I'm so sick of plagiarized papers. I suspect that only 50%, at most, of the papers my students turn in are not plagiarized.
Bravo, Nate!
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
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About Me
- Angry Professor
- I am a tenured faculty member at a large state university. My teaching efforts primarily consist of delivering statistics lectures to social science majors. These experiences have colored my perspective somewhat.
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7 comments:
I hate to tell you this, but as a college student, I suspect you are very correct.
Oh erica, that's so very sad. What can instructors do to prevent this? (And I don't mean what kinds of draconian punitive measures can we take to scare students and so keep them from doing this.) Some of my colleagues think that by breaking up a paper assignment into graded sections (first you present the thesis, then the outline, the the references, then the final product) they are preventing plagiarism and work-for-hire.
Honestly, I've stopped requiring term papers for the most part. One semester (when I was at an Ivy League school) I used term papers as a way for my students to make up missed exams. Of the 8 papers that were turned in, 5 (that's 62.5%) were cut-and-pasted plagiarized from other sources.
Perhaps this incident says more about the kind of students that miss exams rather than the student body as a whole, but I have to wonder. I've decided that it's best to avoid term papers altogther.
I go to law school in Canada, and here, when you turn in a term paper, you do it in hard copy AND electronic copy. That way, the prof can run it through a computer program that searches the web for similar phrases.
As for what to do about it, punish them. Send them through the process that your institution has set up for people who cheat and plagiarize. I realize that this is the sort of punative measure that you're trying to avoid, but I can't see what else would stop it. I can see how walking students through the graded section idea would work as well, but when the final product has been handed in, I'm not sure you can be sure that some of it won't be cut and pasted.
I agree that this is a terrible problem, as it effects other students who are actually doing the work themselves.
Thanks for blogging about it!
In every institution at which I have served as a faculty member, even the grade to be assigned to the paper is not under my control once I begin the process. The decision to flunk the student in my own course is, likewise, out of my control. I am required to specify the grade that the student would receive, both on the paper and in the course, if the student is determined to be innocent of plagiarism. Then the university ethics committee takes over.
I am not even permitted to know how the case was resolved. Isn't that odd?
One of my colleagues had a student who turned in a paper that was completely plagiarized, from a paper he had written himself! As far as he knows, she did not fail his course.
Oh, and by the way, those online term paper searches cost money, and my university does not pay for them. I have to pay for them myself. As soon as the university comes to some sort of agreement with the company I'll start assigning term papers again. At least, I'd be willing to give it another shot.
I can't believe the red tape that you profs have to go through these days. I totally believe that students, especially those in post-secondary institutions (they SHOULD know better) should be held accountable for their actions. I'm sorry that you have to deal with so much crap just because some people don't understand what value they can get from actually writing a paper themselves.
I think at my school, at least to my knowledge, the online program is paid for by the administration, because every teacher uses them, for everything from a 4 page review to the 40 page tomes we write for our upper year requirement.
Anyway, I hope that in the near future you're able to come up with something that will work. I am not a big fan of 100% finals - so I'm always happy when I can write a paper!
I taught academic writing to non-native speakers of English coming to a UK university last year...I spent a solid week talking about plagiarism. Still one of the students handed in an assignment plagiarized (exactly) from an essay by Milton Freidman. Now, I'm not an economist, but even I recognized a lot of it...plus, a student from China who references the Red Menace probably doesn't know what he's turning in. The irony ran thick that day...I had to fail him for the pre-sessional program. He had to return to China in shame and tears. The saddest part is, I don't know if his English was good enough to understand my discussion of plagiarism, but he wouldn't just say he didn't understand...if he had, I could have helped him.
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