Things you just don't get

And undergrads don't necessarily need much original thought anyway so why not just put in the citations and take your B.

L'Incandescent said:

JayJay said:

Will the students fail the course or just the paper?

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The course. This is a big term paper that is supposed to reflect what they have learned over the course of the semester. The funny thing is that this is an applied ethics class for Mass Communication majors (journalists, marketers, PR, etc.).

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Cue apologetics from Edina...

You know there is a program that will search the web for a passage a prof feels is plagiarized?



Piobaire said:

Cue apologetics from Edina...
You know there is a program that will search the web for a passage a prof feels is plagiarized?

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That along with programs that will screen an entire paper to detect plagiarized passages. There are some schools that encourage students, particularly grad students, to check their own work with these programs. In this day and age there is no excuse for plagiary, and anyone who does plagiarize should expect to be caught given the detection tools available.

In twelve years of teaching at the university level, I've never had to use Turnitin because it's so easy to catch plagiarism without it. Even when students take measures to conceal their plagiarism (such as getting out the thesaurus and replacing words with what they think are synonyms), they do a bad job of it.

I think most students don't expect to get caught because, as Liam pointed out, lots of professors pretend not to notice. (Or maybe they really don't notice, but I can't imagine how clueless they'd have to be in that case.)

WTF is it with people not putting odometer readings in their Craigslist car FS ads? Do they really want more calls from idiots asking for basic information?

Why is my dog so cute?

I taught chemistry, so it was really easy to notice when the normally scientifically illiterate students suddenly produce journal quality writing. However, the university had extremely high standards for prosecuting cheaters, so most of the time we'd just fail them for the assignment and hope they didn't protest. If they did, we'd usually lose and had to grade it without bias of plagiarism. It was very annoying, school strongly gave the impression that they would rather keep cheating students through any possible minor doubt of guilt than hold them up to the honor code.


Got one girl expelled after she turned in four papers (out of eight for the class) with huge sections copied directly from other students. She also got caught cheating on an extra credit assignment in another chem class that semester. She successfully appealed the expulsion on the grounds that since both incidents occurred around the same time, she "hadn't had time to learn her lesson." And they bought it.

I had her again for the same class the next semester.



Gibonius said:

If they did, we'd usually lose and had to grade it without bias of plagiarism.

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Goodness, how do you do that? If you have to pretend that the work wasn't plagiarized from a scholarly journal, how do you give it anything less than an A? Presumably a work that makes it through peer review is good enough to earn an A in an undergrad chemistry class! Hell, you should probably give that student a departmental award if she's already doing professional-quality work.

Also, I discovered a couple more cases of plagiarism since yesterday. I teach this class again in the summer; they are going to get a very stern talking-to about plagiarism.



L'Incandescent said:

Goodness, how do you do that? If you have to pretend that the work wasn't plagiarized from a scholarly journal, how do you give it anything less than an A? Presumably a work that makes it through peer review is good enough to earn an A in an undergrad chemistry class! Hell, you should probably give that student a departmental award if she's already doing professional-quality work.

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I don't think we ever had anything more severe than "forgetting to cite" a journal (a paragraph of plagiarism at worst). Got a lot of Wikipedia level copy/paste, frequently out of context.

I never had to grade a paper after getting rejected by the honor court, but that was largely because our department would rarely push for punishment.



Gibonius said:

I taught chemistry, so it was really easy to notice when the normally scientifically illiterate students suddenly produce journal quality writing. However, the university had extremely high standards for prosecuting cheaters, so most of the time we'd just fail them for the assignment and hope they didn't protest. If they did, we'd usually lose and had to grade it without bias of plagiarism. It was very annoying, school strongly gave the impression that they would rather keep cheating students through any possible minor doubt of guilt than hold them up to the honor code.
Got one girl expelled after she turned in four papers (out of eight for the class) with huge sections copied directly from other students. She also got caught cheating on an extra credit assignment in another chem class that semester. She successfully appealed the expulsion on the grounds that since both incidents occurred around the same time, she "hadn't had time to learn her lesson." And they bought it.
I had her again for the same class the next semester.

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Do you still teach there? Doesn't sound like a place that values academic integrity or strives for academic excellence. In all due respect, it sounds like a diploma mill.



JayJay said:

Do you still teach there? Doesn't sound like a place that values academic integrity or strives for academic excellence. In all due respect, it sounds like a diploma mill.

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I was a grad student there, so no.

It certainly wasn't a diploma mill, R1 research school, top 50 school etc etc. There was just a bit of an odd culture about the consequences of cheating. I never quite understood it. They were trying to push for higher standards of academic rigor but weren't really there yet, and it showed in a lot of ways.



Gibonius said:

I was a grad student there, so no.
It certainly wasn't a diploma mill, R1 research school, top 50 school etc etc. There was just a bit of an odd culture about the consequences of cheating. I never quite understood it. They were trying to push for higher standards of academic rigor but weren't really there yet, and it showed in a lot of ways.

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Subcultures exist within organizations, so I can understand how this type of thing can exist in some departments, but not be pervasive throughout the organization.

I don't get Whole Foods. Its so expensive and they still get struggling 20 somethings just out of college fooled into spending around 25% more on groceries than they should.

I actually see mothers just go hog wild and end up buying $500-$1000 on groceries there and in makes me sad to think that they may be doing such a thing as "aspirational grocery shopping".

Trader joes is actually cheap even compared to the regular supermarkets. And regular supermarkets like stop and shop have improved greatly when it comes to offering "healthier" alternatives.

Maybe it's because I'm a small-timer, but I really cannot even imagine spending that kind of money on groceries. I think "aspirational grocery shopping" is exactly right.



LawrenceMD said:

I don't get Whole Foods. Its so expensive and they still get struggling 20 somethings just out of college fooled into spending around 25% more on groceries than they should.
I actually see mothers just go hog wild and end up buying $500-$1000 on groceries there and in makes me sad to think that they may be doing such a thing as "aspirational grocery shopping".
Trader joes is actually cheap even compared to the regular supermarkets. And regular supermarkets like stop and shop have improved greatly when it comes to offering "healthier" alternatives.

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There's a Trader Joe's just across the border from us. So good and so cheap.