In the past, the only sources to use when preparing a paper were the lecture notes and the library. But over time, things have drastically changed. Although it would seem logical that students nowadays will have access to more excellent knowledge on any given subject, the opposite frequently occurs—and the problem isn't just one of literacy.

When given a writing assignment by a teacher, some students—well, they decide to cheat.

Thanks to technology and the internet, students have a wide range of options for doing this. They cheat for various reasons, including the pressure above, poor time management and planning, general lack of motivation, and overburdened with schoolwork and social pressure. Whatever the motivation, cheating nevertheless undermines the academic honesty of educational institutions.

So, how do students cheat, and can we stop it with current technology?

• The Dangers of Student Creativity

Sometimes, plagiarism on a paper is done quite creatively by students. Teachers may help students who choose to cheat by exposing them to challenging material and directing their potential in the proper direction. Students who are unwilling to work on an original paper and put their thoughts into words most frequently use text alteration.

• Electronic text editing

The term "digital text manipulation" refers to various technologically assisted plagiarism tactics students use. Students that use digital text editing do so because they think their teachers won't be able to catch the offenders since they are ignorant of all the specialized techniques used to change texts. However, a sophisticated plagiarism detection tool can detect a variety of academic dishonesty, including digital text editing.

Different techniques can be used to modify digital text. Here, let's have a closer look at these.

Four Simple Ways for Students to Avoid Being Caught Copying

1. Letter Swapping

Utilizing letter duplication from other languages is known as letter substitution. For instance, students will copy someone else's work and then replace every English 'o', 'e', 'a,' and 'c' with identical-looking Cyrillic characters to pass it off as their own. They may deceive a crude plagiarism checker in this way.

2. Inventing references

Instead of making an effort to research the necessary reference, some students add irrelevant or non-existent references to their papers. For example, a student may compose an essay on Romeo and Juliet and, instead of citing legitimate critique of the work, create fictitious references or cite legitimate references with fictitious page numbers. The topic of a reference provided by the student may be relevant, but it needs not to express or bolster the concepts the student associates with the reference.

3. Adding Text in White

Sometimes, to hide plagiarism, students may inject original white text. They put various characters and spaces in white to hide them from the teacher. Even a crude plagiarism detector won't be able to locate them.

4. Format Adjustment

Unscrupulous students occasionally provide a paper as an image so that the instructor cannot run anti-plagiarism software on it. The paper cannot be checked with any programme, but the instructor may still read it and grade it. This is why professors are specific about the type of paper they expect.

Text modification: Is it unethical?

The most irresponsible students may resort to outright plagiarism, copying someone else's work verbatim. A person who plagiarises the material pretends that the work is theirs rather than acknowledging the author or utilizing their quotes. Direct plagiarism is the simplest to spot with virtually any online plagiarism detector for instructors.

Text alteration, which is altering someone else's original work to portray it as your own, is cheating. There are several types and techniques for text editing, each requiring a different amount of effort from students who are unwilling to complete their papers correctly. Text editing is quite similar to plagiarism; however, it takes longer and more work than just copying and pasting.

Conclusion

The scourge of academia and education is plagiarism. Numerous students worldwide try to pass off someone else's work as their own, despite having more tools than ever to compose an original paper. Some cheating takes such inventiveness that professors frequently ponder why a student wouldn't invest all of this time and energy in completing the actual task. For more information, consult LiveWebTutors' experts in assignment writing services.

To ensure that all submitted work is original, teachers and students should be able to detect plagiarism. After all, technology isn't intended to be a tool that makes kids' life more difficult. It is designed to support teachers in recognizing problems and solving them, aid in students' education, and help them express their creativity appropriately.