Cheating

To be honest, I totally bullshitted this essay during the summer. I had senioritis and my orientation was in early June, right before I started summer term. I was about to go off to college after just finishing up with high school. I was worried about making new friends, adjusting to living in a dorm, and getting a strong start academically all while saying goodbye to friends. The last thing I was thinking about was an essay on cheating. I stuck to the five-paragraph essay format and it was thus very stiff, reading as if a robot had written it. This is typical of my writing though, I often have trouble creating a nice flow to the paper because I am so worried about making it formal. I went from being too conversational back in my early days of high school, to too formal in my freshman year of college.

            While this paper on cheating might be perfect for the writing portion of the SAT, I think that in order to create a strong academic essay in college, a little extra is needed. I don’t think I’ve figured out what that is yet, but I’m on the right track after this semester.

This was actually a very interesting article, though. I went to a very competitive private high school where cheating was something that occurred every day, but either went unnoticed or was simply ignored to avoid conflict. I could easily see the situations occurring with the way the author weaved the stories of these teens throughout his article. The article told a story that could be visualized, while also informing the reader about the lack of clarity over what cheating actually is and how it needs to be stopped. It was like reading a story instead of an article.