Poll: Half of Cambridge students cheat

CAMBRIDGE, England, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A poll of students at Britain's Cambridge University found nearly half of respondents admitted cheating or submitting an essay they found on the Internet.

The anonymous online poll of more than 1,000 students, conducted by student newspaper Varsity, found 49 percent of those polled admitted to taking credit for work done by someone else during their tenure at the university, The Times of London reported Friday.

However, only 5 percent of those polled said they had been caught plagiarizing.

"Sometimes, when I am really fed up, I Google the essay title, copy and throw everything on to a blank word document and jiggle the order a bit. They usually end up being the best essays," one respondent told the student paper.

The survey suggests law students were most likely to plagiarize, with 62 percent admitting to turning in work they didn't create.

The survey found 82 percent of those polled admitted using the open-source Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia instead of approved research sources.