Among the Internet’s worst features is the temptation it offers would-be plagiarists, especially schoolkids. The Los Angeles Times noted that teachers across the country increasingly don’t even assign term papers. Bobbie Eisenstock, who teaches journalism at California State University-Northridge, said, “I got tired of night after night checking for cheaters.” John Barrie, who owns a company that makes plagiarism-detection software, said: “Students are using the Internet like an 8-billion-page, cut-and-pastable encyclopedia.”
The alternative to such research papers, though, doesn’t sound like a sufficient substitute: oral exams, role-playing demonstrations and in-class writing exercises.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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11 Comments
Exactly! You just made the point. There are other teaching curriculum practices teachers can do that will surely make sure that students learn and test without the fear of plagirism.
There are solutions.A. Redesign textbooks to scholarly foot-/end-noted format. This is especially sensible because textbook authors have not created the facts they cite, they have obtained them from somebody else’s research.
B. Give kids handouts of papers with proper attribution.
C. Make them attach a bibliography, then make them rework papers that lack proper citations, by reexamining the works in the biblios.
Orally testing kids on their papers’ subjects is also called for. You don’t want kids robotically scribing or cut and pasting, but if they LEARN THE SUBJECT MATTER, this is what you want to happen.
The Internet is a marvelous knowledge resource. If Google can somehow work out its plan to post the entire contents of the University of Michigan, Stanford and New York Public Libraries, this will give hinterland-state students an equal opportunity to do advanced research and writing now only enjoyed by a tiny minority who attend or live near major research universities, or in NYC or DC (Library of Congress). Educators need to support some form of Google’s far-reaching idea, while satisfying copyright holders as well.
This could almost be a ‘chicken vs. egg’ argument. Would the cheating resources be so prevalent if the students were not so inclined to use them?
The culture of cheating seems to be exploding…or is that just my imagination? CNN had a story last week about a student caught taking pictures of test questions with his cell phone and sending them to a friend who “googled” the answers and text messaged back.
My sympathies for the teachers who have to put up with all this, without any true disciplinary tools at their disposal.
If schools and universities set these “get the grade” standards, then kids will cheat. Okay, I’m going to admit to cheating. In junior high, I wrote down info on things I thought might be on a test. On a piece of paper. Connected via rubber bands to my shirt button. If I was to be caught, I would quickly stretch the bands and the sheet would quickly retract deep into my long-sleeve. I was never caught, but it was a reserve. To embarass a prissy 7th grader sitting in front of me, I attached a #12 salmon-eye hook to the zipper on the back of her dress, with #6 line tied to her desk chair, and when the bell rang, I was out of the room like a shot. You can guess what happened when she put her stuff away, and 20 seconds later SHE stood up. By high school, I knew the answers, so showed my multiple-choice answers to struggling fellow students so THEY WOULDN’T FAIL.
I had a son who was victimized by Asian students’ cheating. He wasn’t a great student. But instead of getting “B’s” on the curve, that his brain earned, he got “C’s”.
I don’t know what the corrective is, but I know that the multiple-choice test format is highly flawed.
On essays, you want kids to make arguments, and then show quoted statements that support their arguments. At very best, you want kids to make assertions, quote supporting sources, and then make their own counterarguments, supported by quotations, and then show why one idea trumps the other. Or conclude that the dispute cannot be resolved, because good ideas can be marshalled on either side.
As a student in the late ’50’s, I was limited on subjects I could write essays on by the deficiencies of the school and public libraries. I would have given anything for a resource such as Google.That said, I think that students should be required to print quoted material in a different color than original work, as well as citing sources and authors. Plagiarism has always been a problem in schools, and always has, and should be, dealt with harshly. Using different colored inks for original material and quotes will remind students that they are expected to actually write what they claim as original.
Research papers serve little purpose to begin with. All you are doing is at best paraphrasing somebody else’s work. Tests, tests, and more tests, just like in Calculus.
Todd,It is rather nice to be able to research an issue yourself instead of depending on someone else’s take on it. I realize that some of you are afraid that people will actually look up the data rather than just believe your propaganda, but maybe that would motivate you to tell the truth!
Todd and Jed, I think you are both making good points. If you are given good information, testing of your understanding is called for. Research papers can serve this function. Take a simple calculus equation, cos x = Integral sin x dx. How was is figured out? Studying this is really cool. It leads students to a deep understanding of mathematics, and the historical evolution of mathematics.
While in school research papers were the prefered method of testing students but not used because the professors realized they take a lot of time. They involve more than just cutting and pasting, they require the student to search for information, analyze it, and draw his conclusions. It takes much more thinking than plugging numbers into a formula that was memorized a few hours before.
Jed, I’ll not be dragged into your mindless political BS, and I’ll even refrain from making any generalized “you guys think this” cracks that have served you so well.
Back on the topic, research papers are filler for unimaginative instructors. Many, many students can write very nice papers, get an A on them, and still not know the required material at the end of the semester. A complete waste of time, IMO.