Integrity in Academic Writing: An Essential Ingredient for Student Success.

Integrity in academic writing is a critical feature that represents the full essence of learning. Being honest and having integrity means doing the right thing without the need for supervision. To most students, honesty and integrity is a habit and hence depicting their true image concerning academic achievement. According to Blum (2009), integrity forms part of the aspects that have in the recent past been neglected in colleges and universities. The responsible educational sectors have, for a long time, been ignoring the value of integrity despite its importance as far as education, learning, and training are concerned. According to Spaulding (2009), it is unfortunate that dishonesty in academic writing has slowly become inevitable due to the urge to have excellent grades by students in various learning institutions.

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Even though academic honesty is essential to the students' career development and the society at large, recent studies show a rise in its prevalence in educational institutions due to remarkable contribution to its development by both teachers and students (Nazir & Aslam, 2010). Integrity n academic writing is not only an essential aspect of education but also plays a critical in measuring excellence in the educational performance of students. There are many reasons as to why honesty matters in academic writing. Apart from depicting the true strengths and intellectual abilities of students, it helps in the development of self-esteem and confidence in matters of academics. This clearly shows that academic honesty is an essential aspect in the educational sector that should be considered by all institutions to positively impact society. This paper, therefore, seeks to describe and give reasons as to why integrity and honesty in academic writing matters and its importance.

Discussion

Integrity in academic writing matters for various reasons. When students have integrity when writing their papers, they become trustworthy by the society they live. Trust is an essential value in life, and it affects individual at different levels in one way or the other, including career development. When an individual is honest in writing their academic papers, people they work with can rely on them and believe they would be honest in delivering and doing what they promised. People trust individuals who believe in doing the right thing and have consistent behavior in their belief (Woith, Jenkins, & Kerber, 2012). Presently, for one to be successful in leadership, they have to be trustworthy. Trust id deed as an essential characteristic of a good leader.

In most cases, successful leaders and businesspeople are known to develop good reputations when they portray fairness, honesty, and trustworthy. The success in the business world is majorly based on trust between individuals. This indicates that it is essential for students to develop good ethical habits by being honest in their academic writing so that in future they can handle honesty, trust, and general ethical issues at their workplaces.

According to Levin (2012), another importance of integrity in academic writing is providing value to an individual's degree. In most cases, employers prefer and tend to employ people believed to have high personal integrity. Employers usually invest in individuals they believe will influence the organization positively and also those they can trust with the missions and objectives of the company. Dishonesty usually undermines the credibility of one's learning and academic results leading to the degradation of what they ought to have achieved. Individuals with high standard academic integrity often have their reputation safeguarded, resulting in positive reflection on their institutions as well as overall perceptions of their academic papers in the job market. Academic dishonesty diminishes an individual, their institution, and public trust in their endeavors. All these values are influenced by the academic honesty of individuals during their time at colleges and universities.

The other reason why having integrity in academic writing is important is that individuals who are honest in their academic work usually have peace of mind when writing their papers. They are usually focused and committed to doing what they believe is right. An honest student is usually tension free and as a result, produces positive results as opposed to the one who is not settled to anxiety caused by cheating. Honest students do not have unnecessary stress in their lives since they believe they do things as they should be done without supervision and as a result, they tend to be healthier, happier, and have increased productivity since they do not experience disorders such as anxiety.

Integrity plays an essential role in building a society today (Hooijberg, Lane, & Diverse, 2010). Even though honesty is a great habit that defines personality and individual's charters, dishonesty can gradually grow within oneself on the onset of mischievous thoughts. In academic surrounding, dishonesty is deemed to be the root cause of misgivings that eventually grow and influences one to be an irresponsible person who cannot be entrusted with any principal responsibility within the society. Honesty is, therefore, a virtue which should be instilled in students by various universities and colleges purposely to establish a foundation that would produce honest persons within the society in the future. This makes integrity in academic writing important a serious norm to be practiced by the various institutions.

Honesty is a habit that enhances the achievement of an individual's set educational goals. During one's academic course, it is a vital responsibility for them to do their best purposely to attain their desired goals. For one to achieve this, they have to be honest since dishonesty and lack of integrity portray a fake image of their capability. Individuals who lack integrity in academic writing live their educational lives deceiving the public how perfect and excellent they are, but in reality, they cannot attain the excellence they are depicting. As a result, they lose their ambitions since they can no longer execute their duties in the job industry as well as the corporate world where such vices are unacceptable. In the long run, individuals who lack integrity crumble in regret since they fail to achieve their desired ambitions. For this reason, it is essential for instructors, teachers, and professors to ensure that they offer their best and train students the aspect of honesty and integrity for the benefit of society.

According to Eby et al. (2013), stealing is closely associated with a lack of integrity and dishonesty. Once a student has cheated in academics, the root of dishonesty begins to grow. It slowly develops into their habit, and if not curbed in time, the habit becomes part of them, and as a result, they might end up participating in stealing of other forms after their education. In this context, their lives are endangered, and therefore integrity and honesty at the early stages of life are key.

Conclusion

In summary, academic dishonesty has been on the rise in the recent past. Individual's who lack integrity about academics, end-up facing various challenges in society. Academic honesty matters for various reasons. Individuals who have integrity are quickly entrusted with society to undertake responsibilities. Integrity is the root cause of trust among individuals and businesspeople. Honesty also provides value for an individual's degree. Students who are always honest having high chances of being employed since employers usually prefer honest and people with integrity. Academic integrity significantly contributes to an individual's peace of mind, health, increased productivity, and stress-free. Honesty primarily contributes to the development of society today. It defines an individual's habit and characters that can make one be looked up to by the community. Integrity is a crucial contributor to one's achievement in educational goals. Honesty in academic writing helps individuals to achieve their dreams and ambitions in education. Lack of integrity and dishonesty can be linked to stealing, which slowly develops into one's habit that can endanger their lives in the real world. Honesty in academic writing is, therefore, an essential matter to be considered by all institutions since it determines the overall integrity of the society and contributes to societal developments.

References

Blum, S. D. (2009). Academic integrity and student plagiarism: A question of education, not ethics. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(24), A35.

Eby, R. A., Hartley, P. L., Hodges, P. J., Hoffpauir, R., Newbanks, S., & Kelley, J. H. (2013). Moral integrity and moral courage: can you teach it?. Journal of Nursing Education, 52(4), 229-233.

Hooijberg, R., Lane, N., & Diverse, A. (2010). Leader effectiveness and integrity: Wishful thinking?. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 18(1), 59-75. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0a5b/cf8f63d3893974aaaafbea9f124302f57ae1.pdf

Levin, M. (2012). Academic integrity in action research. Action Research, 10(2), 133-149.

Sajid Nazir, M., & Shakeel Aslam, M. (2010). Academic dishonesty and perceptions of Pakistani students. International Journal of Educational Management, 24(7), 655-668. Retrived from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shakeel_Aslam/publication/228665310_Academic_Dishonesty_and_Perceptions_of_Pakistani_Students/links/5b157efd4585151f91f9d062/Academic-Dishonesty-and-Perceptions-of-Pakistani-Students.pdf

Spaulding, M. (2009). Perceptions of academic honesty in online vs. face-to-face classrooms. Journal of interactive online learning, 8(3). Retrieved from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/8.3.1.pdf

Woith, W., Jenkins, S. D., & Kerber, C. (2012). Perceptions of academic integrity among nursing students. In Nursing Forum (Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 253-259).