Question Of Honor

“A Question of Honor” by William Chace was published in the American Scholar, Spring of 2012. In this article Chace explains the growing problem of cheating and plagiarizing in Higher Education. He uses many different views from deans of universities to explain the issues of cheating. Chace first begins his article referring to a recent report. He states that from this article one can concur that student are learning less every day in Higher Education. From there Chace then asks the question of who is responsible for this academic discrepancy. He clearly states, “Where should we lay the blame for a worsening state of one of the foundations of American civilization, one that has long filled us with justified pride?” (Chace 200). Chace then discusses
Chace gives an example of how universities need to look at themselves to fix the problem of cheating in higher education. Chace states, “The most appalling aspect of the rise of cheating on campus in recent times is that some professors themselves have offered sophisticated defenses of plagiarism” (207). Chace then gives the example of a professor supporting plagiarism. Gilbert Larochelle states “Can plagiarism in an intellectual universe where it has become impossible to differentiate the representation from the referent, the copy from the original, and the copyist from the author” (Larochelle 208). This quote is stating it shouldn’t matter if a student cheats, professors can tell regardless. Chace brings up teachers defending plagiarizing to relate to administrators. This relates to administrators because they are the leaders of the staff, and feel responsible for them. Administrators hold professors accountable in the classroom. By using this example he explains how administrators need to do a better job controlling their teaching staff. This brings an emotional tie to the audience. By using Pathos he makes his audience feel responsible for the issues of cheating in universities. This makes the audience look at themselves and their professors and want to do something about it. Chase knows his audience and, because of this, he knows they will take this seriously which will
Chace uses evidence to make a call to action to his audience of administrators. He also gives possible solutions to the problem, such as hiring full time faculty members to keep the class more personable for the professor. He also uses statements from other administrators to effectively relate logically, ethically and emotionally to his