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PC proliferation on college campuses (formerly UNC students...)

Strickland33 said:
We don't, but the chair read the paper and liked it. Presumably, the chair didn't have the same issues either but that's unclear from the article.

It's weird that nobody has clarified whether or not A happened, but I'd guess not based on the way the comment was phrased.

I don't think B is a good assumption to make, either. Suffolk is a private school and probably has relatively small classes, but most professors are teaching 3-4 classes/semester, teaching really large classes, and/or having their TAs or designated readers grade papers. I'm not sure it's really possible outside of small liberal arts colleges for college professors to get to know students' writing anymore. I may be wrong, but this is a hot take generated as I grade 130 midterms.
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also, can't blame someone for pulling out a thesaurus every once in a while.
 
As far as A, it was a handwritten note on a paper copy. Plagiarism detectors are online. He asked her to label where she cut and pasted. A plagiarism detector tells the professor exactly what was plagiarized and from where.

As far as B, that could be the case in a writing intensive course. Still doesn't make sure to accuse based on using a specific word.
 
1. Plagiarism detectors are bullshit.
2. It is generally not difficult to spot plagiarism.
3. In most cases, a plagiarized paper is evidence of a poor assignment or prompt.
 
TownieDeac said:
Why are plagiarism detectors bullshit?
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1. They are extremely easy to beat
2. They often produce false negatives (and sometimes false positives)
3. They can't catch paraphrasing or lifting of ideas which in my opinion are better indicators of intellectual dishonesty than the mere laziness demonstrated by copiers and pasters.

If all you're interested in finding is lifted copy, then they'll do an average job. If you're looking for proper plagiarism, don't waste your money.
 
dot com said:
1. Write an independence declaration, as if you were throwing off the shackles of a worldwide empire in the 18th century.
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Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. “Mankind.” That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!
 
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ImTheCaptain said:
huh?
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e.g.

1. Lazy instructors giving the same assignment semester after semester. Allows for organizations like frats and sororities to keep papers and tests filed away.
2. Prompt is too difficult or obscure and instead of challenging students encourages them to cheat.
3. Professor isn't engaged enough in the writing process
etc.

The best prompts are either directed and variable or open-ended with an engaged instructor.
 
wakephan09 said:
e.g.

1. Lazy instructors giving the same assignment semester after semester. Allows for organizations like frats and sororities to keep papers and tests filed away.
2. Prompt is too difficult or obscure and instead of challenging students encourages them to cheat.
3. Professor isn't engaged enough in the writing process
etc.

The best prompts are either directed and variable or open-ended with an engaged instructor.
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hm, ok. so the best way to teach people to not plagiarize is not punish them when they do so, but make it difficult to do
 
TownieDeac said:
We use them quite extensively and to good effect in my field. Fraud/plagiarism detection may be easier in the sciences, I guess, where concepts are more easily and algorithmically defined? We've even gotten very good with images.
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I imagine also that the type of plagiarism we find in undergraduate essays is quite a bit different than that in professional papers put up for peer review.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
hm, ok. so the best way to teach people to not plagiarize is not punish them when they do so, but make it difficult to do
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When did I say that plagiarists shouldn't be punished?

And yes, we should certainly strive to make it more difficult to do. Most undergraduate plagiarists do it because they are either lazy or out of their depth.
 
wakephan09 said:
When did I say that plagiarists shouldn't be punished?

And yes, we should certainly strive to make it more difficult to do. Most undergraduate plagiarists do it because they are either lazy or out of their depth.
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this must be what it feels like to be JH

IG6Utx.gif
 
wakephan09 said:
I imagine also that the type of plagiarism we find in undergraduate essays is quite a bit different than that in professional papers put up for peer review.
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And that type of plagiarism is easy to detect using plagiarism detectors. Undergrads aren't trying to fool a detector. It's easy to sift through false positives and paraphrasing without citations is easy to spot without any help anyway.

Speaking of peer reviewed journals, I was asked to review an article for a journal I had never heard of. I agreed because the topic was relevant to my work. The paper cited me so that was flattering. I started reading and came across a very familiar passage. They cut and pasted a paragraph directly from the paper they cited. I brought it up to the editor and took it to the authors. They apologized profusely.
 
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TownieDeac said:
Also borrowing ideas from others is central to academic writing. Just gotta source it well.
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Of course. Some plagiarism checkers will even return properly cited bits as plagiarism. Like anything else, they are tools and require some thought from the user. I imagine they are more helpful for an academic journal -- esp. in the sciences -- because every submission isn't on the same (or similar) topic.
 
PhDeac said:
And that type of plagiarism is easy to detect using plagiarism detectors. Undergrads aren't trying to fool a detector. It's easy to sift through false positives and paraphrasing without citations is easy to spot without any help anyway.

Speaking of peer reviewed journals, I was asked to review an article for a journal I had never heard of. I agreed because the topic was relevant to my work. The paper cited me so that was flattering. I started reading and came across a very familiar passage. They cut and pasted a paragraph directly from the paper they cited. I brought it up to the editor and took it to the authors. They apologized profusely.
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I'm surprised that that's your experience. I come across a handful of ways students try to beat detectors, and they are especially funny to discover when the instructor has no intention of using one -- "white" quotation marks were standard when I was at Wake. I have a number of non-digital strategies for identifying that stuff, myself. And like I said before, false positives are much less likely than false negatives.

Professional academics can be lazy and careless too. I fact-checked/edited a special issue of one of the top journals in my field, and there was a mistake in quite literally every quotation in every article. Some of them intellectually dishonest, some sloppy. I judged the shit out of them. If only I had powers of desk rejection.
 
That's not a product of liberal bias. That's a product of American bias.
 
No. American bias. K-12 history is taught from a US-centric perspective. Most college students probably think America invented democracy and capitalism too.

Most state education boards controlled by Republicans so liberal bias seems like a weird argument.
 
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He recalled asking students a few basic questions over an 11-year period, and noticed an increasing ignorance of history, coupled with a liberal slant.
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...and now they're proud of their ignorance

But since the early 2000s, he increasingly witnessed "a sense of moral superiority in not knowing anything about our 'racist and sexist' history and our 'biased' institutions."
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