Plagiarism!

[infinite thought]

Some of you lot are teachers, now or in the past, and/or have been students at one point or another - this thread is for you!

Am marking 2nd-year university essays for a London college (shall remain nameless). Literally massive amounts of internet plagiarism (usually from wikipedia). The sloppiest of attempts are made to try and cover up their total lack of effort. Have a incredibly strong desire to write in capital letters in red ink at the bottom: SHAME ON YOU, but have so far resisted. Policies for dealing with plagiarism seem completely vague (obviously folk should be failed, as I will argue - again - in the meeting today), so the students end up getting low enough marks to reflect their lameness, but are not failed (institutions don't want the hassle if people appeal, etc.).

Anyway, plagiarism makes me cross (it even happened to me online quite recently) - all quotes should be referenced, dammit! I have no truck with these bad po-mo colleagues of mine that argue if the plagiarism is done well enough the student should be rewarded for organisational intelligence. No way.

What do other dissensians think? Any good plagiarism stories? Anyone fancy defending it?

 

[matt b]

currently marking, so will get back to you

 

[luka]

i did a-levels,i also was enrolled in university for a year and a bit and what i learned is the only way to get a grades for essays is by plagirising. this is what university teaches you,to copy and to regurgitate. you read a book,you read books about the books and then you summarise what you have read, if any attempt at original thinking is attempted the student is punished. university is lessons in regurgitation, nothing more. (this presumably applies only to arts degrees) why should copying from wikipedia be any worse than copying from a book from the librabry. why should students who are more adept at putting things 'in their own words' ie rewoding what someone else has said, be given a better mark than students who copy the same sources but cleave more closely to the original wording. neither student has thought for themselves.

 

[jenks]

Have been discussing this with other English teahers recently. It is becoming a huge problem - obviously the internet/ cut and paste culture is partly to blame - it's just too damn easy to rip off other people nowadays, you don't even need to get off your arse and walk to the library.

However, i think another cause might be a rather dismissive attitude to academic standards. Education is constantly being represented as service industry and i think students do not feel as if plagiarism really matters. Too often i feel that they can't understand what it is that i am getting worked up about.

I am really pleased to hear of a number of institutions that have removed students from exams because of it but i feel we probably are fighting a losing battle

 

[matt b]

why should students who are more adept at putting things 'in their own words' ie rewoding what someone else has said, be given a better mark than students who copy the same sources but cleave more closely to the original wording. neither student has thought for themselves.

at undergraduate level, you're not expected to have 'original thoughts', but you have to reference the ideas you're using- quotation/ reference is not difficult

 

[IdleRich]

"university is lessons in regurgitation"

I think that's quite a depressing way to look at it, is that really what it's like?
I reckon that if someone has blatantly copied and pasted something from the internet then they should be failed, especially if it's wikipedia. If that's all they've done then you can't even argue that the plagiarism has been done "well enough", it's just lame. In fact you could probably just say that if you've caught them then they haven't done it well enough.

 

[luka]

yes,thats really what its like.its a tiresome routine of memorising and copying out.

 

[matt b]

Have been discussing this with other English teahers recently. It is becoming a huge problem - obviously the internet/ cut and paste culture is partly to blame - it's just too damn easy to rip off other people nowadays, you don't even need to get off your arse and walk to the library.

not only that, the little tinkers type a couple of words into google and nick the first result: absolutely no critical thought of the reliability or otherwise of the source material. a trend i see more and more in a range of situations.


i think in HE, if you plagiarise you should get kicked off the course.

 

[luka]

i agree, its easier to copy from just one source (wikipedia) than the 3 or 4 sources you would be copying from if you went to the library, but the process is exactly the same. such and such says this, such and such says this and some other bloke. great, how enlightening.

 

[matt b]

such and such says this, such and such says this and some other bloke. great, how enlightening.

depends on the source, surely. i learnt loads of good stuff through reading/ essays at university

 

[IdleRich]

"yes,thats really what its like.its a tiresome routine of memorising and copying out."

This is a digression but it seems that you are saying the whole process of teaching (or at least assessing) arts degrees is deeply flawed, how would you suggest teaching this kind of stuff?

 

[luka]

oh, thats a serious question. i'd like to be able to answer that, although i'm not sure i can. let me go away and think about it. just something off the top of my head though, you shouldn't be able to do english literature without actually writing yourself. i think it should involve both reading and writing,like learning engineering or something,a practical part to the course so you know what these people are actually dealing with.

 

[matt b]

This is a digression but it seems that you are saying the whole process of teaching (or at least assessing) arts degrees is deeply flawed, how would you suggest teaching this kind of stuff?

like they do in free schools?

 

[Slothrop]

i agree, its easier to copy from just one source (wikipedia) than the 3 or 4 sources you would be copying from if you went to the library, but the process is exactly the same. such and such says this, such and such says this and some other bloke. great, how enlightening.

Except that to get a good argument based on three or four sources, you have to have read and understood the points that the sources are making, and thought about how they fit together. Even using only one source but making big alterations to the expression requires some degree of this. But just copying word for word or with trivial alterations doesn't.

 

[droid]

http://www.turnitin.com/

 

[luka]

Except that to get a good argument based on three or four sources, you have to have read and understood the points that the sources are making, and thought about how they fit together. Even using only one source but making big alterations to the expression requires some degree of this. But just copying word for word or with trivial alterations doesn't.

that doesn't convince me in the slightest. its still regurgitation. at best its a comprehension test, and thats what you do in primary schools.

 

[Slothrop]

that doesn't convince me in the slightest. its still regurgitation. at best its a comprehension test, and thats what you do in primary schools.

Yeah, I knew it was going wrong when my girlfriends dissertation had the title "What Did Spot Do With The Ball?"

Seriously, though, the big thing that I'd change about arts degrees, based on my gf's experience, is to try to remove the bias that seems to exist in marking towards unusual and energetically argued but fundamentally unsound positions and away from carefully considered and well thought out presentations of fairly standard positions, as it tends to reward bullshitting and promote the sort of thing that turns academia into a highschool debating club...

 

[owen]

university is lessons in regurgitation, nothing more. (this presumably applies only to arts degrees) why should copying from wikipedia be any worse than copying from a book from the librabry. why should students who are more adept at putting things 'in their own words' ie rewoding what someone else has said, be given a better mark than students who copy the same sources but cleave more closely to the original wording. neither student has thought for themselves
you shouldn't be able to do english literature without actually writing yourself. i think it should involve both reading and writing,like learning engineering or something,a practical part to the course so you know what these people are actually dealing with.

sure, university is not as conducive to original thought but neither is the world outside its confines.
the idea that you have to have spent some time writing 6th form poetry in order to be qualified to write about ezra pound is just ludicrous.

such and such says this, such and such says this and some other bloke. great, how enlightening.

yes but then if you're not an idiot you can go on to say 'but i think this'.

(ta for the sludge incinerator directions tho)

 

[luka]

you don't have to, but it sure would help. it wouldn't be six form poetry though, unless you were doing it at a-level level, otherwise it would be 5 form, or undergraduate or whatever

 

[luka]

think back to school days. who does well in education? there is a specific personality type which suceeds in that enviroment, the meek,the obidient, the dull. these are the values edcation promotes. it does not reward intelligence. i have never met a genuininely talented person who did well in education. never in my entire life, i think that says a lot.