Dear students,

How many this semester?

 

Way back in the pre-internet days, one of my philosophy professors had someone turn in an essay that was clearly plagiarized, and he knew it instantly: it was the most widely used translation of the guy he had written his dissertation on. Some guy named Kierkegaard.

It's amazing how often the dumbest ones make it so easy.

I had 5 last year. Should have fewer this year, since the school has been actually enforcing its policies (if the offending student doesn't happen to be an athlete).

 

I don't take much personally in the profession, but I take this type of plagiarism as a personal insult. But, since my own colleagues tend to be lax in enforcement themselves, student behavior in this regard is in some ways reinforced because it works. Then comes the cases like Dr. Wankler references - I've passed four essays up the chain this year, but never heard another word on any of them. No enforcement means a student can take the F but stay in good standing otherwise.

 

Ya know, if this were high school cheating, that would be one thing. But college? How hard is it to freakin' summarize something in your own words? My word.

 

I almost wish some of my students would learn how to plagiarize. I graded a paper today in which the student wrote that Edgar Allan Poe was "Cuckoo, like that bird that's cuckoo for cocoa puffs." To make matters worse, he repeated the lame joke 3 times (in a 5 paragraph paper).

 

Plagarism is the most insulting thing a student can do. I don't even like it when they use things like SparkNotes instead of reading the book. It insults me as a student who actually tries to read the book and form their own opinions on it (you know, like what the teacher intends for you to do in the first place ). It's so ********ing stupid when the entire class has the same opinions on themes, characters, etc. It's not like you've been in a 20-person study group...

 

One of the funniest ones I remember is a woman I knew in college in Ireland. It's not hugely unusual for a person, especially an academic, to sometimes use the Irish or Gaelic version of their name, (as well as the English version for everyday use) so John Reedy could be Seán O'Riada. Others can be a bit more obscure; the surname Walsh translates as Breatnach, for instance.

Anyway, this woman, who was sometimes soooooo dumb really outdid herself, plagarising an essay on Jonathan Swift by the professor himself, published under the Irish version of his name twenty years prior........... I think she felt stupid.

 

Boy, is this timely... As is this one...

Only, you have to change "wiki" to the another one specified below...

...

because while I was teaching my night class my wife caught a student plagiarizing a presentation on 3 novels straight, verbatim, from SparkNotes.

Oh, and this is a class for senior English majors.

Yeah, my wife is pissed.

 

I mean, it's just too easy, isn't it? Pathetic.

 

I didn't have that many in Scotland; only a couple who obviously got together and raped the same source in-between snuggles in the sack...again, pathetic.

 

A prof told me this one that a student at his last job tried to pull...

For a final exam, he obtained a blue book in advance and copied an essay from the internet into it. He goes into the exam, and to his dismay he realizes that the blue books being handed out have a different cover than the one he copied his essay into. Instead of just writing a new essay, he proceeds to turn in his blue book anyway, with a note on it that said:

"Mr. X: I didn't get a blue book when they were passed out, fortunately I happened to have one with me and just used that instead."

This is so stupid on so many levels. Obviously the plagiarism was dumb in the first place, but to then try to turn in a blue book that didn't match the others in the class is just idiotic. The prof said he probably wouldn't even have noticed the difference on the cover if the note hadn't been attached.

 

How hard was it too have it on his lap and just copy it? Geez man.

 

Absolutely the wrong answer.

Say nothing and if asked about the difference, still say nothing except to note that he used what he was given, and didn't even know his book was different from any others. Anything else complicates it waaaaaaay too much.

 

My Shakespeare acting class (in which you had to write papers as well) was taught by the chair of the department, who also happened to write about 5 of the Cliff Notes books for Shakespeare plays. He had actually had previous students that plagiarized his own work.

Now that's pretty sad. But i guess most kids stupid enough to plagiarize don't usually bother to look and see if the author was their professor.

 

". . . but . . . but . . . but your name isn't Professor Cliff!"

 

Students are slowly losing the valuable skill of knowing how to ****************. Seriously. It's not that hard to write papers on books you haven't read without plagiarizing anything.

 

Plagiarism goes on at all level though. University professors who should know better are involved in it themselves too at times. One of the lecturers when I was doing my PhD had to referee a Korean (I think) paper which happened to contain chunks of his own work.

I'm teaching now (secondary school) and do from time to time see phrases which make me think the pupil didn't write that. Google the phrase and get one hit, I know where they got it from. Thing is, all the pages I've found like that would have been useful source material, they just needed to select the appropriate bits only.

 

Uh, you read my response the wrong way.

If you're gonna cheat, be freakin' smart about it. That story is similar to some one stealing someone's car and then leaving behind a note explaining where the car is going be the next day.

 

ha! that's where my prof got his PHD... he was writing Cliff Notes as extra income. i just found one of his 'notes in the book store the other day..