In our days the problem of academic integrity is a sore point in all universities and colleges of the country. Different measures are taken to make students do their work themselves, without cheating. The most popular way of fighting against dishonesty is various kinds of penalty from bad marks to expulsion. In my opinion, the measures like these may make students more inventive in their attempts to accomplish difficult tasks in the easiest way. So, they start searching more sophisticated means of cheating.

The key problem is that students do not see any benefits of being honest. It seems to be the need of the administration to make the educative process as hard as possible and nothing more. So, in my opinion, the most efficient way to instill academic integrity into our universities and colleges is to make students understand the positive effect of integrity.

Academic integrity for me is first of all being honest to yourself. It is quite understandable that while today the contest in all the areas of our life appears to become more severe and people are forced to strive for being the winners of all kinds of competitions, it seems easier to copy information or ask somebody for help, rather than do it by oneself. It can help in achieving success in some particular situations. But the thing is that very often inability to complete tasks without exterior help is explained by the lack of concentration, lack of knowledge or even laziness. These are the qualities that won’t contribute to one’s success in the future career. Just on the contrary, they will hinder it.

Being honest while obtaining higher education can help students develop such skills, as ability to concentrate, apportion time, define priorities and search and process information in a proper way. These are the very properties one should possess after graduating university, in case he or she wants to get a good job. Moreover, academic integrity enables universities to serve their main function – provide students with knowledge, which becomes impossible, in case students do not complete tasks themselves. So, having read lots of literary sources and having chosen and processing it in an appropriate way, one learns to orientate in the scientific area which is necessary for his future profession.

To add, integrity means being ethical to the authors of the works students are using. It is extremely important to mention whose work you are citing, otherwise you will be thought to deliver someone else’s ideas for your own. Moreover, referring to the original text in a proper way you not only abide by the law of the intellectual property, but also let those reading your work know what literary source to turn to for further information on the covered issue. It makes the process of learning easier and more structured.

It is pity that today universities are mostly viewed as the sources of getting higher national diplomas, but not the knowledge. It seems to many students that they can easily accomplish all the tasks they are given by copying information from the Internet or asking someone to do it for them. All this is done to get higher education and then a good job. Few students think that it is impossible, if there is not enough experience in working with information. Absurd is also that today students pay someone for doing academic work for them in order tomorrow to be paid for their work, instead of learning today in order to make a really good career.