Nailed (short)

[LingualMonkey]

It's the end of the term this weekend, so I'm up to my navel in papers to grade. Regardless, I do check for things like plagiarism.

Found one. A student literally copied the entire entry on the topic from Wikipedia, eliminated the topic headers, and added two paragraphs to the end. The reference page was (again) literally the external links area of the Wikipedia page.

That, ladies and gents, is the definition of how to get a zero on an assignment worth 1/4 of the final grade and then get written up for academic misconduct.

[Alpha Strike]

At least they're doing you a favor and making it easy for you to find. It screams "I'm so stupid I can't even cheat well!"

Out of curiosity: do you actively look for plagiarism, or will you typically only go searching if something seems obviously out of place?

[JoitheArtist]

Geez...

And why would someone be so stupid as to copy the most obvious online source? At least retype the Encyclopedia Brittanica entry or something...

Oh wait, we're talking about someone who thinks they're entitled to a grade based on someone else's effort. Not the brightest bulb in the hallway to begin with.

[K'Z'K]

Ugh. I'm grading papers too, and I've found a few plagiarists. None so bad as that, but still obvious. A few are probably going to argue the point--they cited something, probably unaware that copying the original wording without quotes is still plagiarism, even if you tell me where you copied it from. Also, minor edits like adding or subtracting things like adjectives or punctuation do not count as putting it in your own words. Maybe in elementary school, but not in college. This will be a good time to learn.

I'll also get to deal with the kids who "forgot" to turn in their papers via Blackboard (a web-based course management thingy). It's called "deadline" for a reason. They also generally failed to get the whole "no web pages" bit. Lots of cited web pages. I suspect there will be many low scores and unhappy students. Not my problem .

I require papers to be turned in this way so I can check for plagiarism. Blackboard's checker is called SafeAssign--it compares the student submission with other student submissions and the web, and tells me how much of it is identical or substantially similar to other things it finds and exactly where they got it. Stock phrases, quotes, and even citations can get flagged, so the percentage is usually greater than zero. I look at everything with a score of 20% or more as well as some under that. You'd be amazed at how bad students are at cheating. I haven't had any Wikipedia cut-n-pastes yet, but I have had student-to-student copying and direct cut-n-pastes from non-Wikipedia web sites. I found one today that kept the original's grammatical error. And I wasn't even looking closely.

I hate cheaters, but I *love* catching them.

-K'Z'K

[Sandman]

The thing is... there is still a chance that the person typed it up in their own words, but it matches up exactly from a source they did not see.

What sort of protection is there in case you falsely accuse someone of plagorism and they didn't?

[LingualMonkey]

The thing is... there is still a chance that the person typed it up in their own words, but it matches up exactly from a source they did not see.

What sort of protection is there in case you falsely accuse someone of plagorism and they didn't?

The possibility that the first five and a half pages being 99.9% the same as the Wikipedia entry by chance are virtually nil. My guess is that you've got a better chance of being struck by lightning while simultaneously being devoured by a shark in a landlocked state than that happening.

The student also cited Wikipedia as a reference in one of the two original paragraphs, so said student obviously went there.

The references page of the paper is a cut-and-paste of the external links. What this means is that the references are listed without any proper bibliographic information. So, instead of name, date, source, etc. it just says subject of paper with no additional information. Said listings are also all underlined, just as links are when pasted into a Word document, and they're in the same order as they appear on the Wikipedia page.

Finally, I know this student. I've had this student in a writing class before. I know how this student writes, and the paper was filled with words that this student doesn't know and can't use in a sentence. And, said student has terrible work habits, makes excuses for everything, and turns in everything late. This paper was turned in early.

I would bet my spleen, a kidney, and half a lung on this.

ETA: To answer an earlier question, I have my students do a lot of in-class writing. While this means I have to deal with their handwriting, it also means that I get a general feel for how they write and they type of language they tend to use. Our school uses a tutoring service that responds to papers quickly, and I give extra credit for using the tutoring service, so students turn in copies of their papers with comments for the extra points--so I know what they've gotten help with. I also get reports from our student tutors on who they've helped and what they've helped them with. If a student suddenly starts turning in papers written far above their normal level without any evidence of assistance, I check. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised. Sometimes, I get this.

[friendofjimmyk]

*sigh* You know, I think I got away with so much stuff at the junior college level...not to say I was plagerising (sp?) but I know that the level of writing I was doing at that level will not fly at my next level. I have this great fear going on to my next level.

[Slytovhand]

My co-worker (and uni tutor) has just mentioned to me the times where students will submit assignments with hyperlinks still within the copy and paste... and in blue... and still underlined. Glad they make it easy to identify the cheaters

[One-Fang]

I never quite got to teaching level, but I marked lab work for a computer class one year. You put your hand up when you're done, I come over and check your answers and mark your book, and you move on.

These geniuses decided to share a completed Excel file, and talk about it while I was strolling past. So I watch for them, and as soon as a hand goes up over there, I'm over there (there are other markers).

I checked the figures were right, then went to the key cell where the formula they had been learning about was held, deleted it, and sweetly asked "Just to check, can you recreate that formula for me please?"

If you're gonna try cheating, there are smarter ways to go about it than talking about it right in front of the marker!

[MadonnaC]

and I give extra credit for using the tutoring service, so students turn in copies of their papers with comments for the extra points

This would really annoy me - I went to classes 8:30-10:30, and worked 11:00-8:00, so I had no chance to use tutors - I would really hate to miss out on extra points

[LingualMonkey]

The extra credit tutoring service is online--you email them the paper, they email it back.

The in-school tutors are useful, but I don't give extra credit for using them. Even with that, the tutors are available until 10pm, plus 9-3 on Saturdays.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

I am very proud of the fact that in both high school and college I wrote every damned assignment and paper and essay myself, no matter how bad a job I did on it.

I happen to be a decent writer, but even someone who isn't should at least be able to put a comprehensible, non plagiarised paper together.

And don't get me started on the Blackboard system, I developed a very healthy dislike for it. It was great when it worked, but it experienced frequent issues, maybe they've made some improvements by now.

I once worked on a project with a partner who couldn't write very well at all (she was an ESL person, very personable and hard working, but she couldn't write) so I wrote the entire thing up myself pretty much, putting a lot of hours into it, and got an 82. I was damned proud of that. There were TEAMS of students that did that project and didn't get as good a grade.

I wasn't an A student in college, but I got decent grades (3.2 GPA) and I'm proud to have honestly earned every single one of them.

[Melicious Motormouth]

Jebus - if you're going to cheat, why would you be stupid enough to use Wikipedia, which is pretty much the FIRST source your professor/teacher/instructor is going to look?

I think I just answered my own question...

[Tutorgal]

I think the worst I've ever seen was a paper with large segments directly copied and pasted from websites. But the websites had key word links, so sprinkled throughout the copied sections were blue words. Student didn't even bother to change it.

I've cut and pasted from websites before (usually from an online database of classical texts and dictionaries, so each word is a link) and it takes ONE click in word to match the word document formatting and take out the links. One click for the entire paste job. The sheer stupidity and laziness of leaving the links in is almost worse than the plagiarism.

There was also a paper that referenced NO scholarly sources at all. None. The bibliography consisted of a few hyperlinks to websites that didn't even come close to being appropriate sources.

My other personal favorite was a student who didn't just plagiarize a ton of ideas from an author, he picked an author who is known for basically writing conspiracy type, fringe theories. Think something along the lines of claiming that all the history in The Da Vinci Code is exactly true AND taking credit for piecing together all of it yourself.

[wraiths_crono]

That is awesome, I almost got dinged for plagiarism in college once: because I use the same into bio for every class. At my college we have a way to put the document into a plag finder program that actively searched all submitted works and compares them together, and gives a green for not seen before, yellow for 50% similar or red for 50%+ in someone elses paper (and that means same words, structure and length.