The Professor’s Voice: This Week’s Answers to Your Education Questions

By Dr. Randy Nelson
Professor Emeritus of Education
Contributing Columnist

Dr. Randy Nelson has been a professional educator for 47 years. Since 2018 he has worked closely with Liberian teachers, university students, professors, and administrators as an educator and consultant. If you have questions pertaining to education, please email them to educationquestions@yahoo.com All questions cannot be published.

A reader asks: “With the emergence and advancement of technology in the world, with specific reference to artificial intelligence, how can you curb the issue of plagiarism, and how effective can your methodology be without infringement on one’s rights to utilize useful educational tools?”

Response: Academic dishonesty invariably leads to regrets. Plagiarism, a common form of such dishonesty, is the act of presenting copied or artificial intelligence-generated material as one’s own academic work. It is unethical and unacceptable in any setting.

Students who have cheated to get a diploma or a degree of any kind have not legitimately earned the cherished credential. The diploma or degree is essentially invalid—null and void—because the academic work presented as one’s own was falsified. Knowledge, skill, and personal integrity have been forfeited in favor of the easy path. 

If you have copied and pasted someone else’s work and called it your own, that is dishonest. If artificial intelligence has composed your document with masterful style and you have presented it as your own, that is dishonest. The ramifications of such academic dishonesty include reduced learning, loss of trust, dishonor, expulsion from school, a revoked diploma or degree, and the forfeiture of one’s moral and ethical character. 

Students must rely on their brains instead of software or copied text when they complete assignments. Students who graduate from high school must know how to write a simple three-paragraph essay using their own minds, a pen, and a sheet of paper. College and university graduates must have the competence required to organize and articulate their thoughts in longer essays, thereby informing readers with forceful, poignant, influential language. Plagiarism fosters none of this.

The benefits of academic honesty are many. If students practice writing using a pen or pencil instead of a keyboard, the act of writing itself will strengthen critical areas within the brain. Memory, decision-making skills, organizational skills, and concept processing skills are all enhanced. Educational and career opportunities are within closer reach. 

Educators must take steps to reduce the likelihood of plagiarism in the classroom. One helpful method involves requiring students to compose all graded papers in the instructor’s presence by devoting class time to writing immediately after direct instruction. All electronic devices and printed material should be stowed beneath the desks or in bookbags. The students should receive specially prepared lined paper with an identifying mark on it. Students will then write in class as the teacher offers one-on-one guidance. At the end of the period, the students’ unfinished drafts are handed to the teacher for redistribution whenever the writing process continues. Eventually, the final draft will have been written without assistance from electronic devices or outside documents. 

Early in the process, students may resist the stowing of their cell phones and laptops. Using devices to complete assignments, however, is not a right, and using them must not tempt students  to plagiarize. Good things can become bad when they are used unwisely. After all, water is necessary to sustain life, but if it is used unwisely, one can drown in it. 

Plagiarism in any form hurts others whenever graduates pretend to have skills and knowledge they do not. Such graduates are frequently exposed when others discover their incompetence. Opportunities are lost, and once-honorable people may be viewed as dishonest. Losing one’s good name is a brutal price to pay. 

A reader asks: “I am thinking about going back to school, but I am confused about what to do. Beyond learning a lot of facts and maybe getting a job, what is the value of a university education?”

Response: Higher education holds considerable responsibility to shape people in ways that give them both distinction and humility.  A university education must give students deep knowledge, strong thinking ability, and an awareness of the world’s diversity and complexity. Above all, a highly educated university graduate should possess independence of thought.

Independence of thought leads to an important level of intellectualism that often serves the greater good. It allows men and women to think differently from the society around them. It allows them to question the status quo—to challenge what most other people take for granted. Such thinkers may cause others to disagree, but a true intellectual understands the value of disagreement. Other perspectives come before us, and we must reassess our original thoughts. After such disagreement, intellectuals may become more deeply convicted; conversely, they may humbly acquiesce and adopt a new perspective.

In his 1841 essay titled “Self-Reliance,” the American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson stresses the importance of embracing independent thought. He writes: “To be great is to be misunderstood.” He reminds us that Pythagoras, Socrates, Jesus, Luther, Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton were independent but misunderstood thinkers. They were sometimes regarded as foolish, eccentric, or strange. Some were even executed for having what was considered radical, irrational thought. But they dared to be different, and they likewise changed the world in profound ways. They rejected stale dogma, refusing to let commonplace thinking entrap their minds. 

Independence of thought unshackles the mind and frees the human spirit to fly high—to embrace the unimaginable and bring profound ideas to our doorsteps. Liberia’s university graduates must be agents of change in a country needing bold, independent thinkers who envision a dynamic and prosperous future. Therein lies progress and an improved quality of life. Therein lies the greatest value of a university degree.