A few days ago the CRIMSON commented on the strange distinction which undergraduates draw between cheating in outside written work and cheating in examinations; and gave, as one reason for this, their failure to realize that they were tacitly pledged to do such written work honorably. Another equally strong reason is their failure to realize the entire similarity of the two kinds of cheating. Many men, who would consider it beneath their dignity and their honor to ask help from a neighbor in the classroom, are not above copying a report or a mathematics paper. Both these actions are equally forms of intellectual robbery, for, in both, the offenders are passing off as their own something that is not their own. The only difference between the two is that the unfairness of cheating in examinations is a little more palpable and its consequences may be a little heavier as regards grades; yet this is plainly a difference of degree and not of kind, and it is easily reduced to the absurd by considering the comparative evil of copying three of four dates in an examination, and copying the major part of a thesis, the first of which actions is condemned, while the second is condoned. It is high time that public opinion should awaken to the artificiality of the distinction herein contained; let it brand with their right names those who cheat in outside written work, and place them where they belong.
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