Pitting Students who Choose to Plagiarize

The BBQ Pit
1

I teach an online course entitled “Introduction to the Internet.” The course is set up to show students many facets of using the Internet, from using E-mail, to FTP, to Newsgroups and Usenet, to online Gaming.

One of the assignments is a research paper, where they can choose a topic, and write a research paper about that topic. I don’t expect publishable articles, but I do expect them to be able to synthesize information from multiple sources, and cite and reference their sources appropriately. To help with this, I even require that they submit a topic at and least three references for their topic at the beginning of the quarter, so that the student knows that there are good sources for their topic even before they start to write anything.

I also require that all sources be available on the Internet (“evaluate Internet sources” is one of the goals of the course), and that their references be less than 3 years old. I also tell them that I expect 5-8 pages in double-spaced 12-point text, with 1" margins on all sides. This is NOT a long research paper by any means–my daughter in high school has certainly written several research papers of that length, if not longer.

One student opted to submit a paper that was copied from an online essay website. Not only is the text 100% copied from the source, but it is a Bad Paper to begin with. None of the sources are less than 3 years old (one paragraph deals with Netscape 2.0 and the “evils” of the fact that it supports Java!), and only one of the sources is even remotely available online (and that’s only with a bit of Google-fu on my part–the essay doesn’t bother to include a full URL!).

When I told the student that he was getting an F for the course for plagiarism, he actually tried to accuse me of submitting his “original” paper to the essay website, so that I could accuse him of plagiarism! (I found the same paper on at least ten different websites.)

He claims that he is a good writer, and that the people he works for have never complained about the quality of his reports. He even gave me a list of eight good references for the research paper at the beginning of the quarter.

Why on EARTH would a student feel justified in copying and pasting a paper from a Free Essays website, and submitting it as an “original” paper??? Especially when the paper will be submitted through TurnItIn? In the time it has taken for me to argue with him about the grade, submit all the paperwork required to justify giving him an immediate F in the course, and meet with the dean about the situation, I could have graded all of the other papers submitted for this assignment. That doesn’t even count the time it will probably take for me to sit through a grade appeal that he is likely to request, if only so he doesn’t have to pay for the course that he didn’t want to take in the first place!!

(For the record, for any student who feels like doing this in the future, most of the “free” papers will earn a grade of D at most, because they are very poorly written, with bad references. But most teachers will immediately recognize these papers, too, especially if they use TurnItIn to help identify plagiarized papers!)

2

Well, if he’s just thinking of passing the course, it makes an amoral kind of sense. Of course, it makes no sense if the goal is to actually learn something. It makes even less sense to cheat if you’re bad at it.

3

One of the nice things about life is that people who are stupid and lazy enough to cheat are usually not smart or hardworking enough to do a good job at it. :slight_smile:

4

I completely agree with your rant, but forgive me for being cynical about the ability of your Dean to handle the situation properly. More likely than not, the student will be given a verbal warning, and not until he gets caught plagiarizing again will he be actually punished. :frowning:

5

Hmmm, I wonder what would happen if you went to those people he works for and asked them if any of those reports had been plagiarized.

What a :wally

6

And that goes for the Google Ad links, too. :rolleyes:

7

It depends on the academic honesty policies. At just about any place I can imagine–and I have taught at three different campuses–a single offense is enough for an irrevocable “F” and the threat of having the incident placed on the student’s permanent record unless s/he agrees to take a workshop (sort of like traffic school). Second offenses are definitely made permanent and public and the offender is kicked out for at least a year.
However, if the first offense is especially egregious, the professor can ask for a harsher penalty than the one I mentioned first; and if there’s a zero tolerance policy in effect and the professor has the necessary evidence, that student might as well pack it up and leave.

8

[slight hijack] I’m an undergrad, and I was talking to a friend of the family who happens to be a professor at my university. We were discussing this topic, and he told me that he is usually tipped off to plagarism when the writing style drastically changes, or if he is reading something that sounds a tad too familiar.

When he was going through one class’s essays, he ran across something that treaded into the too familiar territory.

One of his students had plagarized from my family friend’s work! He used his professor’s work, for a paper for that professor. There aren’t enough :eek: s or :smack: s in the world [/hijack]

As a student, the idea that maybe someone is getting away with it pisses me off (although my classes are usually small, and my professors check every paper thoroughly). I’ve heard of people getting caught and let off with a warning, and that pisses me off so much! Why should I have to work harder than they do!?

9

How about this:

My second year of teaching chemistry, and one of my classes isn’t doing so well. Ok, I give them what should be a fluff paper (biography of some famous chemist). I catch 6 out of 24 (all 6 were seniors, but not all 24) copying straight from the net, even after I made it explicitly clear that I check and how I check. Not all 6 papers were 100% copied, but each of the six had some kind of egregious error. One was almost entirely copied verbatim from a couple of websites. My theory here was to make a point without sinking the kids (most of them were borderline already). All zeroes, but they could save themselves on another draft. While the rest of the class only had to make minor corrections to improve their grade, these guys would have to bust their hump, and sit through my lecture on plagiarism. (I thought that an average of 40 to 50 on two papers is way better than an average of zero on one and they might actually learn something.)

Fast forward a couple of weeks. Everybody has turned in their papers; almost all are drastic improvements. With one exception. One of the six has turned in a paper that is worse than the original. What was once plagiarism from a couple of sources is now one webpage, verbatim. (And not even an essay from a web page; just a web page.)

This kid comes walking in, and asks me if I had graded the papers. He sounded like he really thought he was going to get a good grade. I must admit, my response was kind of snippy. He could tell. He then asked why I was upset. My witty response: you know. Turns out, he didn’t.

You see, he paid his sister to write the paper for him, and she just copied the thing straight off the 'net. Two big time zeroes. I didn’t bother failing him for the year; he did that on his own.

10

I just had the opposite situation recently. I teach at one of those “career colleges” that advertise on daytime TV, so my expectations of my students are very different than when I was at State U. I recently gave a research paper that was to be 4-5 pages with a minumum 3 sources cited.

One of my weaker students (who was still managing a C in the class) turned in a very well written 12 page essay with 20+ sources, most all of which were very technical academic journals (which our library doesn’t carry). My school doesn’t pay for turnitin, but .005 seconds with Google found the source. Stupidest plagarism job I’ve ever seen.

11

Amen to that. I no longer post my solutions for any programming projects, because long ago I did that, and the next term I used the same core “starter” code, but changed the assignment around so it wasn’t the same as the previous term. I had tons of people turn in solutions that clearly were for the previous term’s assignment, and 6 people plagiarized one of MY solutions to a function. One person left all my documentation comments in, as is.

Too true. I’m sure you remember this blast from the past – call it Exhibit A.

12

Are these people perhaps too clueless about the Internet to realize how stupid they’re being–and that it’s wrong in the first place? Do they have any idea how to write papers at all anyway?

I ask because I have recently had occasion to realize just how clueless some people are about things like research papers. I work the reference desk at the library as an occasional substitute, and the last couple of times I met these people:

Woman #1, in her 40’s, doing an art history paper on a fairly obscure Native American topic. One of those people who tells you everything when all you want to do is solve her problem and move on. Over time it becomes clear that she has no idea how to use reference books, do online research, or indeed even figure out how to write bibliographical citations. I got her a manual of style, showed her the pages on bibliographies, pointed out the relevant examples, and then realized she didn’t know whether to use MLA or APA, and couldn’t figure out how to use the examples anyway. She essentially wanted me to do her bibliography for her. But we were closing, and I told her to check out the book–but naturally she had lost her library card, which was expired anyway…

Woman #2, in her 50’s, I’m not sure what she wanted really. She apparently needed to write essays on the Civil War and 9/11. She wanted me to print out essays for her from the Internet so that she could accomplish this. :dubious: She could not use computers at all herself, of course. She refused to take (free) books, but insisted that she was willing to pay any price for printouts. She actually tried to give me her credit card in order to buy essays from some random site :eek: , and when I asked her what aspect of the Civil War she wanted to know about, she said “The historical part.” :smack: I eventually charged her over $5 to print out some online encyclopedia entries. She clearly had not the least idea how to do the most basic research, not to mention citation use or anything complicated like that.

Then there was the guy (25?) who had the weekend to write a paper “on World War II”…

13

I blame the educational system (and by “educational system,” I recognize that I’m part of that group too).

Teachers make the assumption that people learned somewhere down the road how to research. Or they assume that further down the road, people will learn how to research.

I spent the first three weeks of every year learning how to do metric measurement and scientific notation in science class – I think we should do the same thing with research (be it for English, history, or science). Believe it or not, it wasn’t until college that I learned the difference between a report and a research paper.

14

If you’re at the college level, isn’t it safe to assume you’ve been taught the basics of how to research something? I remember having to research things all the way through primary and high school, starting with basic library book research when I was a littlie, all the way through to using the interwebs for some of my reports in upper high school. They’re not teaching that stuff in schools over there?

15

I’ve had to fail four students in my Analytical Chemistry course this year because they plagiarised me. One student of mine was also working with me in another class as a colleague, and he handed in MY assignment for that class to address an assignment I set for him in my Analytical Chemistry class!

This is at a vocational school, so we do expect a little less of our students than at University level. For that reason, we make them sit through a class in first-year called “Presenting Reports”, where they are taught (again) how to research, how to reference, how to evaluate sources, etc. Obviously that hasn’t sunk in. I can’t even say that it’s mostly the students that “don’t care” or are lazy; one of the people I failed got the highest score on the exam, and turned in two brilliant papers (all original work) - just had no clue that copying directly from MY work constituted plagiarism.

Man … nothing makes me angrier than plagiarism, except for perhaps group assignments … :mad:

16

(Joining the chorus)

My high school sophomores just turned in a little paper Monday on the roots of Deism in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. Two boys in the same period (AP, mind you!) turned in essentially identical papers. Each of them had copied the same web essay, and then just rearranged it a bit, changing a word here or there. After I photocopied the papers as evidence, I returned them…shredded.

I usually have to do this about every 4 years or so, as an example to the others.

17

Two stories:

  1. A few years ago, my husband was taking an “English for Engineers” class, which was a requirement for his B. Eng degree. One of the first assignments was to hand in a paragraph (or half-page thing, something short) about plagiarism and why it’s not ok, etc. A guy in the class…plagiarized…the paper on plagiarism!!! Copied direct off a webpage, typos and all!

  2. Analytical chemistry 2. In a 12 week semester, we had 6 lab projects, so we had a lab session every 2 weeks, with the lab reports (tedious, lots of detail, annoying) due at the next lab time. Lab groups were small, so any given lab day, only 2 people worked on any one lab, and we rotated through all 6. Anyways, 12 people, out of a class size of about 30-40, got caught plagiarizing, word for word, with just the numbers changed to their own raw data. A guy got his gf’s reports (she thought it would help him understand the work - very common among people in the chem program to work on lab reports together) and he not only handed them in for himself, but gave them to all his friends, and they did the same. Needless to say, she dumped him when they got caught (but not before she had to defend herself from accusations of cheating and plagiarism - she had her original email with attachments as support, though). The TAs spent a day going through every report handed in for the semester, highlighting common sections, and came up with pages and pages of orange! One highlighter dried out.

Stupid people.

18

Oh the irony! :stuck_out_tongue:

What we have here is someone who would cheat on an ethics test! :wally

19

“Plagiarize!
Let no one else’s work evade your eyes.
Remember why the good lord made your eyes.
So don’t shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize,
Only be sure to always - to call it, please - research.”

Lobachevsky, a song by Tom Lehrer.

20

I had a student give me word for word the Wikipedia article for a 9/11 paper I had them write. It was pretty easy to spot though.

His English was not very good (The ESL teacher was pretty sure he cheated on the test to get finished with that program.)

I never recieved any of the begining material. No rough draft or outline or any of the other stuff I made them do for the article.

The wiki article was one of the links I gave on the handout when we started their research.