Quoth Exapno Mapcase:
But catching them, and subsequently punishing them in some way, is absolutely essential to this re-education process. If you give full credit for plagiarized assignments, then the students will learn that plagiarism is a perfectly good way to get a good grade, which is in turn, theoretically, at least, an indicator that they’re learning what they’re supposed to in the class. Needless to say, this is not the education you want your students to receive.
On one level this is the age old question: is it better to stop unwanted behavior by creating conditions so that it never emerges in the first place or by strongly punishing it when it does appear. Both is one possible answer.
On another level, this is a total misreading of everything I’ve said. Especially since you posted this after I said “It is completely right to flunk plagiarists.”
Whoops, sorry about that. I didn’t notice that it was you who made both statements. It looks like we’re in agreement, then.
That’s an encouraging sign. Intellectual property is a modern and rather artificial concept. If it disappeared the world wouldn’t fall apart.
As far as the matter of stealing papers is concerned, you’d be surprised how common this is in the academic world of continental Europe. There students regularly ask friends to take exams for them, download papers, rip whole sections from books, etc. with no qualms. European universities aren’t such nagging harpies about plagiarism as American schools. This continues after university. Many European writers have published reviews or translations that were actually done by friends or acquaintances.
UnuMondo
Are you saying this a good thing, or simply a common thing?
I don’t have any numbers for this, but one of my professors told us the same thing. They have quite a problem explaining why you can’t do this when the students come over here, apparently.
Well, both. With plagiarism, I think it’s only wrong if society says it wrong. It’s not a big deal in many European universities, ergo I don’t think it’s a “bad thing”.
UnuMondo
<OT> Something is “only wrong if society says it’s wrong?” What if “society” said enjoying any kind of music were wrong? Or what if “society” said women having the right to vote, getting educated or showing their bare hand in public is wrong? CHOP that hand off–no problem. It’s right if society says so.
Or what if the enlightened Europeans got together as one warm, fuzzy society (…could happen…) and decided to say, “We’re cracking down, plagiarism is now wrong”? Would one then suddenly think it a morally wrong thing to do? And then what if they changed it back again? Would one change back and forth with them, chasing along behind the societal herd like a color-changing jellyfish, allowing the popular vote to set one’s moral compass and decide what one thinks is right and wrong?
Of course not. One innately knows right from wrong, weighs the options and then either (a) does the right thing in accord with good conscience, or (b) rationalizes that if nobody cares or finds out about this little indiscretion or that little sacrifice of dignity, no big deal. The class passed, the grade made, a destiny awaits creation from character traits crafted in the forges of habit. GIGO
</OT>
The easiest way to prevent plagairism is to set an assignment so specifically geared to the course that it would be impossible to grab a paper from the web about it. For example, when I taught an introductory art course I had students visit an art exhibit and a musical or dramatic performance and write about them. It’s easy to spot a plagiarist when they write somethign that deviates from the assignment, like the student I failed for turning in someone’s web page on African art as a paper on an art exhibit.
You develop an eye for what students are generally capable of after reading hundreds of papers a sememster, and sentences pop out at you and you can tell those were swiped from exhibition catalogs or playbills or whatever.
Google and alltheweb (a sadly defunt search engine) were great help, but I didn’t have too many pulled from the web papers because of the nature of the assignments.
I imagine plagairism slips through a lot more in large auditorum-sized classes when you don’t have time to take the steps I did or have readers doing the grading for you. Also, I passionately hate plagairism and lecture about it in class and gave them handouts, so that cut down on it too.
I warn them in my syllabus, warn them in class, tell them what happens to people who engage in plagiarism–and the little buggars do it anyway. Well, a few of them, and almost always international students who do not have the chops to get through a composition course under their own steam. That’s apparently why they resort to just taking stuff off the Internet.
It is incredibly easy for me to Google and catch them. I make several copies, keep the originals, hand one copy over to Student Life, and this is the gist of what the students receive in a letter from that office (some is paraphrased):
Dear [Plagiarist]:
viva has reported a plagiarism incident in her class…this is in direct violation of the college student discipline policy, #blahblahblah. This report will be kept on file…A student discipline contract has been included in this letter for your review and signature.
[They sign if they agree, within 10 days, return it; or make an appointment to meet with the authorities if they don’t agree. I have no idea what is in this thing but I imagine it’s some sort of confession and acceptance.]
You will be given the opportunity to attend a Character diversion workshop [???] next year. If you attend these sessions, we will not disclose this incident when we receive an inquiry regarding your attendance at the college.
A future violation of any kind may result in disciplinary action such as suspension or possible expulsion. Your being assigned an F for the assignment was the punitive action imposed by the professor for this reported violation.
If you would like to discuss this, you have 10 days, yada yada yada.
I wonder what goes on at a character diversion workshop…?
I’d be scared if I got a letter like this in the mail. But then, I never would and never did, because it never occurred to me not to do my own damn work instead of lifting it word-for-word off the net or a book and turning it in as if it were my own.
No, you couldn’t make that argument, because it is NOT obvious that you would have written exactly the same thing eventually. If you disagree with my assessment, ask two people to individually write down step-by-step instructions on how to, oh, walk. Or put on a shirt. Or sit down on the couch. If they write exactly the same thing one time out of ten, I’ll give you a million dollars.
o
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I can hardly believe that what I had written previously would have been taken so.
Let me try to break it down
The whole idea of authors violating my human rights by being interlopers on MY (as yet) undiscovered intellectual property was a joke. It’s a funny concept, or so I thougt. At least hyjyljyj got it, and laughed (and laughed), so I am happy that now two people are amused by this idea.
But now I must defend at least a part of it. If it is a certainty that a billion monkeys given a billion years typing on a billion typewriters would eventually yeild at least one Shakespeare, I can easily argue that I would EVENTUALLY write something (especially if it is exactly what I believe) that has been written before. I write a lot, you see? (please, please… there is another joke in there, try to find it!)
oooof!
Oh, and by the way…
SPOOFE you unwittingly prove my point.
If I ask 2 people, namely myself and the author of the text I wish to copy (who may be deceased and so we will have to go by what he/she has written) how to do X, then we will both come up with exactly the same answer! It’s a certainty!