Half of Students in Cambridge University Cheat

November 3rd, 2008 | Categories: News | Tags: , , , ,

They go to one of the world’s most prestigious universities and pride themselves on their superior intellect but almost half of Cambridge students admit they are not immune from the temptation to cheat and submit essays they find on Google, a survey suggests.

The results of an anonymous online poll of more than 1,000 students conducted by the student newspaper Varsity found that 49 per cent of undergraduates pass other people’s work off as their own at some point during their university career.

Only 5 per cent said they had actually been caught plagiarising.

Academics in universities across the country have been accused by their peers of turning a blind eye to the practice to ensure their institutions climb national and international rankings.

One student told Varsity: “Sometimes, when I am really fed up, I Google the essay title, copy and throw everything on to a blank word document and jiggle the order a bit. They usually end up being the best essays.”

Law students were most prone to plagiarism with 62 per cent of those questioned admitting to breaking university rules.

Wikipedia, the open source encyclopedia, was the most popular source for undergraduate research with 82 per cent saying they used that instead of consulting books in the university’s copyright library which has the right to a copy of every book published in the UK.

Robert Foley, a professor in biological anthropology at King’s College Cambridge, said: “It is a depressing set of statistics.”

A university spokesman told Varsity that it regarded plagiarism as a “serious and potentially disciplinary offence which can lead to failure to obtain, or withdrawal of a degree”. He said the university was planning to introduce detection software to crack down on the problem.

  1. Anonymous
    November 4th, 2008 at 14:45
    #1
  2. simon
    November 5th, 2008 at 21:14
    Reply | Quote | #2

    Student also buy custom written essays and term papers via sites like custom-essay.net or proessay.com, in this case it’s very difficult for the tutor to discover the plagiarism.

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    February 9th, 2009 at 13:49
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  5. sabri nagah
    December 13th, 2009 at 17:24
    Reply | Quote | #5

    HI.My great ambition is to have a friend in England and learning at Cambridge university.Despite being egyptian and livig in egypt I wonna be fluent in ENglish as Iam ateacher of English.Just help me know more about your language and culture.my address is[Amria-Al-Mehalla-alkobra-gharbia]

  6. sabri nagah
    December 13th, 2009 at 17:33
    Reply | Quote | #6

    HI.My great ambition is to have a friend in England and learning at Cambridge university.Despite being egyptian and livig in egypt I wonna be fluent in ENglish as Iam ateacher of English.Just help me know more about your language and culture.my address is[Amria-Al-Mehalla-alkobra-gharbia Egypt]