cheating

[Jakrabite]

Point taken everybody (excluding Nel of course ). I'll cease and desist. I'd tried to stop earlier, mainly because this has got to be the most insufferably boring flamewar in the history of the internets. My apologies for my part in this squabble.

[thepoorstockinger]

I am basing my comments on my own experience dealing with plagarism accusations through the university's senate. One other thing did occur to me: while the cases we see have a much higher number of international students from China and South Korea, they tend to be almost exclusively engineering and business students (probably 70% in business). It may be a result of the way those disciplines are taught in certain countries rather than a wider trend in PSE there.

[MaximKat]

Now, when we are back on topic, i'd like to repeat my question.

Would anyone share his/her ideas of what is allowed and what is not?

Is it OK to use the textbook to find background info on the task? To see how similar problems are solved? Does the answer change when you replace "the textbook" by "the Internet"?

[fuzzylogician]

Now, when we are back on topic, i'd like to repeat my question.

Would anyone share his/her ideas of what is allowed and what is not?

Is it OK to use the textbook to find background info on the task? To see how similar problems are solved? Does the answer change when you replace "the textbook" by "the Internet"?

Unless told I'm not allowed to rely on outside sources while solving a particular problem set, I don't see why it's so wrong to look for background info, try to find out how similar problems have been solved, what other authors had to say about the problem, etc. Research wouldn't make any advances if everyone had to reinvent the wheel every time they encountered a new problem. However, I do see a difference between that, and downright copying the answer to the question from the teacher's manual. Plus, academic integrity forces us to cite sources we used in solving a problem, and I see failure to do so as a much more serious problem than the actual use of outside sources.

I don't see a difference between using materials found online and in textbooks. What difference could it possibly make if I look an article up online or go to the library and look at the hard copy? Again, I usually consider myself allowed to use whatever tools I would normally use in my research to solve a given problem, unless otherwise instructed by the teacher.

[prefers_pencils]

This sort of copying/collaboration is considered a common practice from the part of world where I come. Not that I meant it is the reason we passed all those exams/TOEFL/GRE that way. But there is little such honor policy. Usually we as students try to get ideas from others, if and when we do come at stages when we are unable to originate the concepts ourselves and apply that in our own styles. And coming to university level, we know that we can at no place escape by direct copycat, at least we must be able to use our brains even to modify the things that we have taken ideas.

I feel compelled to say this... Copying and collaboration are two very different things. Collaborating = two students working together to solve a problem. Copying = viewing the solution of someone else and taking it as your own answer. If you're "modifying the things that we have taken ideas" from, your professor wouldn't have called for you - you obviously submitted something so similar to its original form that it was recognized. I am sorry that you are learning the difference the hard way.

[liszt85]

I fully agree with the above post.

Edit: The one by fuzzylogician.

[Aceflyer]

I fully agree with the above post.

Edit: The one by fuzzylogician.

I third this. There's nothing wrong with using outside sources as references. What's wrong is copying and taking credit for someone else's work.

[waitingtoexhale]

I third this. There's nothing wrong with using outside sources as references. What's wrong is copying and taking credit for someone else's work.

.

I fourth this. Using outside sources, whether from dead-tree or online materials, are a legitimate (and many times necessary) academic endeavor. Sometimes, online resources can be tricky to decipher, if the information obtained is from a personal website found via google search instead of a library-based database search. Even though you may be citing an online source properly, the actual source itself may not be as intellectually honest. But I think all of us would be in agreement that copying is dishonest and wrong. In the case of the OP, what and how was he supposed to cite or attribute his alleged "research"? I don't think including a footnote that reads, "I found a copy of an older edition of the instructor's manual and copied the answer," makes it any less a form of cheating.

[Aceflyer]

.

I fourth this. Using outside sources, whether from dead-tree or online materials, are a legitimate (and many times necessary) academic endeavor. Sometimes, online resources can be tricky to decipher, if the information obtained is from a personal website found via google search instead of a library-based database search. Even though you may be citing an online source properly, the actual source itself may not be as intellectually honest. But I think all of us would be in agreement that copying is dishonest and wrong. In the case of the OP, what and how was he supposed to cite or attribute his alleged "research"? I don't think including a footnote that reads, "I found a copy of an older edition of the instructor's manual and copied the answer," makes it any less a form of cheating.

Well, in theory if he had put the entire answer in quotes and cited the old instructor's manual as the source, he would have avoided charges of plagiarism. (Because in this case he'd be attributing proper credit instead of attempting to take credit for someone else's work.) However, he still would've gotten in trouble because you're supposed to provide your own answers on assignments (not copy another person's answers) and you're not supposed to have access to an instructor's manual in any case. He would've been in less trouble though. On the flip side, it's obvious why he didn't do this: doing this would have basically guaranteed that he'd get called on it.

[flit]

wish the OP would fill us in...I want to know what happened in that meeting!

or maybe I just missed it?

[Dontuse]

wish the OP would fill us in...I want to know what happened in that meeting!

or maybe I just missed it?

if the OP is had as sincere intentions as i originally felt he had then i hope it's a mere misunderstanding followed by a slap on the wrist. [taking away internet privilages for a week junior high school style would explain his forum absence].

call me naive but i do want to believe that this all was a cultural misundertanding...

yet i can't seem to shake the feeling that...