Charles Copeland
Dr. Hill
English 1301.504
3 February 2013
Define Cheating Harvard has long been regarded as one of the most prestigious universities in the entire world. Their motto "Veritas," which means truth, reflects Harvard's commitment to higher education through honesty. Recently, however, scandals involving cheating have brought great shame to this university. In upwards of seventy students have been accused of cheating on a take-home final exam after their professor, Matthew Platt, noticed striking similarities between their answers. Claiming a lack of clear instruction, these students believe that they did not do anything wrong and that they should not be punished for their actions. Dishonesty undermines the entire basis of higher education it devalues the quality of the degrees that other students exhaust themselves to attain, and it should be pursued without question. Many of the students accused of cheating claim that while they knew that discussion of the exam with other students was prohibited, that sharing notes was acceptable. The instructions were very clear in that the students could use their books, notes, or the internet to answer the questions to the test. What it did not say is that the students could crowd source their notes from other students taking the class. The content of the exam was more heavily based on information received in lectures, and that by sharing their notes they provided no way for the instructor to grade their participation in the class, or their own understanding of the topic. Others accused the graduate-student teachers of providing similar answers to questions on the test. One student claimed, "Everybody went to the T.F.'s and begged for help. Some of the T.F.'s really laid it out for you, as explicit as you need, so of course the answers were the same" (qtd. in Pena). While I can agree that there should have been more of an understanding between the professor and the student-teachers as to what information was acceptable to give to students, I feel that it was dishonest of the students to copy the student-teachers information word for word, especially considering that the work in question was a final exam. In Harvard's Q Guide many