Thursday, February 01, 2007
Plagiarism
I was talking to a good friend who's a college prof. He expressed frustration over the number of papers turned in that are plagiarized. I understand how easy it is for kids (or adults) to steal papers anymore, what with Internet accessibility to online encyclopedias, online articles, and even term papers available for the downloading. But don't they realize that (due to the same Internet accessibility) it's even easiER for the profs to catch them in their plagiarism than it is for them to hunt up an appropriate paper to steal in the first place? Don't they understand that writers have a "voice," and that turning in essays and term papers written by a variety of authors throws up red-flags for the teacher ... because it sounds like the student has multiple personalities and voices showing through in his writing style? What's even more stunning is that the plagiarist shows no remorse when he is caught -- just indignance. It's very disheartening to know that people like that are going out into the business world where they'll be inflicted upon employers and customers.
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You're not strange. You're the kind of nurse I want for myself and my family members -- the kind who bothered to LEARN the stuff she needs to know to take care of us!
ReplyDeleteI think that the LEARN word is the problem. Most of the kids I encounter in classes want a degree and to get out and make lots of money and then sit on their butts in front of the TV and be entertained. They don't desire to know the information, they want their 2.5 GPA and that piece of paper, to them whatever means they use to obtain it is perfectly ok.
ReplyDeleteI had a paper of mine plagiarized once, by another girl in my class, I was furious, and brought it to my professors attention. Rather than kick her out of the class, talk to the dean of education, even give her an F on that paper, he let her rewrite it and get a good grade. I was again furious. I still am a little upset about that. Part of the problem is that it's too much paperwork and hassle for the profs to tell the dean, so they just let these kids slide through.
I think at the base of the plagiarism problem is a lazy and selfish society. They want even their college degrees handed to them on silver platters.
Oh, Mel, that is so sad that the profs won't put up a stink. I tend to think that the person should get kicked out of the college altogether, but at least the profs should give them a zero on the paper.
ReplyDeleteAs for feeling entitled to a college degree, Philip tells me it's even worse: some people feel entitled to a paycheck. He was telling me ealier that there's something called "wage slavery" -- the outlandish notion that you should have to WORK at your job in order to get your paycheck. Good grief! No wonder sometimes it seems like the customer is in the way when she expects to get some help at the store, but the employee is busy chatting with friends or painting her nails or whatever. After all, it'd be "wage slavery" if the employee actually had to interrupt her life to wait on customers.
That thing about wage slavery was if the wikipedia article was accurate.
ReplyDeleteAnd there were differing definitions.
"It is used to express disapproval of a condition where a person feels compelled to work in return for payment of a wage." Were one definition, and the one that was most, "What?" Along those lines, this quote also fit: ""In terms used by critics of capitalism, wage slavery is the condition where a person must sell his or her labor power, submitting to the authority of an employer merely to subsist." "
There was also this definition: "For example, wage slave can denote a worker who has no choice in who they work for, or it can denote a worker who has no choice in the type of job they can get."
The Marxist definition was basically, "A few people own all the companies, forcing people who want to live to work for them."
There are other uses. It was mainly that first one that just blew me away.