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Cheating In School Essay | Why Students Cheat? and What We Do About It?

November 1, 2021 by Prasanna

Cheating In School Essay: Cheating is a crime. Whether you cheat your friend, parents, or an unknown person, it is an unethical way of achieving your aim. For example – Cheating in exams is wrong as you’re supposed to study, practice, and understand the concept before answering in exams. If you skip all the previous steps and try to copy it from someone else or any other source, it is considered cheating.

Cheating is an act where a person acts dishonestly or in an unfair way to gain some advantage. Cheating in any manner or anywhere can not be justified. Cheating is also used by our children and most commonly they use it at school. Cheating in school is done in many ways like copying in exams, doing someone else’s work, copying the work from someone’s notebook without their permission.

You can also find more  Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Nowadays children have also started using mobile phones for Cheating in their exam papers and to tell the answers to their fellow students. All these forms of Cheating are wrong and unethical, no doubt they are the shortcut to the goal. But not all the students are involved in Cheating. Cheating has many major after effects like they can get expelled from the school which can make them lose their self respect, integrity, etc. So, as elders we should try to make our children understand that Cheating in no way is acceptable.

Long Essay on Cheating in School 750 Words in English

Cheating in school means an unethical way to get early and easy access to your aim. Cheating in school means when a student tries to get good academic grades through a dishonest and unfair way. Cheating is a false representation of the child’s ability which he may not be able to give without Cheating. It is unfair to everyone involved as it deprives the true one of the chance to come on the top.

In reality, the cheater, the teachers and the classmates all are getting deprived of the benefits. Actually Cheating is like a bad temptation which pulls you towards itself when you are able to get something easily with the help of it. Like if a child is able to get good grades in an exam by Cheating, he will try to do the same in other exams also as he will start finding it easy. It’s like an addiction which is not easy to get rid of. You can get an A grade in an exam through Cheating but you know that you didn’t earn it through fair means and will start self-doubting. It makes the student less self confident and gradually losing his sanity and integrity which hampers the overall growth.

The child is not trying to learn, rather he is trying to find ways which are easy but not right. Cheating also has major setbacks like suspension, repeating the same class, etc. Cheating is morally wrong because it gives the cheater an undue advantage over the others truly deserving. Students resort to Cheating because of many reasons – desire to get good grades, the fear of failing, competition with friends and classmates to excel in the class, parental pressure, etc. Cheating affects the child mentally as it increases the anxiety levels in the child. He may start feeling bad for himself as he knows that whatever he has achieved is not because of his own hard work, which will gradually make him feel helpless and trapped. The teachers and parents should make it a point to make the children realize that Cheating is not a good habit.

They can do so by giving their own life examples, making them understand and stressing that winning is not everything, teaching them how to cope with failure, and being compassionate with them while discussing this topic so that they do not feel embarrassed. Ask the child to do more practice of the topic he finds difficult, praise him in the little efforts he is putting to improve himself, try and explore new areas in which the child is good so that he can regain his self esteem.

Short Essay on Cheating in School

• Cheating is an act of behaving in a way that is unethical. Trying to achieve our goal through dishonest and unfair ways is not a way.
• We all at some point of time resort to Cheating whether consciously or unconsciously. Our children also follow us.
• Children follow the practice of Cheating in school in various ways and mostly during their exams.
• In our education system, children get so many opportunities to work hard and get good grades. But instead of doing hard work, some children feel encouraged to take Cheating as a shortcut.
• Students at that time don’t understand that Cheating is not the correct way to deal with it as it is leading them on a wrong path.
• Cheating in school can be due to many different reasons like peer pressure, parental pressure, etc. and can have negative effects on a student in the future.
• Cheating makes a child make wrong decisions as he is blinded by the aim of success. The student loses his ability of self confidence, honesty and critical thinking.
• To excel in education or a subject, one must be clear with the basics of the topic. But when a child resorts to Cheating he is making way for future Cheating also as he will not be able to understand high level topics because he is not clear with the basics.
• Cheating as all other unethical habits have serious consequences like suspension and expulsion from the school, spoiled academic reputation.
• Parents and teachers as the well wishers of the students should try to make them aware of the severe consequences of it and try to make them come out of this bad practice as soon as possible.

FAQ’s on Cheating In School Essay

Question 1. Is Cheating in school common?

Answer: According to a survey, Cheating is very common at school level and 86% of students have cheated in school at one or another level.

Question 2. Why is Cheating in school so common?

Answer: Students cheat in school due to poor study skills, lack of confidence and the pressure to get good grades.

Question 3. What are some consequences of Cheating?

Answer: Cheating can lead to expulsion or suspension from school, class failure, degraded academic reputation, lowers self respect.

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Why Students Cheat—and What to Do About It

A teacher seeks answers from researchers and psychologists. 

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“Why did you cheat in high school?” I posed the question to a dozen former students.

“I wanted good grades and I didn’t want to work,” said Sonya, who graduates from college in June. [The students’ names in this article have been changed to protect their privacy.]

My current students were less candid than Sonya. To excuse her plagiarized Cannery Row essay, Erin, a ninth-grader with straight As, complained vaguely and unconvincingly of overwhelming stress. When he was caught copying a review of the documentary Hypernormalism , Jeremy, a senior, stood by his “hard work” and said my accusation hurt his feelings.

Cases like the much-publicized ( and enduring ) 2012 cheating scandal at high-achieving Stuyvesant High School in New York City confirm that academic dishonesty is rampant and touches even the most prestigious of schools. The data confirms this as well. A 2012 Josephson Institute’s Center for Youth Ethics report revealed that more than half of high school students admitted to cheating on a test, while 74 percent reported copying their friends’ homework. And a survey of 70,000 high school students across the United States between 2002 and 2015 found that 58 percent had plagiarized papers, while 95 percent admitted to cheating in some capacity.

So why do students cheat—and how do we stop them?

According to researchers and psychologists, the real reasons vary just as much as my students’ explanations. But educators can still learn to identify motivations for student cheating and think critically about solutions to keep even the most audacious cheaters in their classrooms from doing it again.

Rationalizing It


First, know that students realize cheating is wrong—they simply see themselves as moral in spite of it.

“They cheat just enough to maintain a self-concept as honest people. They make their behavior an exception to a general rule,” said Dr. David Rettinger , professor at the University of Mary Washington and executive director of the Center for Honor, Leadership, and Service, a campus organization dedicated to integrity.

According to Rettinger and other researchers, students who cheat can still see themselves as principled people by rationalizing cheating for reasons they see as legitimate.

Some do it when they don’t see the value of work they’re assigned, such as drill-and-kill homework assignments, or when they perceive an overemphasis on teaching content linked to high-stakes tests.

“There was no critical thinking, and teachers seemed pressured to squish it into their curriculum,” said Javier, a former student and recent liberal arts college graduate. “They questioned you on material that was never covered in class, and if you failed the test, it was progressively harder to pass the next time around.”

But students also rationalize cheating on assignments they see as having value.

High-achieving students who feel pressured to attain perfection (and Ivy League acceptances) may turn to cheating as a way to find an edge on the competition or to keep a single bad test score from sabotaging months of hard work. At Stuyvesant, for example, students and teachers identified the cutthroat environment as a factor in the rampant dishonesty that plagued the school.

And research has found that students who receive praise for being smart—as opposed to praise for effort and progress—are more inclined to exaggerate their performance and to cheat on assignments , likely because they are carrying the burden of lofty expectations.

A Developmental Stage

When it comes to risk management, adolescent students are bullish. Research has found that teenagers are biologically predisposed to be more tolerant of unknown outcomes and less bothered by stated risks than their older peers.

“In high school, they’re risk takers developmentally, and can’t see the consequences of immediate actions,” Rettinger says. “Even delayed consequences are remote to them.”

While cheating may not be a thrill ride, students already inclined to rebel against curfews and dabble in illicit substances have a certain comfort level with being reckless. They’re willing to gamble when they think they can keep up the ruse—and more inclined to believe they can get away with it.

Cheating also appears to be almost contagious among young people—and may even serve as a kind of social adhesive, at least in environments where it is widely accepted.  A study of military academy students from 1959 to 2002 revealed that students in communities where cheating is tolerated easily cave in to peer pressure, finding it harder not to cheat out of fear of losing social status if they don’t.

Michael, a former student, explained that while he didn’t need to help classmates cheat, he felt “unable to say no.” Once he started, he couldn’t stop.

Technology Facilitates and Normalizes It

With smartphones and Alexa at their fingertips, today’s students have easy access to quick answers and content they can reproduce for exams and papers.  Studies show that technology has made cheating in school easier, more convenient, and harder to catch than ever before.

To Liz Ruff, an English teacher at Garfield High School in Los Angeles, students’ use of social media can erode their understanding of authenticity and intellectual property. Because students are used to reposting images, repurposing memes, and watching parody videos, they “see ownership as nebulous,” she said.

As a result, while they may want to avoid penalties for plagiarism, they may not see it as wrong or even know that they’re doing it.

This confirms what Donald McCabe, a Rutgers University Business School professor,  reported in his 2012 book ; he found that more than 60 percent of surveyed students who had cheated considered digital plagiarism to be “trivial”—effectively, students believed it was not actually cheating at all.

Strategies for Reducing Cheating

Even moral students need help acting morally, said  Dr. Jason M. Stephens , who researches academic motivation and moral development in adolescents at the University of Auckland’s School of Learning, Development, and Professional Practice. According to Stephens, teachers are uniquely positioned to infuse students with a sense of responsibility and help them overcome the rationalizations that enable them to think cheating is OK.

1. Turn down the pressure cooker. Students are less likely to cheat on work in which they feel invested. A multiple-choice assessment tempts would-be cheaters, while a unique, multiphase writing project measuring competencies can make cheating much harder and less enticing. Repetitive homework assignments are also a culprit, according to research , so teachers should look at creating take-home assignments that encourage students to think critically and expand on class discussions. Teachers could also give students one free pass on a homework assignment each quarter, for example, or let them drop their lowest score on an assignment.

2. Be thoughtful about your language.   Research indicates that using the language of fixed mindsets , like praising children for being smart as opposed to praising them for effort and progress , is both demotivating and increases cheating. When delivering feedback, researchers suggest using phrases focused on effort like, “You made really great progress on this paper” or “This is excellent work, but there are still a few areas where you can grow.”

3. Create student honor councils. Give students the opportunity to enforce honor codes or write their own classroom/school bylaws through honor councils so they can develop a full understanding of how cheating affects themselves and others. At Fredericksburg Academy, high school students elect two Honor Council members per grade. These students teach the Honor Code to fifth graders, who, in turn, explain it to younger elementary school students to help establish a student-driven culture of integrity. Students also write a pledge of authenticity on every assignment. And if there is an honor code transgression, the council gathers to discuss possible consequences. 

4. Use metacognition. Research shows that metacognition, a process sometimes described as “ thinking about thinking ,” can help students process their motivations, goals, and actions. With my ninth graders, I use a centuries-old resource to discuss moral quandaries: the play Macbeth . Before they meet the infamous Thane of Glamis, they role-play as medical school applicants, soccer players, and politicians, deciding if they’d cheat, injure, or lie to achieve goals. I push students to consider the steps they take to get the outcomes they desire. Why do we tend to act in the ways we do? What will we do to get what we want? And how will doing those things change who we are? Every tragedy is about us, I say, not just, as in Macbeth’s case, about a man who succumbs to “vaulting ambition.”

5. Bring honesty right into the curriculum. Teachers can weave a discussion of ethical behavior into curriculum. Ruff and many other teachers have been inspired to teach media literacy to help students understand digital plagiarism and navigate the widespread availability of secondary sources online, using guidance from organizations like Common Sense Media .

There are complicated psychological dynamics at play when students cheat, according to experts and researchers. While enforcing rules and consequences is important, knowing what’s really motivating students to cheat can help you foster integrity in the classroom instead of just penalizing the cheating.

Why Students Cheat in Public Schools? Essay

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Introduction

Works cited.

Cheating in schools has become the order of the day and is no more considered a big deal. Sometimes it is even deemed necessary. Students copy from others’ assignments and tests. Sadly, this is not only by the participating students but also by quite a number of teachers. Some merely ignore it while others go as far as taking part in it.

Public schools are the most affected by this particular issue. The reasons for cheating in public schools include; extrinsic inspiration of students, inadequate connection to school, negative frame of mind, risk taking comportment and setting of unrealistically high targets for teachers. Researches done over the years show that cheating is increasing steadily with time in all institutions (Baggish).

Extrinsic inspiration of students

There are two major categories of students: students who appreciate learning mainly for the sake of gaining knowledge and those seeking prizes, admissions to higher learning institutions and contented parents. The former are self- driven whereas the latter are motivated by the promised accolades.

There is however a third group of scholars who display equal rations of both inspirations. A survey done by the Independent Schools Health Check (ISHC) showed that self-driven students cheat the least (17.7%), mixed students cheat moderately (25.2%) and prize seeking students cheat the most (38.3%). Most students in public schools are either prize driven or mixed hence they tend to cheat more than private schools.

Inadequate connection to school

Learners in public schools mostly feel unsupported by their teachers and dislike studying. They find the school rules unfair and lack a sense of belonging. They generally experience little or no internal pressure to succeed, unlike their private school counterparts who relish their specialized curriculums, like their teachers and find them helpful.

This deficiency in public schools leads to increased cheating in assignments and quizzes. Due to the low internal pressure for success, most students do their work simply to maintain routine and not to boost their knowledge. However, even some of the students who retain a suitable connection to school take part in cheating.

Negative frame of mind

Such students are usually experiencing emotional, developmental and interactive troubles. The majorities are found in public institutions and are a much diversified set of students. They generally feel isolated, upset, dejected and displeased with themselves. Their rates of cheating are pretty high, between twenty and forty percent. This is in accordance with the study done by the ISHC.

Risk taking comportment

Students who take other risks include those who use tobacco, hefty consumers of alcohol, users of drugs such as marijuana and those who are taking part in sexual activities.

According to the analysis carried out by the ISHC, 15.3% of consumers of low alcohol amounts cheat, 29% of the moderate consumers cheat and 50.6% of heavy drinkers cheat in examinations. This shows that the risks taken are directly proportional to the cheating levels. Students who take more risks also cheat more whereas those who take fewer risks cheat less (Blackler).

Ignorant teachers

Cheating is no longer rampant in colleges only but also in high schools. This has caused the attitude that people now treat it with, considering it no big deal. A distressing 15% of students today hand in papers gotten largely from term-paper mills and websites on the internet.

They contend that the internet is a good research implement hence it should not be considered cheating. “We are partly to blame. We are not helping them to understand. Getting teachers to let students know they care about the issue is an important first step.” (McCabe-2001 referring to educators, parents and society in general).

Worse still, students today feel that teachers sometimes disregard cheating. However, now many high schools expect a solution from technology and anti-piracy software.

Setting of unrealistically high targets for teachers

In Atlanta, detectives who have concluded a two year investigation established that objectives set for public school teachers had been unrealistically high. Under the federal No Child Left Behind act for America’s public schools, it is essential for each student to accomplish annual advancements.

Success is rewarded and failure penalized. The gravity to yield grades by any method possible thus became more vital than genuine educational growth. This led to bullying of teachers from the uppermost ranks to lower ones threatening them to either achieve the desired outcome in three years or get canned.

Teachers assembled to rub out wrong answers and correct them; they sat the lower-scoring students next to their more adept colleagues and conveyed answers to students both directly and indirectly. In one particular instance, a student sat under the desk and declined the exam yet astoundingly he made the required grade.

People who threatened this arrangement such as Dr. Jackie Boyce in 2009 were immediately silenced with intimidations. There have been established cases of cheating in several districts and states and they are still on the rise. The public education director of FairTest (The National Centre for Fair and Open testing), Robert Schaeffer is not astonished and feels that, “the more you look, the more you’re going to find.”

Anti-thesis

Although most surveys show that public schools cheat more than private schools, some tend to disagree. A study, (Report Card 2002: The Ethics of American Youth) issued by Josephson Institute for Ethics revealed that private schools cheat more than public schools. 78% of students who go to private religion based high schools take part in cheating whereas 72% of those attending public high schools cheat.

It was found that even those whose spiritual backgrounds mattered greatly to them took part in cheating. Surprisingly, the spiritual background does not seem to prevent students from lying. If anything, students attending religion based learning institutions lie more by 5% according to this study.

Regardless of these conclusions, believers of religion based education continue to emphasize that government assistance to religious learning institutions will improve the principles of students. A Yale University professor and supporter of vouchers, Stephen L. Carter, contended in Christian Today “For the millions of parents who continue to support school vouchers, the religious school is seen as a partner in training the child in right and wrong.”

He went on to say the fact that nine out of ten of all students go to spiritual based learning institutions is likely to portray a parental conclusion that nurturing decent and respectable children is of greater magnitude than improving academic performance (Kennedy).

Cheating undoubtedly leaves a certain mark on every student who takes part in it. Impossible as it may seem, it actually leaves a positive mark on some even though most experience negative effects. Due to the inefficiency in enforcing measures to curb cheating, majority of the culprits get away with it; and most of them carry on with dishonesty in higher learning institutions and on to their occupations.

They also behave similarly in their family units. As a result, children brought up by these people wind up having a lower moral upstanding than their parents. This directly increases the percentile of cheating students with passing time.

Some of the cheaters however, are usually caught and disciplinary measures taken depending on the level of learning. For high school students, warnings, suspensions and expulsions in extreme cases usually suffice. In higher learning institutions more severe measures are usually taken.

Sometimes cheaters are sentenced to prison or barred from further learning in those particular institutions. This forces them to give up education altogether and seek other ways of earning a living. However, not all learn the intended lesson. Those who learn adjust their behavior and in many cases manage to bring up children with higher moral standards. However those who fail to learn end up just like those who were never caught in terms of attitude.

All in all, cheating should be eliminated no matter what the cost. Its eradication should begin from educators, parents and the community in general. This will improve the learning capacity and moral code of the students who being tomorrow’s leaders, will improve the world as a whole (ProQuest Education Journals).

Baggish, Rosemary and Peter, Wells. “academic honesty and the Independent School.” Independent School. Academic Search Complete. Web.

Blackler, Zoe. “View from here – Exposed: Biggest Cheating Scandal in US History.” The Times Educational Supplement.4958, 2011

Kennedy, Robert. “Why You Won’t Find Cheating In Private Schools.” Private School Review. Kennedy Robert. Web.

ProQuest Education Journals. ProQuest Research Library; ProQuest Social Science Journals. Web.

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• Higher Education: Comparing School Systems Between 1st (USA) and 3rd (Zimbabwe) World Countries
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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Cheating — Argumentative Essay About Cheating

Argumentative Essay About Cheating

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Published: Mar 14, 2024

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Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware

Tovia Smith

Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it. Angela Hsieh/NPR hide caption

Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

As the recent college admissions scandal is shedding light on how parents are cheating and bribing their children's way into college, schools are also focusing on how some students may be cheating their way through college. Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market that makes it easier than ever for students to buy essays written by others to turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

It's not hard to understand the temptation for students. The pressure is enormous, the stakes are high and, for some, writing at a college level is a huge leap.

"We didn't really have a format to follow, so I was kind of lost on what to do," says one college freshman, who struggled recently with an English assignment. One night, when she was feeling particularly overwhelmed, she tweeted her frustration.

"It was like, 'Someone, please help me write my essay!' " she recalls. She ended her tweet with a crying emoji. Within a few minutes, she had a half-dozen offers of help.

"I can write it for you," they tweeted back. "Send us the prompt!"

The student, who asked that her name not be used for fear of repercussions at school, chose one that asked for $10 per page, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"For me, it was just that the work was piling up," she explains. "As soon as I finish some big assignment, I get assigned more things, more homework for math, more homework for English. Some papers have to be six or 10 pages long. ... And even though I do my best to manage, the deadlines come closer and closer, and it's just ... the pressure."

In the cat-and-mouse game of academic cheating, students these days know that if they plagiarize, they're likely to get caught by computer programs that automatically compare essays against a massive database of other writings. So now, buying an original essay can seem like a good workaround.

"Technically, I don't think it's cheating," the student says. "Because you're paying someone to write an essay, which they don't plagiarize, and they write everything on their own."

Her logic, of course, ignores the question of whether she's plagiarizing. When pressed, she begins to stammer.

"That's just a difficult question to answer," she says. "I don't know how to feel about that. It's kind of like a gray area. It's maybe on the edge, kind of?"

Besides she adds, she probably won't use all of it.

Other students justify essay buying as the only way to keep up. They figure that everyone is doing it one way or another — whether they're purchasing help online or getting it from family or friends.

"Oh yeah, collaboration at its finest," cracks Boston University freshman Grace Saathoff. While she says she would never do it herself, she's not really fazed by others doing it. She agrees with her friends that it has pretty much become socially acceptable.

"I have a friend who writes essays and sells them," says Danielle Delafuente, another Boston University freshman. "And my other friend buys them. He's just like, 'I can't handle it. I have five papers at once. I need her to do two of them, and I'll do the other three.' It's a time management thing."

The war on contract cheating

"It breaks my heart that this is where we're at," sighs Ashley Finley, senior adviser to the president for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She says campuses are abuzz about how to curb the rise in what they call contract cheating. Obviously, students buying essays is not new, but Finley says that what used to be mostly limited to small-scale side hustles has mushroomed on the internet to become a global industry of so-called essay mills. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but research suggests that up to 16 percent of students have paid someone to do their work and that the number is rising.

"Definitely, this is really getting more and more serious," Finley says. "It's part of the brave new world for sure."

The essay mills market aggressively online, with slickly produced videos inviting students to "Get instant help with your assignment" and imploring them: "Don't lag behind," "Join the majority" and "Don't worry, be happy."

"They're very crafty," says Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California in San Diego and a board member of the International Center for Academic Integrity.

The companies are equally brazen offline — leafleting on campuses, posting flyers in toilet stalls and flying banners over Florida beaches during spring break. Companies have also been known to bait students with emails that look like they're from official college help centers. And they pay social media influencers to sing the praises of their services, and they post testimonials from people they say are happy customers.

"I hired a service to write my paper and I got a 90 on it!" gloats one. "Save your time, and have extra time to party!" advises another.

"It's very much a seduction," says Bertram Gallant. "So you can maybe see why students could get drawn into the contract cheating world."

YouTube has been cracking down on essay mills; it says it has pulled thousands of videos that violate its policies against promoting dishonest behavior.

But new videos constantly pop up, and their hard sell flies in the face of their small-print warnings that their essays should be used only as a guide, not a final product.

Several essay mills declined or didn't respond to requests to be interviewed by NPR. But one answered questions by email and offered up one of its writers to explain her role in the company, called EduBirdie.

"Yes, just like the little birdie that's there to help you in your education," explains April Short, a former grade school teacher from Australia who's now based in Philadelphia. She has been writing for a year and a half for the company, which bills itself as a "professional essay writing service for students who can't even."

Some students just want some "foundational research" to get started or a little "polish" to finish up, Short says. But the idea that many others may be taking a paper written completely by her and turning it in as their own doesn't keep her up at night.

"These kids are so time poor," she says, and they're "missing out on opportunities of travel and internships because they're studying and writing papers." Relieving students of some of that burden, she figures, allows them to become more "well-rounded."

"I don't necessarily think that being able to create an essay is going to be a defining factor in a very long career, so it's not something that bothers me," says Short. Indeed, she thinks students who hire writers are demonstrating resourcefulness and creativity. "I actually applaud students that look for options to get the job done and get it done well," she says.

"This just shows you the extent of our ability to rationalize all kinds of bad things we do," sighs Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. The rise in contract cheating is especially worrisome, he says, because when it comes to dishonest behavior, more begets more. As he puts it, it's not just about "a few bad apples."

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"Instead, what we have is a lot ... of blemished apples, and we take our cues for our behavior from the social world around us," he says. "We know officially what is right and what's wrong. But really what's driving our behavior is what we see others around us doing" or, Ariely adds, what we perceive them to be doing. So even the proliferation of advertising for essays mills can have a pernicious effect, he says, by fueling the perception that "everyone's doing it."

A few nations have recently proposed or passed laws outlawing essay mills, and more than a dozen U.S. states have laws on the books against them. But prosecuting essay mills, which are often based overseas in Pakistan, Kenya and Ukraine, for example, is complicated. And most educators are loath to criminalize students' behavior.

"Yes, they're serious mistakes. They're egregious mistakes," says Cath Ellis, an associate dean and integrity officer at the University of New South Wales, where students were among the hundreds alleged to have bought essays in a massive scandal in Australia in 2014.

"But we're educational institutions," she adds. "We've got to give students the opportunity to learn from these mistakes. That's our responsibility. And that's better in our hands than in the hands of the police and the courts."

Staying one step ahead

In the war on contract cheating, some schools see new technology as their best weapon and their best shot to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous students. The company that makes the Turnitin plagiarism detection software has just upped its game with a new program called Authorship Investigate.

The software first inspects a document's metadata, like when it was created, by whom it was created and how many times it was reopened and re-edited. Turnitin's vice president for product management, Bill Loller, says sometimes it's as simple as looking at the document's name. Essay mills typically name their documents something like "Order Number 123," and students have been known to actually submit it that way. "You would be amazed at how frequently that happens," says Loller.

Using cutting-edge linguistic forensics, the software also evaluates the level of writing and its style.

"Think of it as a writing fingerprint," Loller says. The software looks at hundreds of telltale characteristics of an essay, like whether the author double spaces after a period or writes with Oxford commas or semicolons. It all gets instantly compared against a student's other work, and, Loller says, suspicions can be confirmed — or alleviated — in minutes.

"At the end of the day, you get to a really good determination on whether the student wrote what they submitted or not," he says, "and you get it really quickly."

Coventry University in the U.K. has been testing out a beta version of the software, and Irene Glendinning, the school's academic manager for student experience, agrees that the software has the potential to give schools a leg up on cheating students. After the software is officially adopted, "we'll see a spike in the number of cases we find, and we'll have a very hard few years," she says. "But then the message will get through to students that we've got the tools now to find these things out." Then, Glendinning hopes, students might consider contract cheating to be as risky as plagiarizing.

In the meantime, schools are trying to spread the word that buying essays is risky in other ways as well.

Professor Ariely says that when he posed as a student and ordered papers from several companies, much of it was "gibberish" and about a third of it was actually plagiarized.

Even worse, when he complained to the company and demanded his money back, they resorted to blackmail. Still believing him to be a student, the company threatened to tell his school he was cheating. Others say companies have also attempted to shake down students for more money, threatening to rat them out if they didn't pay up.

The lesson, Ariely says, is "buyer beware."

But ultimately, experts say, many desperate students may not be deterred by the risks — whether from shady businesses or from new technology.

Bertram Gallant, of UC San Diego, says the right way to dissuade students from buying essays is to remind them why it's wrong.

"If we engage in a technological arms race with the students, we won't win," she says. "What are we going to do when Google glasses start to look like regular glasses and a student wears them into an exam? Are we going to tell them they can't wear their glasses because we're afraid they might be sending the exam out to someone else who is sending them back the answers?"

The solution, Bertram Gallant says, has to be about "creating a culture where integrity and ethics matter" and where education is valued more than grades. Only then will students believe that cheating on essays is only cheating themselves.