Undergrads that is. Well, some undergrads at any rate. My officemate has just got back from a “conference” between the senior tutor, my officemate, my officemate’s tutee and the tutee’s head of year.
The tutee had been caught plagarising. He’d used Ask Jeeves to essentially write his essay.
This was a silly thing to do, as if he can find it on the web, what makes him think that we can’t? And besides, google is far better for scientific research
But seriously, they never ever learn. I know Sir Doris has had some similar experiences with this, as have others here. It saddens me that some students think so little of their lecturers’/tutors’ abilities, that they think they can get away with it. And, in my case, blatantly copy, but then, when the matter’s raised with the senior tutor, intimidate me, and write scathing public feedback about it. :mad:
Why do you do it? I know its tempting, and an easy way out, but still, where’s the gain? If you don’t get caught you only cheat yourself, and if you do get caught you stand to lose your entire degree. Anyone care to enlighten me as to why you would even think about cheating??
I wonder if the students who do this have never been held to an honest standard before, or never had to take the consequences. I will never forget the crestfallen expression of a reasonably good 9th grade student I had when I gave him a failing grade on a simple book report that he had copied from the back of the book jacket. Dropped his former ‘B’ average like a stone; he had to work pretty hard to get it back up by the end of the semester (which he did).
Speaking as a recent high school graduate (2002), I can tell you this: students aren’t held to any sort of acceptable standards. It is pitiful what kids can get away with in the public school system anymore. Perhaps what is worse, half the teachers don’t really seem to care anymore. They’re just doing their time until they get to retire. So when we go from, say, high school, to college, we expect the same standards and lenient rules to apply. They don’t realize that it doesn’t matter what group you hang out with anymore.
So what you’re saying is, that in the States at any rate, students cheat because they think that they can get away with it, because they have at high school?
Doesn’t explain why they do it here in the UK then. To get to university in the first place you have to have passed two sets of exams - GCSEs and A-Levels (although this may be changing). Both sets of exams are set, graded and marked externally, (I’ll ignore the complication of different exam boards), i.e. the school does not set these exams. Papers are identified only by a candidate number (which is unique for each person), and externally assessed coursework, which has to be your own work.
So, since the age of 15, these students have had it drummed into them that plagarism is not acceptable (and I do know of cases where grades have been forfeited because of plagarism), and yet they still attempt to cheat. :mad:
Ah yes, nothing like the look on a froshling’s face when a profession finally says, “Look, stop raising your hand it’s obvious you will not have anythign to contribute to this class”
