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Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Saturday, May 17, 2008

Laws of Life Essay, Silver Award: Cheating Doesn’t Pay

By Josh Beier, Cotter

You might have heard of the saying: “If you cheat and succeed you don’t achieve anything, but if you don’t cheat and succeed you achieve much more.” Well, I have had some experience with cheating, and I didn’t like the outcome of it. I learned that the number one law of life is to try and achieve rather than to cheat and succeed.

If you look at the world there are really two ways of cheating. One way is to copy off of somebody or to take somebody else’s work and say that it is yours. The other way is to tell people answers and cheating them out of learning.

My experience with cheating is actually a case with school and actually with this essay. Here is my story. Last year I had to write a Laws of Life essay for English and I said to myself that I will just do it later, but later came and I said it again. I waited until the rough draft was due the next day, and I was sitting in class day dreaming and I didn’t think anything of it. When I got home that night I sat down on the computer and I started to type, but then I started to think that maybe I should just copy somebody else's paper and it will be fine. So I did and I handed it into the teacher and I when I got my draft back it said very good on the top. So I didn’t think anything of it so I just handed the same thing in, but a different copy.

I handed the copy in the day that the final copy was due and I felt like I was going to get away with it, but was I wrong. The day that we got them back I was like “Oh yeah I probably got an A on it.” When I got mine back it had a web site on it and a big zero on the top. I asked why I got the grade that I did and my teacher said that it was plagiarized and that I will not get credit and that my parents will have to be informed. I got all upset and my teach got the head of the English department involved with me. I cheated and the punishment was not worth it. I got grounded and I didn’t get a chance to do it over until now.

Since that has happened I haven’t cheated at all. I have learned that it doesn’t “Pay to Cheat.” I have also learned that it is okay if you ask for help if you don’t get something and that it is okay to help other people, but to not give them answers because then they don’t learn and you are just cheating them out of learning.

This law is important to live by because if you don’t, you might end up like my repeating the course over again and doing all of the things that you have passed all over again all because of an assignment that you have cheated on. I did it and I have changed a lot from it.

Cheating is just a way of saying that you are too lazy to do anything yourself, and I admit that I am a little lazy and I did take the easy way out. I know that isn’t the way that my parents raised me. I do know that in the world after high school that cheating may end up in suspension or expulsion and after college if you cheat it could put you in jail. All of those things aren’t worth the cheating, but the thing is that the problems that you may cheat on will just come back to get you.

So the quote that I am going to use now is my own: “If you are going to cheat, you might as well just give up trying.”

About the Laws of Life Essay Contest: Each year students at Cotter and Winona Senior High schools submit essays that reflect on the values, ideals and principles that mean the most to them in the annual Laws of Life essay contest, organized by Saint Mary’s University and sponsored by Winona-area businesses and organizations. Winners of individual categories receive cash and or varying-level renew-able scholarships to Saint Mary’s.