Cheating on school work is never justifiable. Students are responsible for their own work, and it is unfair to cheat in any form. Teachers grade students on their own academic ability and if a student is covertly or openly cheating that is considered infringement of being a student. Being a student requires personal interpretation, and analysis. Copying someone else’s work is disadvantageous. If cheating becomes a regular practice to someone it can be harmful to their future. Plagiarism is a major form of cheating that is distinctly forbidden. If students are not accountable for their own work, then they should be punished for it.
The purpose of going to school is to learn and be able to consume new information. Copying someone else’s work does not serve this purpose and is useless regards to learning new material. For example, if a student is assigned to take notes on a certain reading, and hand in the same worded notes as another student it is possible that one student copied the other. If they worked on the notes together, and spent time to word it in the same way, this would not be considered cheating. However, if this was the case then the students should clarify with their teacher that the notes were worked on together. If this was not the case, this would be considered cheating and it should not be tolerated. From experience, I once allowed one of my friends to look over my class notes. As I graciously gave them the paper, I didn’t think that my friend would copy the notes word for word. A few days later, after handing in the notes, we got them back. I looked down at my paper and saw on the top a zero written in red marker. I looked over at my friends paper which read the same grade. The teacher had both of us stay after class, and told us that he didn’t know who was responsible for taking the notes, and that either way it was cheating. As the year proceeded, I could tell my teacher was always