It’s no wonder he’s such a dingbat. Apparently, it’s hereditary:
After reading the article in question, it appears that the “student” (and I use the word in a very cavalier fashion) is not the only one here in the wrong… I get a whiff of less-than-savory from the University itself. [Halfway through 2[sup]nd[/sup] year]“This guy is plagerizing all over the place… we have to kick him out!” “Wait… he’s paying a nice tuition, isn’t he? Don’t worry - we’ll take the rest of his money and throw him out just before graduation”.
If it were up to me, I’d make the University cough up at least one year of tuition. And have the money used for scholarships. Oh - and make the plaintiff match the scholarship fund pound for pound, just for the audacity of suing over this 
Dani
The student and his lawyers are claiming that the university ought to have spotted it sooner. It doesn’t mean that his professors were aware that he was plagiarizing, but didn’t bust him for it so they could get his tuition. And if they’re just installing software to help catch cheaters, which the linked article says they’re doing, they probably weren’t aware until the last essay got caught. There are a lot of essays and sources on the net to copy from, and teachers can’t scan through every last one to see if students are cheating. They have plenty of work to do as it is. So I don’t think they were stringing him along to get money out of him. It was probably a lucky break that they caught him at all.
And how the fuck can you not know that cutting and pasting internet sources constitutes plagiarism? You’re presenting another’s work as your own. Plagiarism, plain and simple. Hand me a spear.
It’s things like this that bring out the fascist in me … that get the little red devil on my shoulder to saying, “Y’know, there really ought to be a line … a point where it’s OKAY to execute people for simply being too stupid… cleaning out the gene pool, really…”
The article doesn’t say that they knew about his cheating since the second year - they only spotted it in the final review of all coursework, which included work from that time.
And given the guy liked using the internet so much, maybe he should have found this:
From the
University of Kent School of English undergraduate handbook
Spears?.. Spears???…
No, no, no… Ladies and gentlemen and Dopers of all ages, we shouldn’t using spears. What you want to kill him too quickly? It is darts we must be using. Keep him around as an example others. Spears? Pfeh, that’s so unrefined! Darts take finess… Plus, we can hold the public darting down at the pub.
Mouse-ho! Ka-fling!
My good lord. When I was in school… (“Tell us about it, grampa!”) We had to SIGN A FORM on the first day aknowledging that we knew plagiarism was wrong and would get our asses booted out of school!
We had some stupid rules, but that was definately NOT one of them. Our school was very paranoid about the legal reprocussions of not having EVERY rule spelled out and signed by the students. Scary, in its own sad way.
Too late, Terry Brooks beat you to it.
I’ll take a pilum please.
Pass me the short-shafted assegai. I wanna get up close and personal.
That’s not a bad idea.
Perhaps I am older than you. We never had to sign anything. It was simply assumed that we knew durn good and well that plagiarism or cheating of any kind carried dire and ugly penalties.
Then again, we didn’t have any internet to cheat off of. We had to go find BOOKS to cheat out of…
My English instructor (of whom I will always have fond memories) warned us the first day of class about the Evils of Plagarism. He also told us about the software that universities use to detect it.
I’ve often wondered how it works. Do you scan the essay, copy and paste it into MS Word then link to the internet and sick the software on it?
Oh, and we didn’t have BOOKS to plagarize from. We had to plagarize from STONE TABLETS. And they were too heavy to check out of the library so we could plagarize in the privacy of our dorm rooms. We had to sneak in late at night and copy them onto wet clay using a stylus. And since covers hadn’t been invented yet, we had to carry them home very carefully, lest an accidental touch wipe out our hard work of stealing other people’s work.
Kids today have it so easy.
Yeah, but back then there were only two words to plagiarize: “gug” and “og.” It was pretty damned hard not to plagiarize…
Fish, you posted too soon. You’re supposed to wait for someone to say,
“You had STONE TABLETS? Hell, when I was in college we didn’t have stone tablets. We had to do our plagarizing from petroglyphs and cave paintings…”
I would’ve posted that but it’d been done before. …
My first college professor (of whom I will always have memories) warned us the first day of class that Plagarism is Wrong. He also told us about the software that universities use to detect it.
I’ve often wondered how it works. Do you scan the essay, copy and paste it into MS Word then link to the internet and sick the software on it?
Oh, and we didn’t have BOOKS to plagarize from. We had to plagarize from STONE TABLETS. And they were too heavy to check out of the library so we could plagarize in the privacy of our dorm rooms. We had to sneak in late at night and copy them onto wet clay using a stylus. And since covers hadn’t been invented yet, we had to carry them home very carefully, lest an accidental touch wipe out our hard work of stealing other people’s work.
You darn kids today have it so easy.
Wow - he must not have any older siblings!
In the fifth grade (10 years old), I had to write something about zebras. My older brothers (12 and 17) gleefully told me that I had better be damned careful about not copying word-for-word and providing references when I did use a quote, otherwise that’s PLAGIARISM and it goes on your permanent record and you’ll fail the fifth grade and they’ll kick you out of school and you’ll be a stupid loser for the rest of your life!!
Seriously - they did.
The sad thing is, if that were here in the States, the asshat would win.
I think he got off easy, relatively speaking.
My freshman year, my assignment was to create a lame little web page using frames. The content was not important. As I understood it, you could use other people’s stuff in some circumstances, but you always had give credit.
Since the point of the assignment was Learning to Use Frames, not Learning to write up a bunch of fake text, I vacuumed somebody else’s text and then coded the frames. At the bottom of each page, I had a note saying where it came from, with a link to the original page.
My professor gave me a zero (I’m pretty sure he just clicked on the link I gave him, I didn’t try to hide it. ) It sucked, but I immediatly realized that I was probably wrong. I was lucky he didn’t turn me in to the Honor Council (yeah, that’s what it sounds like). I could have been expelled, or at least been put on academic probation.
It sounds like this guy could have just re-enrolled and tried to get all his credits back. Instead, he tries to somehow blame the school. Asshat.
Just a spoon for me. Why a spoon? 'Cause it’ll hurt more, you idiot!
Actually, that would make a good line in a movie! About men! In green suits! Who live in a forest! I’ll call it Robert’s Hoodlums.
Eh? I realise there are grey areas, and that wht you did maybe wasn’t the smartest, but I’d say “saying that you copied something”=“not plagarism” I suppose you could argue that it’s a copyright violation?
Apart from taking another two years, I don’t think he’d be entitled to any of the state support he got first time around, so he’d be paying an extra £3500ish a year fees, and wouldn’t be entitled to any student loan.