Plagiarized paper update II

[Catshrink]

Recap: A student submitted a paper that was copied from the Internet -- 92% according to our school's verification program. (This site searches the web and other sources and checks for matches.) The school's policy is clear -- the student receives an F for the assignment and may face other consequences. The student was aware of the policy. He also has not done much in my class and has been fairly uncooperative in submitting other assignments and a few minor behavioral issues.


The latest: I met with the student and his parents. He denied it, told me the paper was his work. I told him I was concerned that the quality was far above what a typical hs student would write so I checked it out and found the 92% copy-match. He said no, he wrote it.

Unbelievable!! His mom, who had been comparing the two documents, interjected that she could see that it was copied. He then admitted that he had seen the original site and used that information -- but he rewrote it. I mentioned 8% worth of rewriting to which he replied that he changed the words that were too hard for him. What bothered me most is that he said "I've done it before and no one ever said anything."

WOW!! This program is new this year so it may be that another teacher couldn't catch him at it -- or other students. Clearly, the school needs to do some further education on this matter.

Meanwhile, the kid was unrepentant and defensive. I told him he had an 0 for the assignment, as school policy states, but that the final outcome of this was up to the administration. He just didn't get that it's wrong. I told him if he did this in business he'd be fired or face litigation, that it was a very serious issue. His attitude toward this was dismissive.

How sad this is. I did tell the mom I was willing to work with him before and after school to help him catch up in the class, but that I needed some response from him, I need to see some motivation and effort.

So, it's in the hands of the vice principal now. It's a disciplinary matter at this point.

What an education I'm getting!!!

Again, thanks to all the DU posters who've offered advice and insight. Teaching can be a lonely job and the support you all have offered has been wonderful!!!

[bluestateguy]

1. reply

Given his response it sounds like he needs to be taught a lesson. I would urge the administration to throw the book at him, especially since he admitted to you that he has cheated before.

[Dookus]

2. great job!

You handled this really well.

And if the kid wants to fail, then ... well.... he'll fail.

[THUNDER HANDS]

3. believe me

90% of students nowadays do this.

It's not a big deal.

Especially when you're writing papers on topics you have absolutely no interest in.

[Dookus]

4. then...

90% of students should fail.

I'm stunned that anybody could think blatant cheating in school is "not a big deal".

I would've failed, but worse than that, my parents would've made sure I had to do my homework standing up for the next month

[IranianDemocrat]

6. What?

Plagiarism is not a big deal?

Pathetic.

[burrowowl]

13. Even if you are

not interested in the subject, you should have the discipline to be able to write about it intelligently. Or, should people be like the 'Incurious Chimp'? And you never know, when something is explored or examined, you might learn something.
Same goes with really listening instead of hearing.

[Sephirstein]

18. Freeper!

Seriously...You sound just like Dear Leader's cronies.

[alwynsw]

21. You've got to be kidding!

Either that or just plain nuts. Plagarism is theft. Intellectual property deserves the same respect as tangible property.

Shame on you!

If all of your friends jumped off a bridge...

[E_Zapata]

27. No wonder you frequently speak of dating travails on here,

chicks dig the smart guys -- the successful ones. And cheaters aren't smart.

[THUNDER HANDS]

33. Cheaters are very smart

If they're not caught.

If they're not caught...they're not cheaters.

If teachers don't want kids cheating, the shouldn't give out the same old tired assignments year after year.

The educational system is broke in this country. It's an assembly line, not a place of learning.

It's test perparation and mental regurgitation, quickly to be forgotten once the "knowledge" is no longer useful.

If cheating on a paper helps a kid get through the broken system, more power to them.

[bicentennial_baby]

34. Bullshit

"If they're not caught...they're not cheaters"

No, they're just liars and a thieves

"If cheating on a paper helps a kid get through the broken system, more power to them"

Yeah, till that kid gets to a college like mine, where you get thrown out for this type of crap. Plagiarism is wrong, and if you can't muster the effort to write the damn paper, you don't belong in school.

[THUNDER HANDS]

36. that's the risk you take

When you cheat.

The cheaters know this.

If a professor can't catch it, then it probably means they're not reading the papers that closely.

And if they're not reading them that closely, then neither the teacher nor the student is putting an effort into this thing called education.

And if that's the case, what's the point of papers anyway?

Oh, and if you think that cheaters aren't smart, look at the story that came out a few years ago that showed a majority of Harvard students cheated on their papers too. Are Harvard students not smart?

[Forkboy]

38. You impress me less and less

:puke:

[THUNDER HANDS]

42. Obviously

Honesty doesn't impress you.

If the goal of school is to get good grades, or at least grades good enough to validate the $100,000 you spend on college, then maybe the ends justify the means.

In the end, all that matters is that you get a diploma, not that you actually KNOW anything from which you've been taught.

Took me a little while to figure that out myself.

Not that I plagarized papers. I never had to except for one particular time I was overwhelmed and needed to jot out a quick paper for French Literiture class.

Please explain to me how French Literiture is valuable in my life. Or any of the thousands of dollars worth of classes kids are FORCED to take each year so colleges can rake in money hand over fist.

[Forkboy]

45. LMAO

you encourage cheating as the right thing to do then accuse me of not wanting honesty.Thats the kind of spin that would make Rove proud.

:crazy:

[THUNDER HANDS]

46. not that type of honesty

I wasn't speaking as if cheating was an honest thing. I meant admitting that I believe cheating on a paper to be slightly less than a capitol offense to be honesty.

If a majority of people cheat on papers. But a majority also say that cheating is bad, isn't that doubly dishonest?

99% of the time I'm going to do honest work, but if a situation arises where i need to cheat to secure a grade good enough to pass a class (and validate the $20,000 I'm spending on tuition) then I'll cheat.

Is it morally virtuous. Probably not. But it's not as bad as cheating on a test or a final exam.

Papers are pretty much useless in determining how well a student has grasped knowledge of a subject. It's too easy to cheat on them and if you put a little effort into re-writing plagarized text, the professor will never know.

Stick to giving tests, or maybe oral projects. It's a lot harder to cheat on them.

[Throckmorton]

28. Yeah, like my 'Real World" job is a thrill a minute.

It is a big deal, and when you get hauled into civil court someday for trying it in the real world, I "Have absolutely no interest in" the subject so I stole someone elses work will get you a big fat tort payment.

[HEyHEY]

5. YOU FINK!!!

Just kiddin, I hope he leaned something

[TXlib]

7. Yes, it is disheartening

I spent 8 years teaching my way through grad school, and it was appalling how so many of the undergrads didn't see academic dishonesty as wrong.

Whatever it takes to get ahead, I guess. I'm sure they'll end up as CEOs who smell like roses while their employees eat a shit sandwich as a result of their malfeasance.

[dofus]

8. There really is an easy way to

prevent this kind of plagiarism. Require that students turn in all note cards, as well as at least one rough draft. That's what I always had to do in high school and college back in the early and mid-60's. I simply don't understand why it's not still done.

[Sephirstein]

19. Me too...

And I graduated high school in 2002.

[RobinA]

32. No, no, no...

I HATE this. I don't do note cards. I don't do rough drafts. I don't plagarize.

To the person who thinks everybody plagarizes.... No they don't. I don't. I've written papers that bore the crap out of me. ON subjects I could care less about. Life sucks and then you die. The way to avoid plagarizing is to assign papers that aren't run-of-the-mill.

[DoNotRefill]

37. UGGGHHHH!!!!!

I HATE it when teachers do that.

I used to crank out papers in a strange way. I'd do the research, think about it for a couple of days (organizing in my mind), and then crank it out in one session, no revisions, just a spell-check, averaging 4-5 pages an hour with footnotes. It worked fabulously for me (so well, in fact, that I once got accused of plagiarizing a paper on the use of recombinant DNA technology in the biosynthesis of human insulin in E. coli in the 9th grade, until the teacher and I sat down and I explained the entire concept to her, without notes or even a copy of the paper). Every so often, some teacher would require a rough draft. I'd then have to take my finished paper and move a bunch of crap around so that it made no sense, and then spend an hour or two making big circles and arrows on it. Talk about a waste of time...

[MissMillie]

39. at least one outline....

It only takes a few minutes to put together an outline, especially if you've already done it in your head.

[Scottie72]

43. I am going to agree

with you. I remember always HATING to do this but, this is the way to prevent cheating and direct plagerizing. Make the students make an outline etc... unfortunately many stundents do not realize that a research paper that is givin out in the beginning of a semester (let's say fall) and due right before Thanksgiving is supposed to take abuot that long to write. A professor/teacher will expect that some effort will be made each week.

One thing that teachers can do with students is this: If you find a short phrase that you really wish to include you may, IF and ONLY IF you site the source that it comes from.

[deek]

9. what's disconcerting

is the student's lack of personal responsibility and capability to acknowledge (to himself and you) that is is morally wrong and detrimental to himself.

Reminds me of a time when I was taken advantage of by a pathological liar sociopath: "Well you were stupid enough to believe the lies." In his twisted thinking, since I was trusting, I deserved the consequences.

So sad.

[roughsatori]

10. Thank you, I've been following this story but not posted

It is fascinating. The level of deceit tolerated in our society is repulsive. You sound like you are handling this very well. I hope the school keeps backing you. This student is being given a chance by you to see his characterological problems and work on changing them. He should be grateful, but won't be. Hopefully, 20 years from now he will not look back at his life and realize this was the window of opportunity he could have used as fodder for change, but did not.

[burrowowl]

11. If the Mom is

co-operative the battle might be half won.
The kid needs to suffer the consequences of his act. It is shameful that other teachers did not catch it, what is wrong with them?
Good work Catshrink. Keep up the good work.
Education is what a person learns by interacting with a teacher who does not force his ideas on the student but makes the student develop his ideas using reason, not what he steals or wears as an ornament.
I raise my glass to you, keep it up.
PS: One of the reasons I don't teach and won't teach: had a prof who said: "education is something you pay for and then have to be forced to accept it". Now, it is paid for and the teacher is forced to give the grade and not the education.

[dfong63]

12. sincere question - how did you expect him to know it was "cheating"?

was there any class where students were explicitly taught where the line is drawn between cheating and permissible use?

[burrowowl]

14. Permissible use!

Have you ever heard of: quotations, footnotes and bibliography.
And a paper that is 92% quote does not show any intellectual effort.

[dfong63]

17. i have heard of them, but the question remains:

Have you ever heard of: quotations, footnotes and bibliography.

i have heard of them, but that's not the point. the question remains: where was the student supposed to have learned about those things?

[NicoleM]

31. First grade.

"Don't copy somebody else's homework. Keep your eyes on your own work!"

I don't remember ever thinking that not doing the work myself wasn't cheating. I graduated HS in 1993, so the internet wasn't a factor then, but I don't remember anybody ever telling me not to copy somebody else's paper. It was just a thing everybody knew.

[bicentennial_baby]

35. Please...

I was taught all about plagiarism in my freshman year English class in H.S.

This kid stole a paper, for the most part, and does'nt want to admit it. Big surprise.

[Pale Blue Dot]

15. Here's the good news, and the only bright spot:

The mom agreed with you. That is becoming extremely rare. It is the only thing that has surprised me in this whole sordid story.

[Sephirstein]

20. Me too...

I hear far too much about social promotion.

[corarose]

16. Thanks for this thread

I was getting deperate but I will start writing my paper now and If I get a B on it instead of an A it will be better then getting an F on my paper.

[Catshrink]

22. Good luck, Corarose!

I am so sorry you're under this amount of stress. Definitely talk to your instructors. And you're right, you'll feel much better about writing your own paper.

[Dookus]

24. good luck, corarose...

An honest B beats a dishonest A.

[Lisa]

23. from another instructor ... good luck dealing with this!

Academic dishonesty issues always make me wish I had found another line of work. So darned sordid and disappointing. Hang in there, Catshrink.

Finished marking the midterm today, and learned that the guys who were sitting really close to each other and acting furtive probably did do some copying -- they have pretty unique combinations of wrong answers. Sigh. I'm tempted to suggest that they look off someone who actually did show up for class ... I mean, here are a couple of fellows who are not really liking college, and only signed up for my class because they thought it would be an easy course. Kind of tragic really, given that 3 of my students have had to drop out so far this year because they cannot afford tuition.

Here's a joke that reminds me of this kind of situation -- a guy who cleans up elephant dung at the circus is always complaining about his job. When asked why he doesn't just find another line of work, he replies -- "what, and quit showbiz?"


I love teaching, but there are times when it's kind of sad. "What, and quit showbiz?"

[American Renaissance]

25. It's everywhere,

I have gone back to school because health problems turfed me out of my old line of work,

One day I was just leaving class when the professor asked me if she could show me something, she hands me an essay one of her students handed in and asked me if it looked familier. It sure did, it was an article I had written a few years earlier

She suspected it was plagerized because the student who wrote it was to use her words "a stupid slut who only came to college to f--k", she typed the first sentance into Lexis-Nexis and bang, my old article pops up.

Another time I encountered plagerism was on Free Republic,

Some freeper wanted to argue that Clinton was a war criminal, and rather than type out their own little screed, they went into a newsgroup and found something I had written about the Nuremburg trials, replaced the name "Joachim Von Ribbentrop" with "Bill Clinton" and "Soviet Union" with "Serbia" and bang. The thread got pulled when freepers started talking about killing clinton.

(by the way, if you want to argue about the legality of the war in Iraq, read up on Von Ribbentrop he was hanged for "conspiracy to launch wars of aggression")

And although not written by me, the single worst case of plagerism I have ever seen was in a newspaper, they printed this insane rightwing editorial - just raving nuts. However, if was almost entirely plagerized from a rightwing thinktank, and the author was just some nutcase. I sent a letter to the editor, they printed it - but removed my refrences to plagerism and the link I provided to the plagerized material.

[Catshrink]

29. Absolutely amazing

It's not only in academic work. One of the issues with Napster and the RIAA is convincing kids it's wrong to steal other people's work. Intellectual property is a hard thing to grasp. The same kids who wouldn't dare steal a candy bar at the grocery store have no qualms about downloading music or plagiarizing. Tangible vs. intangible.

[Robb]

30. "only came to college to f--k"

You say that like it's a bad thing.... ;)

All kidding aside, I've really enjoyed reading this thread and learning from it. I've been out of school for not too long (for reference, when I left, people were saying the web thing would never catch on because it was too slow); I've been wondering how students would do with such a temptation as the internet in their lives. Do students even go to the library anymore? :)

Anyhow, great to know there are educators like this out there. :toast:

[E_Zapata]

26. Then give him an "8" instead of a "0"

Since he is hellbent on standing by his '8"

I don't know if you can do this, but you should get the administration to discipline him as follows:

All work done outside of your class has to be done in a special study hall -- in the library or the back of your classroom. If he has a free hour during the day, that's his hour to do the work for your class. Kind of like PRISON everyday.

'Cause you know what? If this brat ever manages to do some work on his own and put effort into it and does really well, he will get a big high about it, and maybe a mind will have been saved.

[amazona]

40. you gave him a D for cheating?

I don't get it. Times have changed. Plagiarism is stealing the work of another. It merits an F and expulsion. Period. No wonder the kid is dismissive. Some people do well in life by taking advantage of weakness, and maybe this kid will get lucky, but most likely you and the school policy have harmed him by enabling his behavior. Sad. I'm flabbergasted.


perhaps you had no option about the grade but this policy is very wrong and should be changed if you expect to earn a student's respect

[MissMillie]

41. You taught this boy an important lesson....

He may fail your course, and many other courses as well, but if there are more teachers like you out there, this young man will learn a lot.

[bbernardini]

44. Just had a similar problem...

Kid handed in a paper (which was also not long enough), and Google proved that all but 3 sentences were taken word for word from several websites. One of those original sentences was 4 words. Of course, he's on a field trip today, but I suspect hell will rain down when he returns. Figuratively speaking, of course.