. It's unfortunate to reduce academic cheating to a petty unimportant offense equivalent to jaywalking in the streets."
Philosophy Professor Rahul Kumar expressed his frustration with this casual attitude.
"I have had to deal with cases of cheating and am always disturbed by how unrepentant students have been," Kumar said. "Aside from the usual pro forma apologies, students exposed of cheating usually behave like children who have been caught with a hand in the cookie jar."
A teaching assistant who asked to remain anonymous said she attributes students' lapses in academic integrity to their outlook on learning.
"I have noticed that students at Penn are more interested in doing well than learning a subject," she said. "Given their goals, I think students weigh their ability to 'get away with it' over any moral objections they might have to being dishonest."
At any rate, sooner or later students will have to move on into a world where they won't be coddled.
"The University is a very protected environment in which to learn how to live in the world," Sivin said. "Of those who don't get caught cheating here, many will get caught later, and that will be the end of promising or successful careers."
