doing my monday night t.a. gig right now. the first hour of class, the teleconference stuff wasn't working. pretty much the only reason they have ta's @ the different centers is in the event that there is a problem such as this. the thing is, no one is really trained on how to trouble shoot the system. so, we kept trying to call the other classrooms to no avail. then, we gave up for like a half hour (after a half hour of trying). on a whim, we called again, and it worked. smooth.
so, i'm also grading papers during this time (for a completely unrelated deal). there should have been 26 papers submitted. 15 actually turned in. 5 of which contain elements of plagiarism. good times. i'm not sure if people don't know how to write papers or what. well, i do know that most understand how to write and could at least attempt to give credit. heck, at least improperly give credit. but, there is so much cut & paste going on. heck, i even found someone using a pdf file that i could find on the 'net.
for all writers out there: if you can find your info with a google search, so can i. really, that's all i do. google sentences. and when it pops up, and you haven't quoted or cited it, you're in trouble.
9 comments:
i dont know about what kids are taught these days, but when i was in school (high school and college) i was taught how to site tons of different types of sources. heck, i even had to buy a book on how to do it (and still have it). i doubt that the kids whose papers you are grading are so dumb that they dont know they should site their sources.
they have it. not only do they take an intro english course (which i also teach - even have had some of my current class in it - none were plagiarizing though), but i also gave them a handout for another assignment that showed how to do it.
i think most of these people really don't expect anyone to check. but i do.
I've been dealing with the same thing here. the kids have all claimed it to have been research and genuinely didnt know they couldn't copy it for their own. I think that is more bullshit than truth, but I wonder because no one has caught them previously they were never told it was the wrong thing to do?
I can empathize with you it takes double the amount of time to grade them and it's a pain in the ass to tell them, cause chances are they'll keep doing it. Good luck and keep up the hard work!
i've caught one of these students in another class plagiarizing work. :(
totally takes way more time to grade a paper w/a lot of errors/problems. well written, well sourced papers fly right by.
Did you hear about the study just released that examined the amount of cheating that goes on in graduate programs? Apparently it never really stops.
I remember when I was a TA, we could tell that these two kids were cheating on a test, and after they handed them in we discretely pulled them aside. They were stupid enough to write exactly the same thing on the essay questions, word for word. I just don't understand how they thought they would get away with it.
well, that would be pretty ballsy on an exam.
i think i'm going to chat up some of the other instructors and see how many they catch. now, this is only my opinion, but i think that people aren't checking. they figure that students are doing good work.
I'm glad they're getting caught. They really should. I am in the camp that says it diminishes the work of the honest kids if the cheaters don't get caught.
I googled some of the sentences from this blog post and it's obvious to me that you've plagiarized most if not all of it.
you don't have to cite your own independent thought. sheesh adam, how did you make it through college w/o knowing that?
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