Why Cheating Is Wrong Essay

Cheating is not something to be proud of, here are 10 reasons why cheating is wrong.

Cheating in American high schools is widespread. A recent ABCNews poll of 12- to 17-year-olds provided these statistics:

•70% of teens say at least some kids in their school cheat on tests.

•60% have friends who have cheated.

•30% say they themselves have cheated, rising to 43% of 16- and 17-year-olds.

•More than 50% say cheaters don’t get caught.

Cheating is the same as lying and stealing. Each time you hand in schoolwork, you are basically telling the teacher that you completed that work on your own. That’s either true or, if you cheated on the work, it’s lying. Cheating is also stealing because you are taking someone else’s work and calling it your own.

Cheating causes stress. When you cheat, you inevitably worry about getting caught. The stress of getting caught increases when you

Most obviously, cheating is unfair to honest students. A cheater receives through deception what honest students work hard for; and in classes graded on a curve, he lowers their grades to boot. Cheating also cheapens the diploma. How valuable can a sheepskin be if so many people receive it under false pretenses? But the devaluation is not just figurative. An Iowa State degree is a valuable commodity, only if people trust that it is a mark of excellence. That trust is undermined as people become aware of the amount of cheating on campus.

But more disturbing is that academic dishonesty perverts the central mission of a university . . . An education is much more than just learning facts. And it 's more than mastering the ability to solve problems, to understand complicated issues, to detect bullshit (sophistry), and to articulate your views. A quality education requires a commitment to an ever deeper understanding of self and of one 's place in the social and natural world; and when successful, it leads to a critical examination of the assumptions that guide one 's