Some weeks at work...

[debgeisler]

...are really hard. Some weeks at work are good. This week was both.

*sigh*

I do not understand plagiarists...especially when they copy from lousy sources. If you're going to steal, steal from the best, dammit. You'll still get caught, but only your ethics (and not your taste, too) will be questioned.

Comments

Good idea!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

I always steal from the NY Times, not the Mpls Star-Tribune...

[nojay.livejournal.com]

The plagiarism problem in academia is catching the attention of mainstream news channels:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12613617

The solution might be to go back to invigilated essay exams written in longhand in blue books. Five hundred words in two hours would probably produce a better (or at least more representative) essay from the candidate than a four thousand word Googlescreed c&p'ed in the dorm two hours before the 9AM submission deadline.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I think there's a lot of laziness involved.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I know from my experience with my four kids that research-paper-based education is a breeze for some people and incomprehensible for others. It isn't a matter of intelligence (except to the extent that "intelligence" is often measured as having the ability to do such things as write research papers); some minds work one way and some another. With the work world demanding a college degree to the extent it does these days--often just "a degree," with no need for it to represent any learning related to the work--many young people are going to college who do not think the way research-paper-based education requires them to think. Something has to give: either we design some alternative types of higher education, the work world starts to pay more attention to whether one can do the work than whether one has a piece of paper, or we have more and more young people desperately trying to get that piece of paper in a system that isn't designed for them.

[madfilkentist]

Something occurred to me as I was looking at a site on "inadvertent" plagiarism. I had some bad high school teachers who insisted that you regurgitate whatever you were told in class, and would get upset if you brought in facts that weren't mentioned in the class when answering a question. (Actual example: For "What is Einstein's theory of relativity?" you were expected to say "Everything is relative.") While I don't know how common this kind of teacher is, it's a form of laziness which seems easy to slip into.

Students who have been subjected to too much of that in high school could have absorbed the idea that just rehashing the words of others is a virtue, and that actual research is a bad thing. With students of that kind, they might think they're doing what is expected of them, rather than having any thought that they're cheating.

I have no sympathy for dishonest students, but students who've just been taught bad thinking habits are salvageable.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

I have no sympathy for dishonest students, but students who've just been taught bad thinking habits are salvageable.

Yes, but that is not the case with this student, nor with any of the ones who, over the years, have plagiarized in my classes. In several cases, I have talked with students who actually cited but failed to use quotation marks. They are recoverable; most of them are freshmen.

But the true plagiarist who engages in intellectual theft is not one of those students. It is someone who, from laziness or fear or whatever, chooses to take an action without regard for the consequences of an action. One student - an M.A. student - said, "I wouldn't have done this if I knew I'd get caught." Well, duh.

They know what they should be doing. We go over it in class; they are warned about what won't be acceptable.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I had one of those in college. She made fun of me when during a class discussion I introduced an idea she had not already given us. Several people came up to me after class and expressed dismay at her treatment of me and appreciation of the point I had made.