Query Letter

April 5, 2011

Dear Ms. Nichols,

There are more than 25,000 students who attend San Jose State University within every academic year. With such a large number of students on campus, is there a way to know which students are following protocol and which students are academically dishonest?

According to a report given from the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development at SJSU, there were 1,788 cases of student violations, 323 of which were violations of the Academic Integrity Policy. There are many different ways students can violate the SJSU student code of conduct, one of the most unethical things a student can do is cheat academically. What constitutes as academic cheating? What drives students to cheat? What, if anything, happens when a student is caught cheating by a professor?

These are questions I’d like to answer in this feature article and I was wondering if you’d be interested in a story about academic cheating at SJSU. The feature would be about 2,000 words in length and would include interviews with professors and faculty who are considered experts in the field of student ethics here on campus. Additionally, I’d like to include some student perspective into the article and find out what they have to say about student ethics.

As a student at SJSU, I, like many others, have been in countless classes on the first day of school where teachers affirm the importance of student ethics and point out the Academic Integrity Policy. Recently, I was in a class where the professor told an interesting anecdote about how his own autobiography paper was plagiarized and it got me thinking. I soon discovered that cheating and plagiarizing have been an issue in the past at SJSU and something I would be interested in covering.

Samples of my work can be found in the Spartan Daily archives or online at SpartanDaily.com. If you are interested in this feature story, please contact me at (707) 359-8838 or by email at melissa.sabile@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Melissa Sabile