23. The Honor Code

These days university students in China know more and more about graduate school opportunities and student lifestyles in American universities. As in every country, a few American students are tempted to use short cuts—to cheat. Read on and you will discover a clever way honest American students use to deal with fellow students caught breaking the rules.

The Honor Code is not to be confused with the Morse Code. In fact the two are just the opposite, since the Morse Code is used to communicate information to others, while the Honor Code is used to keep it to oneself.

Students are on their honor not to cheat. The worst thing about cheating is that the student may get away with it in the classroom and then a few years later, overconfident, go in for cheating on a large scale, such as embezzling a million dollars, and get caught. The penalty for this turns out to be a good deal harsher than an F and three weeks of encampusment.

Sometimes on examination papers and bluebooks students are asked to write "I pledge on my honor that I have neither given nor received help," followed by their signature. It is more blessed to receive than to give. Anyone who gives help, running all that risk and getting nothing out of it, is so stupid it's a wonder he knows anything in the first place.

Students can be inventive and ingenious about cheating. One student brought a transistor radio to an examination in Religions of the World, pretending to listen to a ball game. Actually he received a stream of information on the Buddhists, Shintoists, Hindus, Confucianists, Taoists, Moslems, etc. from his roommate, who was at the college radio station with the textbook. By using earphones, he considerately kept from distracting other students or the proctor.

Proctors, too, can make use of modern electronic devices for detection. Not only do they keep the class under close watch with high-powered binoculars, through a one-way window, but they communicate by walkie-talkie whenever they spot anything out of line.

"Suspicious markings on cuff of boy in second row, third in from aisle. Over."

"Roger. Am using infra-red telescopic scanner. Over."

"Advise what you find. Over."

"Markings appear to be note to blonde in next seat. A little hard to make out, but I think it reads: 'You look good enough to eat. Munch, munch. Remember we have a date at the Dirty Spoon tonight.' Over."

"Probably all right, but it might be code. Keep your eyes peeled for any papers passed under desk, and intercept. Over."

"Roger."

Professors can, of course, make cheating virtually impossible by avoiding objective tests. All they have to do is to lead the student into an essay-type answer with something like "Discuss the philosophic issues involved in an understanding of social activity, with special emphasis on freedom and predictability, objectivity, causality, and relations between the individual and society." Faced with the prospect of reading thirty or forty examination papers on such a topic, professors may be forgiven if they start their examination: "Answer the following Yes or No" or "Place a check mark in the appropriate square."

One rather subtle form of cheating is plagiarism, or writing papers copied out of books which it is hoped the instructor has not read. An instructor who finds the prose style in a freshman theme somewhat unusual for a freshman, may think it sounds like Arnold J. Toynbee. After doing a great deal of reading, and learning a remarkable lot of history, he discovers it is from Thomas Babington Macaulay. Despite all the work he has gone to, it was worth it to be able to write on the paper: "This was obviously taken word for word from Macaulay." Then, with the bitter sarcasm of which professors frequently avail themselves, confident that students will not dare reply in kind: "If you had to steal something, you should have stolen something with which I was not familiar, if possible." The student, too busy being rushed by a fraternity to write his own paper, gets an F in the course and, at the end of the year, drops out of college, while the professor's reputation for omniscience, i.e. knowing everything, gets a big boost.

What the student will never know is that the professor's doctoral dissertation was made up almost entirely of cleverly interwoven passages from two or three obscure nineteenth-century historians. However the professor, thanks to techniques learned in graduate school, knew how to use ibid., op. cit., loc. cit., and passim in his footnotes so effectively that it was impossible for anyone to track down his references. Also the graduate professor who supervised his doctoral dissertation was too busy with his own research to do any sleuthing.

The simplest way to prepare a term paper without writing it is to have it done by an agency that specializes in this sort of thing. For a small sum, say a hundred dollars, you can get a ten-page paper written on any subject, with a grade of B or better guaranteed. However, one student who had his paper written for him by such a group of people was guilty not only of cheating but of gross negligence. When he turned in his paper, he forgot and left in the bill.

Under the Honor Code, of course, a student would not think of cheating. Or he might think about it and promptly dismiss the idea as unworthy. There is too much risk of being caught. And being caught means being brought before the Judiciary Board, a group of students who are so smart they don't need to cheat. Most students would rather fail, or even study hard enough to pass honestly, than face the Judiciary Board. The Board takes up not only cheating but cases of immoral and antisocial behavior, such as drunkenness and sexual promiscuity—not because these things are wrong but because they may, if overdone, give the college a bad name.

To summarize, the Honor Code is a great help. Without it, things would be worse.

Simplified from Going Around in Academic Circles:

A Low View of Higher Education by Richard Armour,

McGraw-Hill Book Company,

New York, 1965.