Cheating

Plagiarists and Frauds Posing as Intellectuals

Academic Fraud

(Photo Credit: Nanyang Technological University)

If you have had people to do your academic work for you, why are you acting like you’re a profound intellectual?  Why are you trying to belittle people now that you have your degree(s), especially when you received the grades you did because you turned in other people’s work?  If you were such a tremendous scholar, why have you or do you have to sit up and wait for someone to do your work for you?  It’s time to let you know that at many colleges and universities across the nation there are no statutes of limitations that prevent these institutions from taking your degree(s) away from you for committing academic dishonesty/academic fraud, especially for egregious cases of academic dishonesty/academic fraud.

While many people like to suggest that individuals who attend online universities are getting people to do their work for them, the truth is numerous students have and are getting people to do their work for them at traditional brick and mortar universities.  Before those who have attended and are attending traditional brick and mortar universities attack students enrolled at online institutions as plagiarists, consider the many people who attended or attend your brick and mortar institution and plagiarized, even possibly yourself.

The problem with having people to do your work for you is when you graduate you’re not able to meet the expectations of your employers that your grades and degrees suggest that you can.  Some people have allowed themselves to believe they actually have earned the credentials others have gotten for them.  If someone has ever completed work for you at school and you submitted it, you committed academic fraud; that is, you submitted work that was not your original work as your own. 

When you know you have not completed some, most or all of your work while attending college, do you not know that the knowledge, skills, and talent you lacked in college is going to come back to haunt you?  You may fool some people but you ultimately will not be able to fool your employer for long.  Your employer will eventually discover that you’re not the person you advertised yourself to be, even though you have the degree(s) in the appropriate field(s).

Okay, if you were able to cheat your way through school, shut up, close your mouth, and stop bragging about credentials you did not earn. Get your money and stop posing as the intellectual that you are not.  In fact, people find the posing as an intellectual that you do to be quite strange anyway: You present yourself in one way and they see you in a totally different way.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Related Articles

Steroids, Ben Johnson and Lance Armstrong

Steroids

In the postmodern sports world, it’s not uncommon to hear stories of cheating, steroid use and doping.  However, a former student-athlete, I find it mind-boggling that anyone would want to take them, especially since the health and personal repercussions aren’t worth it.  This piece examines Ben Johnson and Lance Armstrong and their connections to steroids and doping.

Ben Johnson

Sprinters in the 1980s seemed to be cheaters, according to Bleacherreport.com. With the increased use of drugs in the track and field world, it seemed that all sprinters used performance-enhancing drugs, and Canadian Ben Johnson was no exception. He used steroids to increase his performance, but alleges that everyone sprinting at that time cheated too. In the sports documentary 9.79*, the story of the 1988 Seoul Olympics is told, and, more importantly, the story of Johnson and his world-record breaking time. Johnson was stripped of his medal after testing positive for steroids. The medal was given to runner-up Carl Lewis, Johnson’s greatest rival.

“Why should I train hard doing it clean and then these other guys are not clean. Fair is fair,” Johnson said in the documentary. Yes, fair is fair, but in what universe is cheating?  Back in the day, athletes would only get tested at prominent sporting events. Therefore, those who were doping could, theoretically, wean off the product and test clean.

Lance Armstrong

Undoubtedly, one of the most inspiring and successful American athletes to date is Lance Armstrong. With seven Tour de France titles under his belt, being one of the most recognized cyclists in the world and overcoming cancer, which led him to create the Livestrong Foundation in 1997.  (Do you remember those yellow rubber bracelets everyone wore?) He seemed to have everything. Then rumors circulated that Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs. Inevitably, a substantial blow was delivered to Armstrong: The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency banned him from competing for life and stripped him of his seven titles.

But right from the start and more than two dozen times during the first of a two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey on her OWN network, the disgraced former cycling champion acknowledged what he had lied about repeatedly for years.  “I didn’t invent the culture, but I didn’t try to stop the culture,” he said in the interview.

Pastor Ed Young, prominent figure in Grapevine, Texas, referred to Armstrong in a recent Facebook post as one who made a compromise. In a recent “What Would Jesus Say To…” series, Pastor Young told his congregation that Christ would tell the disgraced cyclist to stop running away from the truth, stop lying and turn to God.  “If everybody cheats, is anybody cheating?” That’s a good question. But if you’re living your life based on what other people are doing, well that’s like saying, “I’m going to jump off a bridge because my friend jumped off a bridge,” he said.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Related Articles

Make Sure People Earn Their Degrees

Many people find ways to cut corners to obtain their degrees and graduate without the ability to meet the basic expectations of their employers.  Even many students from the nation’s leading colleges and universities find ways to cut corners to obtain their degrees.  What’s going to happen to you when you get hired and don’t have the slightest idea about how to do the job your degree implies you can do?  It’s going to result in you having more than shame—you’re going to have a useless piece of paper that you call a degree.

You cannot get people to complete all or most of your assignments, especially the most difficult ones, and expect to be ready for a job in your degree field.  If you lack the ability to perform beyond basic reading and writing tasks, you will inevitably be exposed.  A time is going to arrive when your weaknesses in reading and writing is going to cause your performance in the workplace to be less than satisfactory.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with seeking assistance with things you don’t understand.  Smart people understand that when they need help to seek it.  This does not mean, however, that you should have to receive assistance with all major assignments.  If you’re a person truly fit to be an undergraduate or graduate student, you should be able to execute the majority of the tasks assigned to you in your degree program.

If people have to complete, edit, and/or revise all of the work you do for school, are you really deserving of receiving a degree?  Is it fair to potential employers for you to waste their time when you know you have not obtained the essential skills they are looking for when they hire someone with the degree you have or are pursuing?  If you have ever submitted work that someone has completed for you, then you have not earned your degree.  If you have ever purchased a paper from an online website and turned in that paper, then you have not earned your degree.

Colleges and universities have academic honesty policies for real reasons.  Academic honesty policies help colleges and universities to ensure that they are awarding degrees that are worth more than the paper they are printed on.  If you submit work that is you not your own, then you have evinced an unwillingness to do the work necessary to learn what your professors desired of you to satisfactorily complete the course requirements.  If you have completed work that is not completely your own, then you have committed academic fraud.  For those who commit academic fraud, your degree is in jeopardy of not being awarded to you or being taken away from you.

The American workplace needs to be populated with individuals who are truly ready for the challenging demands of the 21st century.  If you have to cheat to obtain your degree, then you’re not ready for the 21st century workplace.  The reality is college is not for everyone.

For those of us who worked hard and earned our degrees, we need to report academic fraud when we see it.  People who commit academic fraud and pretend that they are ready to enter the workforce in their degree field do us all a great disservice.  Too many important positions are being filled by people who are not prepared to execute the duties of these positions.  Many of these positions are filled by those lacking the competency to perform even the most basic duties of the positions, thus putting the lives of innocent people in danger.

Many individuals who cheated their way through undergraduate and graduate study are too arrogant to seek and accept help from people who they work with to help them to overcome their lack of understanding of critical aspects of their job.

Why waste a significant amount of time in school by letting people do your work and graduate with no knowledge to perform the duties of jobs in your degree field?

Ensuring academic honesty is a matter of public safety.

We should not allow people who lack the competency to perform jobs, especially in positions where lives are at stake, to be eligible to be hired for those jobs.  For example, we don’t want people who have committed academic fraud going into the healthcare industry where they can endanger the lives of so many people.  Therefore, if you know people who are committing academic fraud and/or have committed academic fraud and they are going into the healthcare industry or another area where they could risk the lives of numerous Americans, you need to report them.  By reporting them, you could not only help to save the lives of many Americans, you may just save your own life.

Let’s take a stand against those who cheat while in college because we will have to pay severely when these people get positions in fields where they can do us all great harm.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Black Men Masquerading: Part 2

Have a baby and prove your masculinity, right? Mention that you are screwing this woman and this woman and prove your masculinity, right? Use inarticulate language and prove your masculinity, right? Get on Facebook and use hood vernacular and prove you’re a thug, right? Indicate that you’re “in a relationship or in a relationship with” and prove your masculinity, right? Lol! I’m not going there right now. In this piece, I will address Black men who cheat on their girlfriends and wives. It really does not make sense for anyone to cheat on the person who he or she is involved with. If you no longer want to be with the person, then be man or woman enough to let the person know. Don’t be a coward and not tell the person who you are involved with that you are being faithful to him or her and you know you’re not. Although I am well aware that women cheat on men, the focus of this piece is on Black men who cheat.

Black men have a little more respect for women than to use them as toys. Have more value for our Black women than to use them to boost your social status. Many Black men who cheat try to pretend like they are such loyal men in front of their women, but just as soon as they get a chance they are trying to pull off other women’s panties. If you want to be a “player (playa),” then just let your woman know this and move on to someone else. You want to be called a player not to satisfy your physical body, but to gain approval in the eyes of other men and some dumb women who think that this is “hot.” Have more respect for your mother than to want to be called a player. I am sure that your mother did not want to give birth to a whore. When you strive to be a player, you are not even giving yourself the opportunity to really enjoy the fullness of the company of a woman and the full enjoyment of sexual intercourse. Why? Because you’re more concerned with reifying women than experiencing what a real relationship with one woman can offer you.

When you go around and sleep with every woman that you can, this does not do anything to improve your resume or credentials—it simply moves you a step closer to dying from HIV/AIDS. Be more responsible sexually. You should at least think about the potential harm  you could be causing the women you are having sex with. When you ruin their lives with diseases that threaten their lives, you are not only victimizing those women, you are victimizing their families and friends. All of this can be avoided if you would get over your fear of simply being yourself. Stop living for society’s expectations for you and live for your own meaningful expectations. Be yourself!

I know some bisexual men who think that it is cute to sleep with as many men and women as possible. I have to let some of you bisexual men know that your whorish ways is what exacerbates the HIV/AIDS crisis we have here in America. The problem I have with many of you bisexual men who cheat on your girlfriends or wives is your secretiveness is what exposes these men and women to such great dangers. Black women need to recognize that they are going to have to demand more quality things from their Black men before they can truly be the men they need to be.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison