Why is Cheating Wrong? Essay Example

Cheating is wrong not only because it robs the individual of the chance to learn and digest new information, but it also may lead to an increase in cheating in the student’s future educational career, and can even carry into their work career.

“The research on cheating is empirical and focuses on quantification and correlations; yet finding out how many and which students cheat is of importance only if cheating itself is important. And cheating is important only if it is wrong. Since everything else depends on it, the question of the wrongness of cheating is the most important question.” (Bouville, 2010) In this part of the article, Bouvilee uses an ethos appeal to start off the argument against cheating. This ethical appeal towards readers questions the wrongness of cheating based on the basis of whether or not cheating is important and whether or not cheating is only important because it is wrong. This questions whether or not cheating is an ethical problem, and if it is not is it a problem at all? However, Bouvilee also employs pathos and logos throughout the article in order to appeal to the writer and persuade him of his argument. Bouville’s pathos approach is apparent when he discusses the fairness of cheating through the eyes of the victims, typically teachers of the students as well as the student’s fellow classmates. The author uses the logos approach by backing up many of his claims with credible research and statistics. Bouville’s use of ethos, pathos and logos throughout the article really helped strengthen his claim that cheating is in fact wrong.

The critical evaluation of another classmate’s work can aid a student because it helps them practice proofreading, analyzing papers from a third party perspective (which can help in future paper writing for themselves) and it helps by providing them with new perspectives on certain subjects. If other courses decided to use critical evaluation of other students’ work it can help the broaden their perspective on the subject while gaining critical information about analyzing a paper.

Resources

Bouville, Mathieu. “Why Is Cheating Wrong?” Studies in Philosophy & Education 29.1 (2010): 67-76. Education Research Complete. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.