Franklin's View Of Plagiarism Summary

Devlin’s View of Plagiarism

Dudley Erskine Devlin identifies plagiarism as a major problem among students in America. Cheating has become easier to do with the widespread use of the internet and the opportunity to find the answers to virtually anything online. Devlin includes the statistic of college and high school students who cheat and what is being done to prevent it so far like educating the students. Although teaching kids about plagiarism and enforcing honor codes does reduce the amount of plagiarism and cheating it does not end it. Devlin believes the only way to address the situation and end all cheating is the most forceful supervision of essay writing and severe punishments.

There is a large amount of evidence to support that cheating and plagiarism has become an epidemic in today's day and age. Devlin cites information from Donald McCabe in Education Digest that concludes seventy-four percent of students from twenty-two different public high schools reported instances of cheating. He also includes more information from McCabe stated in Liberal Education that one of every five or six college papers have been plagiarized. These growing rates can be blamed on the extensive use of the internet. McCabe reports that four out of five of the students who reported that they cheated bought a paper online.or had taken direct statement from material found online.
While the internet can have a negative effect on students with the possibility of plagiarism it is a major source of information. The information included in Devlin’s essay was even cited off of Pew Internet. One of his solutions to the plagiarism problem is Turnitin.com a website that scans through essays to find any plagiarized material. He includes the internet as the problem and the