Published by JPLand on 24 Jul 2009 at 02:50 pm
Is that all you got? Psshhhhh… That was easy. E-Z. Easy.
Want to hear a boring story with a funny ending? Well, actually, it’s a funny middle part, but I don’t know the ending yet, so for our purposes, it’s the ending even though it’s really the middle. So, we’re all on the same page of the middle-ending. Boring. Right?
One of the classes that I’m taking this semester is called “Workplace Research Methods.” It’s a good overview of the different types of research that are common in industry and it goes through things like how to present numerical data, how to properly reference sources, how do do a literature review, etc. (See, I told you it had boring parts. But hold on.) We spent a week talking about how to do sources and the importance of proper references. We provided two assignments the were based on the premise of finding, using, and properly citing sources. Our professor wrote the book on how to do sources. Literally.
For this class, we have one last assignment with multiple parts. (1) Write a 10-12 page research paper, (2) turn it in for peer review, (3) review someone’s paper (the professor assigns who we look at) (4) edit our own paper per our peer’s help and (5) submit the final draft. I was under the impression that #1 was due this upcoming Sunday night. When I looked at the course website yesterday, I found that this was not the case. The paper is actually due this evening at 8:00. AaaaaAAAAAAhhhHHHHHHH! I cobbled together my best BS and voila…..8 pages. Not good enough. I threw in some not-very-helpful graphics and modified the formatting a little and, WOO-HOO, 10 pages.
This morning, I e-mailed my paper off for review and a few minutes later, I received the paper that I am to review. I knew it going into this, but my weekend wasn’t looking too good. I essentially have 48 hours to read and critique a colleagues 10-12 page paper.
But lady luck was on my side. First, the guy I’m reviewing didn’t read the instruction very well. His 10 pages were double-spaced instead of the single-spacing that was required. Sweet, my work-load just got cut in half. Ah, what’s this? The 10 pages counts his title page and references. Even less to read now!
I got about three paragraphs into the paper and realized that the tone and style were very odd. I highlighted a sentence, pasted it into Google, and…wow. Just wow. 70% of the paper was lifted verbatim from a website. I did a little extra pasting from the areas that didn’t match the first source and found that another 20% came from a different website and the remaining 10% from a third. Not rephrased, not quoted, not glanced at in an awkward manner. Lifted straight from the internet.
Let me stop here and ask if I’ve mentioned that our professor is familiar with how sources should be handled? I have? Maybe I should mention that this guy copied from readily available on-line sources. It’s wrong to plagiarize, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re going to do it, why copy from something that’s so easily traceable? I suppose that those who aren’t smart enough to do it without getting caught are stupid enough to do it in the first place. At any rate, I slapped a big note across the entire paper that said something about the proper way to use and reference sources and I sent it on its way. And as a reward for his stupidity, my weekend just got a lot better!
In reality, my paper probably stinks. I’m sure that I rambled on incoherently (a trademark of my writing style) and came to conclusions that were completely irrelevant to my research. It’s what I do. When the final grade is issues, I will probably lean closer to an F than an A. But, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will hold my head high and quote my Uncle Joel: “At least it was an honest F.”
PS - Did I mention that the professor is a bit of a stickler for not plagiarizing?
Image is from a post on West Georgia's website regarding plagiarism. I hope it's not plagiarism for me to "borrow" it here.
Fadi on 24 Jul 2009 at 9:16 pm #
I wonder if he will have to go before the Honor Council? Do you know anyone who has ever had to go before them before? I once heard a rumor about an entire class getting incomplete grades from a professor because he reported all of them for plagiarism. Weird. Oh yeah, weren’t you a part of that class. Maybe that explains your deep down fears about plagiarism.
JPLand on 24 Jul 2009 at 9:22 pm #
A whole class? Boy, that sounds odd. I’ll bet that the professor wasn’t all together and that the honor council found that the groups in question had no intent to defraud but was a bunch of engineers that couldn’t cite worth a diddly-poo. Hypothetically speaking.
Alana on 27 Jul 2009 at 10:47 am #
My understanding is that teachers rarely prosecute for academic dishonesty. They come across much, much more cheating than they do anything about. But the system is set up such that it can be an enormous pain in the ass to turn people in and follow through. A lot of times professors don’t get support from their administrators when and if they decide to prosecute, so they have to weigh the headache against the benefits, and most of the time there aren’t many benefits since there are just more cheaters coming through the following year. I’ve heard crazy stories from professors about what students have done, many of them from some of the best schools in the country. Losers, I say. But of course these losers graduate, get the best jobs, and then sometimes proceed to cheat the rest of us.
JPLand on 27 Jul 2009 at 1:08 pm #
Plagiarism is bad, and there’s no way around it. I honestly don’t think that there’s enough emphasis put on it, though. Students are just told “don’t do it” but there’s no discussion on what exactly it is and how to avoid it. Let the students know that it’s OK to use sources, but that there are guidelines for doing so.
Personally, I have always been a fan of professors speaking with the students first and then taking the necessary disciplinary actions, no matter what the offense is. I remember getting hammered for improper citations (not missing, just not correct) on several occasions, but I was never sat down and told “Hey, let me show you how you need to do this…” I just got points off a report and that was it.
Thus, my approach with this guy was to let him know that the cut-and-paste of the websites was definitely out of bounds but that I’d be willing to give it another look if he wanted to refine his approach. Well, he refined his paper, but not his approach.
Alana on 28 Jul 2009 at 1:25 pm #
If the guy isn’t smart enough to understand the concept of not stealing someone else’s work, I hope the guy isn’t working on bridges or buildings or anything that might result in, you know, the death of people.
In the cases I was thinking of, it was more like, “Don’t copy the teacher’s manual. Don’t copy another student’s work.” And then the students proceeded to copy verbatim from the teacher’s manual and each other’s work. There was no nuance about citation and quotations and whatnot. It was good, old-fashioned cheating. In one particular instance, the instructor tried to do something–he only wanted to give them a warning lecture and an F for the assignment to start–and was told by his supervisor not to.