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Are Honor Codes Necessary

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Is an honor code necessary? In any circumstance where a person's integrity is tested, an honor code is essential. Furthermore, an honor code will deter cheating and implement and embed integrity into the school's culture. Regardless of the students who refute to confine themselves into the system, it will ultimately influence everyone under the code. Students will generate a moral sense that weighs the costs and benefits of cheating. With this in mind, I believe that my school should establish an honor code considering that it profoundly influences the culture of the school, it contributes into creating integrity as a habit, and it ensures a safe academic environment.
First, establishing an honor code will mold integrity into a social norm. Likewise, enforcing rules to eliminate cheating and unoriginal content remarkably impacts the culture of the school. By enforcing strict rules and punishments into the school's system, students gradually grow aware and take pre-cautions. As a result, "peer culture [develops] on honor code campuses... [that makes] cheating socially unacceptable"(source F). Though a handful of students may attempt to evade the honor code, the new culture will lead them to be "embarrassed to have other students find …show more content…

Unfortunately, integrity is an unfamiliar term in a high school setting as the vast majority of students deem high school as any annoying obstacle rather than a period where they prepare themselves for the future. Establishing an honor code in high school will ensure that high school is beneficial rather than " where they learn little of value"(source F). Furthermore, the honor code ensures the development of integrity before college, when "violating the school's honor code [results] in either drop out or [expulsion]"(Source D). Therefore, starting earlier helps students in the long run for the consequences are severe in higher education

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