Astroboy: You’d think the obvious would be…you know, obvious, right?
Apparently not.
Your tale reminded me of a male student of mine from a few years back whose paper sounded a bit fishy to me and which I suspected was plagiarized. Then I got to the part in the middle of the paper which read “…and as a woman, I…”
That pretty much gave it away. Off to Google I went, and found the damn thing online.
:rolleyes:
There’s a thread over in IMHO about what to take on a time travel trip. I said I want to go back with a video camera. This would be on the list. The expression on her face was truly fantastic and should have been recorded for posterity. I honest-to-Og did not know that a person’s face could move in four different directions at once.
:Clothahump looks at fingers, then at keyboard, then back at fingers:
Damn. Mr. Preview is your friend. Remember that in the future. :smack:
Just had another one from a couple weeks ago:
A student had plagiarized an essay. I caught it, turned it in, gave it an F, no rewrite allowed.
He first tried to tell me that he had somehow run out of time because of his uncle’s funeral. (I’m not sure what this means, but whatever.)
I thought about my own beloved uncle’s funeral last fall. It was very upsetting, but I still had to grade papers and give them back in a timely manner.
He thenasked if he could do it over because it was “going to mess up” his grade.
Me: “Well, that’s why you shouldn’t plagiarize.”
Sheesh.
This thread reminds me of an old joke.
Bubba and Clyde are in the same class. Prof throws a pop quiz and Clyde copies off Bubba’s paper. Prof calls them into the office the next day and hands them their quizzes.
Bubba’s reads 90 / A. Clyde’s reads 90 / F.
Clyde says, “Huh? Why do I get an F if I got a 90?”
Prof says, “Both you and Bubba got the first 9 questions right. Bubba answered number 10 with ‘I don’t know’. You answered it with ‘I don’t know either.’”
Slut With 'Tude
Clothahump, I would love to have been a fly on the wall for that. Hilarious. 
My personal favorite story was from when I taught Art Appreciation at a Catholic girls high school to first years.
The assignment was to write about a painting by an Artist that I assigned to each student so that no student had the same Artist. I then gave them a website that had several paintings to choose from for them to look at which also had some college level art history type writing about the Artists. I told them that they didn’t even have to read the writings, just look at the paintings and write about one.
The first sentence of one paper was this:
Not only was this obviously stolen, but it was stolen from the website that I gave them. The whole entire paper was stolen from the website.
A close second (in humor, but not really cheating) was a student who claimed she couldn’t write her paper because I never gave her the Artist’s last name-- I only told her Lawrence. My response was that that IS his last name and if she had bothered to look at the website she would know his first name is Jacob.
This is a great thread. More stories please!
I’m the site administrator for the MCAT exam at the University I work at and I’ve seen all sorts of run of the mill cheaters - people with notes on their shoes, ball caps, t-shirts, etc, etc.
The best, however, was when a student came in and wrote the morning’s portion of the test and sent in someone else to write the PM’s portion. Considering that we check ID and take fingerprints, I’m sort of surprised he thought he would get away with it.
(He didn’t, BTW.)
These stories are why my son is required to turn in reports for several classes via email. Grading takes weeks because the electronic reports are first sent to a plagiarism review company before grading. The review company claims to find plagiarism down to individual sentences. I just hope the school isn’t being charged too much.
Is that company turnitin.com or a different one?
That the grading takes weeks bothers me, because I think students should be able to get their papers back and see what they need to improve on as soon as possible. That’s why I hurry to get them returned as fast as I reasonably can.
Couldn’t the papers be graded and returned right away, with the understanding that if they test positive for plagiarism the grade turns into a zero?
Was he applying for the FBI?
Heh. No kidding eh? The ACT are pretty anal in their “Rules for Test Administrators”
Fortunately, I get to be the Gastapo. 
Actually, he was suppossed to find and interview people about WWII. He posted the questions on some website, and just printed off the questions and answers without looking at them.
Well, since this thread resurfaced a few days ago, I thought I would post an update regarding the student inspiring the OP.
First, the student received a 0 on the assignment in which he tried the online solicitation for a solution (and we had a talk about this). As with all cases of students attempting to cheat on assignments, I tried to convince him that he was going about the course the wrong way, if he thought this was going to help him pass. That if he didn’t practice doing the coding, he was not going to learn anything, and he would fail the tests just like last term. I also (as always) strongly urge him to come see ME for help, if he’s having trouble understanding things. "Because ", I promise, “I can give you better help in this course than the TAs, your classmates, or random tutors that you find who just want your money.”
Well, his first test score, a low D, was actually much better than last semester. Not great, but still salvagable.
Then, on a recent assignment, I find two pairs of matching code submissions – again identical, but for some changed variable names. He is again involved in one of them. Instead of filled-out grade forms, all 4 of those got notes to come see me in my office hours.
He tells me he just doesn’t understand things and he thinks he’s going to fail the class again. He asks my advice for options, and also whether he should take the newer programming track that his department switched to, what his chances are for passing, etc. etc. I give him what advice I can, but I also tell him that I feel like I’m talking to a wall, as we’ve already had this discussion before, regarding “How to Pass This Class”. He has never bothered taking me up on my “Come see ME if you need help” offer.
We’re a little over 2/3 through the semester now. I split the term into three tests in all my classes, and I just finished grading Test 2 last night – his test score was an F. Still better than last term (which would be hard not to get). But it was the lowest score on this test. For the record, both the mean and the median were both in the low B range for this one.
So it looks like he’s worked himself into a corner again. It will take a B on the final exam just to get the test average up to an acceptable level (I require a minimum test average to qualify for a passing grade). And that’s no guarantee of passing, given what’s going on with his assignments.
On a good note, the rest of the class (besides these 4) seems to be going quite well. Except for a few students who never attend, the others in the class all seem to be engaged, pay attention, and ask really good questions in class. I hope this trend, at least, continues.
I’ve had students turn in papers with stuff copied and pasted from website, but somehow they left the hotlinks underlined and in blue print. Har. I’ve had someone turn in a paper with a gray footer that read “Site last updated 12/20/03.” I don’t even think turnitin.com and such are necessary-- usually the shift in tone is so striking that you can just pop in the first 5 words of a particularly good sentence and find the site they copied it from (I think in this day and age the people who procrastinate to the extent that they have to plagiarize won’t bother copying text from a book but will simply hunt it down in the web, and if you have 80 students writing on 3 topics, a number of them will manage to find the same site and things start sounding familiar).
When I get a real job I intend to have students work through their term papers in a very pedantic manner-- I’ll ask for a topic 2d week, a prospectus for the argument, a bibliography 4th week, an annotated bib in week 6, then an outline, etc. Not only will this force everyone to think through their own work (or do an impressive amount of backengineering from a purchased essay?) but it will also make lazy but competent scholars (like myself as an undergrad) have to go through a careful research project as it SHOULD be done (and, if they end up in grad school, as it will HAVE to be done) rather than writing a paper below their abilities the day before it’s due. Is this naive of me?
But, if the lazy but competent scholars are willing to take a lower grade for having written papers below their ablities the day before they’re due, shouldn’t they be allowed to do so? Should you, at college level, be forcing people not to slack off (in an academically honest way)?
If part of what I’m trying to teach them is proper writing method and research? Hmm. Maybe? I really don’t think they get that in high school-- they don’t just show up at college with research paper skills (really) and the ‘effective writing’ courses seem to mostly teach them the grammar you wish they already knew, and essay format, but not deep research writing. We have things like intermittent quizzes and midterms and such-- why shouldn’t the research portion of the grade be meted out over the term as well? It’s just another set of due dates-- would it help if it was all phrased as separate assignments? I mean, is asking for an annotated bibliography on a topic really all that outlandish and draconian? Are the smart kids getting short shrift by developing the expectation that the meaning of research papers is writing a really well-phrased bunch of thin bullshit for an 85-92% every term? There are a few kids in every class you are already fluent in written English-- I’d like to think that they can learn something new, too, and just asking for 10 pages of out thin air to turn in on the last day of classes doesn’t really do it. These research papers are the loosest assignments we give and I don’t think just showing up with a finished product really serves them well-- they never learn the process. No one has shown them. But your question is a good one, and I’m not sure.
If you’re trying to teach them the process, then definitely. Now, it may be naive if you think many of them still won’t slack off and procrastinate, but it’s certainly reasonable to break the grading into checkpoints if your intent is to teach the process of doing a good research paper.