In this thread, ** Lukey’s Boat** asks us to help him/her identify whether or not a paper is plagerized.
I know there is a policy against asking for help with homework assignments, so I was curious about whether this counts. Isn’t it the teacher’s “homework” to find out if a paper is genuine or not?
The fact that you have to put “homework” in quotation marks should tell you the answer.
If that’s too sarcastic for you, couldn’t that logic be applied to the whole SDMB by extension? “You want to debate the Existence of God? Well, we’re not here to do your homework for you, chump. Figger it out on your own, and stop coming around here.”
Hrm… this almost seems more like a Great Debate.
On one hand, students are in school to learn, and should be expected to do so on their own, but on the other hand should also be able to ask for help from quality sources when appropriate.
And teachers should have access to every resource available to catch cheating students, which fits well with the “fighting ignorance” thing, but then again, it’s asking for professional advice on a non-profit MB.
Hrm…
On preview:
pseudotriton ruber ruber- that happens quite a bit that I’ve seen.
No.
The student writes an essay to learn. The student can only do this by writing his or her own essay. Therefore, the student has not achieved the goal, and so does not deserve the credit, if the essay is plaigiarised.
The teacher grades an essay to determine how much the student has learned. The teacher therefore has a responsibility to use whatever resources are available to him or her to determine that the student has written the essay. No matter how many people help the teacher, the goal has been achieved, and so the teacher deserves his or her meagre paycheck.
I can’t see why homework should be a concern at all. If some kid asks me what’s so great about the industrial revolution, I’ll tell him what I know, and figure he’ll be smarter for it. What’s the dif if the reason he asked was that it was assigned?
It sort of depends on the question, Jjinn. Would you write an essay for him, that he could then submit under his name, pretending he wrote it?
There are plenty of websites that provide help with homework. Help with homework is NOT just giving someone the answer, it’s helping them figure out how to find the answers in future. Our refusal to help with homework is not a hard-and-fast rule, it’s a preference. We really DON’T want to be flooded with kids who are too lazy to do the work themselves, thanks very much.
If I can expand on that just a bit, Dex; while we don’t want to be churning out the answers to a math worksheet for someone who just doesn’t want to make the effort on their own, I certainly don’t mind helping somebody get around the bend when they’ve obviously been trying and have hit a hump.
Last week we had somebody researching a history question. The OP stated up front that they were looking for an answer to a question put to them by an instructor, and described what they had done so far to try to find an answer. And they just wanted some perspective, a little something to get them off bottom. And they indicated their willingness to have at it with the effort once they became unstalled.
I certainly don’t make board policy, but I have no problem with questions of that sort.
Good example, Ringo. We don’t have a “rule” about not helping with homework, it’s more a preference that we should NOT be the first step.