# I told you, didn't I? \[plagiarism in college\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 18, 2014, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597 "2014-12-18T18:52:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/1 "2014-12-18T18:52:39Z")
Plagiarism is the scourge of academic teaching these days. We try (and try, and try. And try.) to teach the students that plagiarism is the second deadliest sin in academia. That we catch at least quite a bit of those who try. That plagiarism is cheating, and cheating will ,if caught, fail them and even may cause a suspension. Do they learn? No way. Do they understand that if they can find something on the Internet, we can? No way. Do they realize that we have automated systems that crawl the web and search for the very phrases they use in their (electronic) reports? Apparently not. The last really makes me realize I’m an old fart: Are today’s students that fucking dumb? Got another report this fall. Engineering project. Couple of red flags were raised on first reading. Put it through the plagiarism control system. Yep, the whole frikkin’ intro was lifted, verbatim, from a thesis on the frikkin’ web! Now I just have to find out if we’re going to fail them, or if we’re just going to give them a crappy minimum pass grade, and if the whole group should be slapped, or if we should single out the one student who “wrote” that chapter. Fuck, do they think we’re so stupid that we won’t catch them, or are they themselves so stupid that they don’t understand? What really depresses me is that these guys aren’t freshmen. They’re master degree students. They should know better. ---
**Author:** ![Encinitas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Encinitas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Encinitas)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/2 "2014-12-18T19:07:50Z")
Jeez, how hard is it to summarize a quote and add a reference? For a graduate student! ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/3 "2014-12-18T19:09:25Z")
Yep, that’s pretty dumb. It just occurred to me one way that, I believe, you could easily get away with it. The trick is you have to be bi-lingual. Just find an old journal in another language that hasn’t been converted to electronic copy or translated, and steal from that. Holes in this plan? ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/4 "2014-12-18T19:14:14Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > Just find an old journal in another language that hasn’t been converted to electronic copy or translated, and steal from that. Holes in this plan? Only hole I can see is if your professor is intimately familiar with the literature. So don’t try it on a Master’s or PhD thesis work within your professor’s field of research. If it’s a minor project course outside your professor’s field of work, you’ll have a decent (but not perfect) chance to pull it off. ETA: But if you’re going through the work of translating it, it’s even less of a chore to rewrite it and use it properly ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/5 "2014-12-18T19:28:02Z")
Dumb, or entitled? As in, they feel they deserve a passing grade and a degree, so you should just let them copy things from the internet? ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/6 "2014-12-18T19:42:13Z")
I don’t see how there’s a question. You steal, you fail. Period. It’s not only the individual’s credibility, which apparently is crap, but the instructor who misses the theft and the department/institution if it chooses to give another chance or let the plagiarist pass with a minimum grade. I’m sure money plays heavily into all of this, but it shouldn’t. But what do I know - I’m an engineer, not an educator. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/7 "2014-12-18T19:59:12Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > I don’t see how there’s a question. You steal, you fail. Period. MHO is the same. But apparently, we have some kind of scale for the severity of the cheating and the severity of the reaction. If I don’t conform to that scale, there’s just going to be a lot of crap flying, and when the shitstorm’s over, the result will conform to central guidelines. I don’t need that crapfest. Then there’s the problem with the project being a group project, not an individual one. Yes, every group member is in principle accountable for the whole result, but frankly, it just doesn’t work that way in real life. If you’re a co-author or a co-worker, is it reasonable to demand that you’re personally responsible for everything your coworkers produce? Even if it’s outside your field of competence? > [@FairyChatMom](#): > > I’m sure money plays heavily into all of this. I’ve been accused of being a cynic more than once, but in this case, I don’t think so. We’re a public institution, so we don’t depend on donations. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/8 "2014-12-18T20:02:02Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Dumb, or entitled? Fortunately, we have a lot more of the dumb kind than of the entitled kind. 🙂 At least so far… ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/9 "2014-12-18T20:10:32Z")
My favorite is when a student that can barely write a coherent sentence turns in a paper with vocabulary and sentence structure far above their level. A semester of “The line has a midpoint because I figured that’s what it’d be doing.” becomes “Assume segment BD is bisected at point A. The locus of points …” when a report done at home. Of course when I ask them in class what a locus is, if lucky I get “It’s like a grasshopper.” ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/10 "2014-12-18T20:13:40Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > Got another report this fall. Engineering project. Couple of red flags were raised on first reading. Put it through the plagiarism control system. Yep, the whole frikkin’ intro was lifted, verbatim, from a thesis on the frikkin’ web! Now I just have to find out if we’re going to fail them, or if we’re just going to give them a crappy minimum pass grade, and if the whole group should be slapped, or if we should single out the one student who “wrote” that chapter. > > Fuck, do they think we’re so stupid that we won’t catch them, or are they themselves so stupid that they don’t understand? I’ve done a little research in this area, and it looks to me like students who plagiarize are sometimes genuinely confused but more often believe that they will not be caught – and that if they are caught, they’re unlikely to face the harsher penalties. Unfortunately, I suspect they’re mostly right about this. > [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > It just occurred to me one way that, I believe, you could easily get away with it. The trick is you have to be bi-lingual. > > Just find an old journal in another language that hasn’t been converted to electronic copy or translated, and steal from that. Holes in this plan? I’m a university librarian, and it would be a pain for _me_ to identify a journal article that’s relevant to a particular topic, isn’t obviously outdated, but that isn’t available electronically, isn’t written in English, and has never been translated into English. I started to write a much longer post explaining all the ways in which this would be difficult, but the short and simple version is that American colleges generally do not own a whole lot of old, foreign language print journals, nor are their database subscriptions likely to cover many old, foreign language articles that aren’t available online. Students are often pretty bad at finding even the current, relevant, English-language articles we _do_ have access to, so what you’re suggesting sounds to me like it would be far beyond the abilities of most students. Even if a student could manage to do this, getting ahold of a suitable article and translating it would probably take more time and more effort than just doing a half-assed job of writing an original paper. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/11 "2014-12-18T22:13:06Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > My favorite is when a student that can barely write a coherent sentence turns in a paper with vocabulary and sentence structure far above their level. A semester of “The line has a midpoint because I figured that’s what it’d be doing.” becomes “Assume segment BD is bisected at point A. The locus of points …” when a report done at home. Of course when I ask them in class what a locus is, if lucky I get “It’s like a grasshopper.” Of course, that _always_ happens. _Always_. If they were marginally competent with language and writing, they wouldn’t need to plagiarize in the first place; but because they are _not_ even marginally competent, they can’t see the glaring differences between their own prose and academic writing. I’ve posted this before, but one of my favorite examples (real!) from a student paper went like this: > [@](#): > > Wilde also brought in some biblical work like the Rev. Chasuble, he was the “Doctor of Divinity.” Jack and Algergon approach Dr. Chasuble to request that they be christened. That lets you know there that Wilde had a little faith. In general, this play had a lots of mature stage parts. When this play ended, it had the readers and audience asking question on what happens next after Jack found out that his name is Ernest and Algernon is his brother? The question I would ask is, did Jack ever marry Gwendolyn? since he found out they are cousin now. Did Algernon marry Cecily? since the play ended kind of crazy, it make you look for more of Wilde work to read. > > In conclusion, Wilde is saying that “The Importance of Being Earnest” empties manners and morals of their underlying sense to create a nominalist world where earnest is not a quality of character but a name, where words, to paraphrase Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass (1871) mean what you choose them to mean, neither more nor less. I have showed this passage to my freshman comp students and asked them to spot the plagiarized bits. Invariably, the top three or four students in the class hit the second paragraph and _crack up_ laughing. The average ones will get it with some prodding. The ones at the bottom of the class look up in bewilderment; they cannot hear the shift in style at all. It’s as perfect an illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect as anything I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/12 "2014-12-18T22:39:27Z")
I don’t know how it is now but twelve years ago or so you never got caught. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/13 "2014-12-18T22:40:32Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > \ > I have showed this passage to my freshman comp students and asked them to spot the plagiarized bits. Invariably, the top three or four students in the class hit the second paragraph and _crack up_ laughing. The average ones will get it with some prodding. The ones at the bottom of the class look up in bewilderment; they cannot hear the shift in style at all. It’s as perfect an illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect as anything I’ve ever seen. Dear Lord - that is a truly glaring example! The first paragraph is barely English! ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/14 "2014-12-19T00:00:14Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Dear Lord - that is a truly glaring example! The first paragraph is barely English! Depending on the level - it isn’t an absolutely horrible analysis and summary though. I’d be thrilled if my probably not college going tenth grader brought that home (although he does write gooder English). On the other hand, my ninth grade daughter has gotten accused of plagiarizing things she wrote herself because “kids her age don’t write that well or use those words.” (And she wouldn’t have, but she is familiar with the thesaurus feature in Word). ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/15 "2014-12-19T01:52:30Z")
Sheesh, first rule of plagiarism is to just rewrite the whole damn thing in your words. Worked for me. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/16 "2014-12-19T03:56:05Z")
My first rule of plagiarism is to just rewrite the whole damn thing in your words. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/17 "2014-12-19T04:03:04Z")
The second rule of plagiarism is to JUST REWRITE the whole damn thing in your own words. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/18 "2014-12-19T04:42:13Z")
There are those who believe that the first principle is to recast the condemned passage in one’s own manner. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/19 "2014-12-19T05:40:23Z")
Another response, however, is to simply “rewrite the. . . thing in your own words.” (China Guy, 2014). Wait, crap ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2014, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597/20 "2014-12-19T10:17:39Z")
Meanwhile, in another thread, we read this: > [@Can you describe the worst teacher you ever had?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-describe-the-worst-teacher-you-ever-had/691215/6): > > All the guy did in class was read aloud from the text. Each class he would assign a couple chapters to read for the next class. And then read aloud from those chapters. The worst part about it was he took attendance each class and attendance was mandatory. Personally, I’ll start to worry about plagiarism by students when the college starts to worry about teaching by teachers. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-told-you-didnt-i-plagiarism-in-college/707597.md?page=2)