When I was in the 8th grade, my classmate Nick Newell copied off of my vocabulary test in English class. He sat behind me and looked over my shoulder at my answers. I didn’t find out until he asked me after class if I was sure about number 12. I felt angry with him for copying my answers that I had studied the night before. I know he didn’t mean to make me angry — he just wanted some help with his test. He didn’t think about it like I did, but I was still pretty mad.
Five years later as a college freshman, I had another class with Nick — geography. We had to take our tests and quizzes online, and during midterms, he called me and started asking me questions over the phone, wanting me to feed him answers so he could get them correct on the computer in front of him. I lied and said my phone was going dead. Once again, I was annoyed with him trying to get my answers. I studied them for myself – why couldn’t he do the same? I’m not going to say I have never copied someone’s notes or homework in all my school years, but at least I didn’t just assume I could get the answers from someone else, like Nick did. I ended up getting a C in the class, anyway.
It would be easy to expose someone like Nick, since he is so obvious about his cheating; however, other cheaters might not be so out in the open.
If the subject was “Student Cheaters,” a good way to start out an investigation would be to ask around. The reporter could talk to students about the subject. Have they ever cheated? Has anyone cheated off of them? Is it easy to cheat in class? Since students are the obvious subjects for the topic, they would be the primary source.
The investigation could even go so far as to go undercover, which would be especially easy for a college journalist. The reporter could pretend to cheat in a class, or see how easy someone would let you cheat off of them. He or she could also sit with their test out in the open, easily viewable from all sides, and observe who looks over at it.
Research would be another good piece to the puzzle. The reporter could find some statistics about cheating in middle school, high school and college, and compare the results to his or her findings.
Cheating is a big topic on college campuses, so this would be a good topic to cover, especially for a student journalist. I’ll bet there are more Nick’s out there than people think.
