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Comment by eviks | Hacker News Reader

> but have a harder time arguing they signed a pledge without reading it.

This is easy to argue, people do it all the time (hello, TOS). So there is nothing incontrovertible about it.

It also contradicts the goal for pledges expressed by those setting this policy, they want to "strengthen the dedication to academic integrity" etc

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If you’re arguing that then the answer is: too bad. These sorts of pledges are not 30 pages of legalese that you’re asked to agree to in the middle of a purchase. It’s usually a single page of plain language. If someone signs it without reading it they lose all rights to argue they weren’t aware. Choosing to remain unaware is not a defense.

Syllabus isn't legalese either, and not reading its first page that cheating is bad is exactly the same choice with the same "rights" attached. There is no magical difference here

You don’t countersign a syllabus.

Then add a signing requirement???

You are arguing for the sake of arguing.

Or you could just add it to the honor code, once, instead of multiple times each semester on what is typically a purely informational document.

Focus. The only goal here is creating a paper trail, and signing the honor code once does that and exactly that.

Sure, having a clear honor code is helpful. But individual instructors and courses have different policies on which tools are allowed and how students can collaborate.

If you sign something that says “I won’t do X”, and then you do X and argue you didn’t actually read what you signed, no one is going to take you seriously.

Two things can be true at once. You can take your pledge seriously, which is the happy path. And in the event that you choose the unhappy path, it can also be used as evidence that you understood the requirements. The overwhelming majority of my students choose the happy path.

Do you think that the pledge reduced the incidence of cheating, as students may have treated it as a warning that this class would enforce rules on cheating?

That would be surprising to me. I wouldn't take seriously anything the university says, as opposed to does. Prospective cheaters probably take their cues about likely enforcement levels from fellow students who have seen [lack of] actual consequences.

I took it seriously as a student. I remember during a no-book take home exam having forgotten some stupid little fact, and thinking “damn it would be such a little thing to look it up in the textbook” and feeling so much shame about even considering it, specifically because I had to handwrite an honor pledge on my work. (I didn’t cheat, by the way.)

How does it contradict, exactly?

To me it seems completely congruent with your quotation.

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