Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age

[Sporkman]

Good read...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html

[cj.surrusco]

At my high school, plagiarism is taken very seriously. They always have talks with us about it, and try to spread fear about what could happen if you try to get away with it.

They even have this technology called "Turn It In" or something like that. It's a web-based utility that you have to submit your paper in to in order to screen it for plagiarism. It will compare it against the papers of other students and web pages.

[Lucradia]

At my high school, plagiarism is taken very seriously. They always have talks with us about it, and try to spread fear about what could happen if you try to get away with it.

They even have this technology called "Turn It In" or something like that. It's a web-based utility that you have to submit your paper in to in order to screen it for plagiarism. It will compare it against the papers of other students and web pages.

Though our high school didn't have that technology back almost 6-8 years ago, we did get lectures on plagiarism, and boy did I follow suit.

[chessnerd]

I used to not understand plagiarism and take freely from the web in many papers... of course, this was back in the fourth grade.

Since high school I have never copy-and-pasted from the Internet unless I was using a direct quote from a source (which I obviously cited). In an age where we have so much information at our fingertips, I find it amazing that these students can even claim to not understand how to correctly cite sources. The student in the article who felt that Wikipedia's information was "common knowledge" could have done a quick search on Google for "how to cite Wikipedia". This brings up Wikipedia's own page on citing Wikipedia, which includes APA, MLA, Chicago, and many other citation styles. It takes less than a minute to do and it would have saved him a lot of grief.

Honestly, though, this seems like most students are just being lazy. You need to at least try to cite your source, even if you do it incorrectly, because you can get expelled (and even face a lawsuit from the copyright holder) if you blatantly copy from another work. Maybe more schools need to have courses that talk about plagiarism, but I doubt that such a thing would help. Most students just really don't care enough...


They even have this technology called "Turn It In" or something like that. It's a web-based utility that you have to submit your paper in to in order to screen it for plagiarism. It will compare it against the papers of other students and web pages.

My university has the same type of application. More and more, schools are turning to these things to stamp out plagiarism. Maybe it isn't that plagiarism is on the rise over the last few years, maybe it's just that more students are being caught.

[TriBlox6432]

My school takes it very seriously. They run it through a machine to compare it against other student's work and anything that can be freely found on the internet. It's so tight, however, that a lot of people have been questioned for plagiarism even if they hadn't done it. I've been questioned about it, but cleared because I was convincing enough? lol

[forrestcupp]

he just wanted to know how to change purple text to black.

Anyone who doesn't know how to paste using destination formatting deserves to get in a lot of trouble. :)

When I was in high school, the internet didn't exist. I actually had to go to the library to research for my term paper. Laptops didn't exist either. We were lucky to be able to bring our scientific calculators.

Kids are so spoiled today.

[Legendary_Bibo]

I had a technologically illiterate professor for an anthropology class (It was called Magic, Witchcraft & Healing :D ). On our tests we had to write an essay. On a computer. With internet. He sat at the front of the class too. That class was an easy A. Also he still doesn't know of the existence of Wikipedia, so yeah you put two and two together. Let's just say I spent 20 minutes on an 8 page essay.

[cj.surrusco]

Kids are so spoiled today.

Classic excuse for complaining... I know I'm just a kid, but I've realized that as time goes on, tasks will become easier and easier as technology increases. Saying that we are spoiled is not true. Maybe you were spoiled because you had a calculator, while the generation before you had to do all calculations by hand. Changes your perspective thinking about it that way, doesn't it?

[Legendary_Bibo]

Classic excuse for complaining... I know I'm just a kid, but I've realized that as time goes on, tasks will become easier and easier as technology increases. Saying that we are spoiled is not true. Maybe you were spoiled because you had a calculator, while the generation before you had to do all calculations by hand. Changes your perspective thinking about it that way, doesn't it?

lol, we are spoiled dude. I have two calculators also, a TI-89, and TI-84.

Off topic: I saw an XKFCD comic which made me think, why hasn't the TI calculators changed in so many years?! A computer can do calculations insanely fast, mulitple at a time, and even color it with certain programs. They still charge just as much for a calculator.

[LowSky]

I love that comic, it is very odd that TI basically holds a monopoly on that type of calculator. It all seriousness it should cost under $10 today, but because it is so linked to academia, they can charge well over $100 for it still.

[Legendary_Bibo]

I love that comic, it is very odd that TI basically holds a monopoly on that type of calculator. It all seriousness it should cost under $10 today, but because it is so linked to academia, they can charge well over $100 for it still.

for $100 I want a colored screen, faster processor, and a rechargeable battery. The fact that if I give it something beyond algebra makes it choke makes me think that I'm not getting my money's worth. I've had really long and complicated problems that I had to plug into my 89 while doing homework to check my answers that I turn on my laptop, wait for Ubuntu to load up, open the software center, find a graphing program, download and install it, plug the same problem in, and I would even get a three-dimensional graph made all pretty that I could even rotate, and be provided additional information while my calculator spits out an error message about not enough memory. Really?! In this day and age?!

[marshmallow1304]

This reminds me of a story I heard about a not-so-bright girl in my high school class. Apparently, she copied an oral report from Wikipedia and didn't fix it up before reading it off; she ended up saying "citation needed" several times in the course of the report.

[forrestcupp]

Classic excuse for complaining... I know I'm just a kid, but I've realized that as time goes on, tasks will become easier and easier as technology increases. Saying that we are spoiled is not true. Maybe you were spoiled because you had a calculator, while the generation before you had to do all calculations by hand. Changes your perspective thinking about it that way, doesn't it?

Lol. No. I actually thought I was spoiled when I was allowed to have a calculator in my advanced math classes. I almost felt guilty about it back then.

You don't even know how easy you have it. We actually used to have to know how to spell, too. :)

Technology is no excuse for being lazy and not having to think for yourselves. The way you're talking makes me think that iRobot may not be so far fetched. ;)

[magmon]

At my high school, plagiarism is taken very seriously. They always have talks with us about it, and try to spread fear about what could happen if you try to get away with it.

They even have this technology called "Turn It In" or something like that. It's a web-based utility that you have to submit your paper in to in order to screen it for plagiarism. It will compare it against the papers of other students and web pages.

That is all well and good, but that very site labeled one of my papers as 24% plagiarized based on common word combinations such as "it is thought" or "as a result", which is, for lack of a better term, a steaming heap of BS.

[Groucho Marxist]

At my high school, plagiarism is taken very seriously. They always have talks with us about it, and try to spread fear about what could happen if you try to get away with it.

They even have this technology called "Turn It In" or something like that. It's a web-based utility that you have to submit your paper in to in order to screen it for plagiarism. It will compare it against the papers of other students and web pages.

The same goes for college. What makes me laugh is when I'm writing a thesis and professors freak out because of the "4 instances of similar writing" that are, in fact, direct quotes from in-text cited works.

[Legendary_Bibo]

That is all well and good, but that very site labeled one of my papers as 24% plagiarized based on common word combinations such as "it is thought" or "as a result", which is, for lack of a better term, a steaming heap of BS.

I had 40-45% on my senior paper from turn it in when all my work was originally written, and even though I cited my information. Turn it in is a broken system. The more people use it the more combinations there are, and eventually you'll have to be a master at the English language to stay below 10%

[Dustin2128]

for $100 I want a colored screen, faster processor, and a rechargeable battery. The fact that if I give it something beyond algebra makes it choke makes me think that I'm not getting my money's worth. I've had really long and complicated problems that I had to plug into my 89 while doing homework to check my answers that I turn on my laptop, wait for Ubuntu to load up, open the software center, find a graphing program, download and install it, plug the same problem in, and I would even get a three-dimensional graph made all pretty that I could even rotate, and be provided additional information while my calculator spits out an error message about not enough memory. Really?! In this day and age?!

I recently bought a TI-84, ridiculous hardware specifications for 100$. 24K ram, 15Mhz processor. Seriously. I thought the 128M sticks in my server were a joke. Too bad the cheap Chinese knockoffs haven't come on the market yet, then TI might feel the competition.

[smellyman]

Anyone who doesn't know how to paste using destination formatting deserves to get in a lot of trouble. :)

When I was in high school, the internet didn't exist. I actually had to go to the library to research for my term paper. Laptops didn't exist either. We were lucky to be able to bring our scientific calculators.

Kids are so spoiled today.

I hear you. having to write a 20 page paper by hand and then sitting at a typewriter and peck away at keys for hours was an absolute nightmare.

[Sporkman]

I hear you. having to write a 20 page paper by hand and then sitting at a typewriter and peck away at keys for hours was an absolute nightmare.

Using white-out became an art form. It was important to not paint it on too thick, otherwise it would glob & be mushy, yet not so thin as to let the old characters show through. The best application was such that it was hard to notice that white-out was used at all.

Then they came out with those white-out strips, where you just put them above the spot to erase, then re-typed the incorrect characters, and the key hits applied a layer of white-out for you.

[Legendary_Bibo]

I recently bought a TI-84, ridiculous hardware specifications for 100$. 24K ram, 15Mhz processor. Seriously. I thought the 128M sticks in my server were a joke. Too bad the cheap Chinese knockoffs haven't come on the market yet, then TI might feel the competition.

The only possible reason I can think of why they do that is that a faster processor would consumer more power or something, but considering how there's new technology (green processors?) that require less power consumption I don't see why we can't do that. For that matter, why can't we put a rechargeable battery in the calculator? Cell phones are more powerful than Calculators.

[cj.surrusco]

The only possible reason I can think of why they do that is that a faster processor would consumer more power or something, but considering how there's new technology (green processors?) that require less power consumption I don't see why we can't do that. For that matter, why can't we put a rechargeable battery in the calculator? Cell phones are more powerful than Calculators.

It's probably just because they have absolutely no competition. I can't name one brand of graphing calculators besides TI.

[Legendary_Bibo]

It's probably just because they have absolutely no competition. I can't name one brand of graphing calculators besides TI.

Casio, but they haven't updated their calculators either. It's a pretty stale competition. It's like two sleeping dogs competing to sleep the longest.

[forrestcupp]

I hear you. having to write a 20 page paper by hand and then sitting at a typewriter and peck away at keys for hours was an absolute nightmare.


Using white-out became an art form.

Writing by hand? Typewriters? White-out? I almost forgot about all of those things. I almost forgot about getting writer's cramp from handwriting long papers. :lol:

I thought I was awesome because my parents got me one of those electronic typewriters that had autocorrection tape built into it. It even had a one line screen that acted somewhat like a word processor. After going through high school using my mom's old non-electronic typewriter, I thought I was living the high life. :)

[yossell]

I used to argue that university students should be assessed by prepared essays and written work rather than exam, that a purely exam based system over-emphasised memory, nerves, luck (did your question come up?) quick wittedness at the expense of depth, research, long term thoughtfulness.


Boy, was I wrong. I now think we need to go back to a pure, closed, no internet, exam based system. The amount of plagiarism and cutting and pasting is beyond a joke, is unjust on those who don't do it, and the culture has changed so much that students no longer see what they're doing as wrong or unfair.

It's a shame, though.