To justify academic dishonesty on the basis that the student in question was not aware of the exact rules is not an easy task. But, look at it this way: If the whole world was to get away with committing irresponsible crimes simply because they were ‘unaware’, where would we be then? There are many other reasons apart from being unaware, as to how people get involved into academic dishonesty. But, I for one don’t believe there are any excuses for students that act dishonestly, even if they are foreign.
There are many incidences recorded where international students have a higher percentage of participating in academically dishonest acts than domestic students, whether they do it intentionally or not. A study cited by Simpson in her article “Academic Dishonesty: An International Student Perspective”, showed that the mere 10% of the entire student population was international and was found to account for 47% of all academic dishonesty …show more content…
One such example, as cited in “Cheating across Cultures” by Elizabeth Redden, is that in some places, such as Asia, copying a professor or a textbook word for word is considered a sign of respect. On the other hand, in America it’s called plagiarism. This difference clearly points out why some students get caught up in plagiarism without knowing. However, it cannot be argued that these students traveled to a new country and so should have known that the rules had to be different. It was their responsibility to acquaint themselves with these novel rules. If they do not make an effort to understand where their boundaries lie in a foreign country, then it is their own fault if they get involved in trouble. Therefore, these students’ cases cannot be justified, as it was their own neglect towards their duty to acquire knowledge about the laws that led them to act dishonestly in the first