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Online Plagiarist Sues University
raistphrk writes "The Reg reports that an English student at the University of Kent has sued the university after the university caught him ripping his papers off the Internet and kicked him out of the English program. I guess the stakes are now being raised for universities that use services to check for plagiarized papers."
I stole someone else fp. I couldn't figure out how to write my own.
Burgulars will start suing homeowners for unsafe conditions. Oh wait ... nevermind
Got hosting
Are you *sure* this is in England and not in South Park Colorado?
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
this reminds me of that woman that sued mcdonalds for "making her fat"...how could this guy not realize that copying papers and turning them in as his own is wrong?
should have stopped him?! The world is going downhill when people begin to reject common sense in favor of outrageous accusations such as this one.
He admitted he's plagiarized... There should be no problem.
I actually agree in one way or another. I think that the university probably wanted to suck him dry and then take his degree. They kicked him out on his LAST day? He had been cheating the entire time before that.
FuckTheFuckingFuckers.com - Post your th
Now he will have to save up to buy a degree.
sue his parents, and anyone else he has ever interacted with, for producing either an idiot or a liar, whichever he is.
I'm a student at a university in the UK, and was recently done for plagarism, on the basis that I had lifted a paragraph from an internet source. I freely admit that yes, I did lift the paragraph from the source, but the unreasonable part is *I WROTE THE SOURCE*. That's right, they stuck my essay in google, my website came up, with an old, largely unrelated essay on it, and, because the essay is on the internet, it's copying from an internet source, in spite of the fact that it's my own site.
There's catching people who are attempting to plagarise, and just being silly.
Discrimination: You singled me out. All the other students are doing it, too, and you didn't kick them out.
This guy should have to pay his own legal fees plus all the cost incurred by the university.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I saw this a couple of days ago (at a site with more details).
...
How any person can get to university without realising that plaigarism is wrong is beyond me. How an *English* student can try to argue that he didn't know what the word meant (as per the student handbook that explained this)
This person is so stupid that he doesn't deserve a degree. I think how he got his A Levels (pre-university exams in England) is also rather doubtful as well.
His problem, then, is not that he was caught, but that he was caught too late. He argues that the university should have warned him of the consequences earlier.
* CAUTION: Coffee is hot, do not store between legs while driving.
* DO NOT stop chainsaw with HANDS.
* DO NOT TOUCH SERVER
And new to this category:
* IF YOU CHEAT THROUGH SCHOOL, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO PULL THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER YOU AT ANY TIME, INCLUDING AFTER YOU'VE PAID US 4 YEARS TO PLAY ALONG WITH YOUR LITTLE SCAM( but just before we hand you your diploma).
-Adam
Your joking right? That's like not swatting a mousquito because he has already been sucking for a minute or two and it wouldn't be fair.
"I can see there is evidence I have gone against the rules," he concedes. "But they have taken all my money for three years and pulled me up the day before I finished. If they had pulled me up with my first essay at the beginning and warned me of the problems and consequences, it would be fair enough."
University authorities wouldn't comment directly on the case stressed that the university is very clear on the subject. David Nightingale, the deputy vice-chancellor said: "All students are given clear guidelines as well as practical advice and support as to what constitutes plagiarism. These spell it out that it is not acceptable under any circumstances."
I'll admit that I've never been to a university, but I have to assume that like any respectable organization, this university made it clear to the student when he enrolled that plagarism was not acceptable. I'm sure there's a signature of his on a form somewhere in his records stating that he knew that well in advance.
Where I went to college, the Art department chair was caught many years after that fact for plaigarizing his dissertation for his Ph.D. He lost his doctorate and his job, and probably faced legal actions as well.
Better to get nailed for plaigarism before you have your degree like this guy at the University of Kent did than to build a career around a falsehood like the department chair.
A love beyond compare...
...because even though he plagiarized from teh get go, they waited until teh day before he graduated to kick him out, in effect, leaving him with no degree, and them with all teh money.
It doesn't say wether he wants money, or his degree, or whatever, and it doesn't say how long teh Uni knew about his plagiarism before giving him teh boot.
Does anyone familiar with UK courts think he can win this ridiculous case?
Welcome to the Real World, kid. You break the rules, you get caught, your own damn fault.
Plagiarism is an offense in which nobody wins. People who actually do the work are hurt because they won't rank as high (most Universities run off bell curves). The University gets themselves discredited and the value eof everybody's degree goes down if it happens too often. Everbody ends up with paint on their faces.
Only person possibly standing to benefit from it is the Plagiariser. So if you go down, it's your fucking problem.
This kid really needs to grow the hell up.
Karma: Non-Heinous
The crux of the lawsuit is that the student was punished too late, to his detriment, and, arguably, the university's benefit. There is no question that whatever method was used to catch the plagiarism did produce an accurate result.
Its totally irrelavent as to when the school noticed/stopped him. The guy is asking for a degree based on work he didnt do. He cheated. he got caught, and now is just fishing for a way out.
Theres no way on earth he could have thought the university would be thrilled with his plagerism.
Oh my, I think Dave just turned into a bear.
On the other hand, hes top of the class in his law module!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I'd like to know all of the schools he went to before college, because no one should go to these schools because they obviously don't teach their students that plagiarism is wrong. It's common sense that you shouldn't copy.
The author of the works that he copied should sue this guy for copyright infringement. That will show him.
No it isn't. Read the article.
The basis for the suit is: "I've been plagarizing for 3.9 years, and right as I was about to graduate, you told me I couldn't. You shouldn't be allowed to kick someone out for plagarism after they pay you for 4 years of education."
This is a very silly argument, but if the student can find some evidence that the administration had knowledge of the plagarism scheme, led him to believe he would graduate, he paid all his fees, and *then* they pulled the plug, that would probably be just as immoral as the plagarism itself.
Lets be honest with ourselves. Who plagarizes anymore and thinks its okay?
The analogy to that would be seeing a burglar in your house, and sitting there as he took almost everything (and he knows that you're there watching and not saying anything about it). When he goes to take the last valuable item in your house, THEN you pull out your gun and shoot him in the face.
Now granted, what the kid did was stupid, and his excuse is lame ("I didn't know it was wrong"). But if they knew that he had been plagarizing the past 3 years (as the article incinuates), then they should have kicked him out immediately. Doing otherwise does kind of look like extortion, or rather making someone pay money under false pretenses.
That being said, I don't feel sympathy for the kid. You lost money? Too bad, you shouldn't have been plagarizing. You're 21 years old, you should know better.
-Vendal Thornheart
England has now become the USA.
The whole basis for the degree is that you read a book or play written by someone else, listen to your lecturer and then write a critique of something written by someone with miles more talent than you have.
The whole basis of an English degree is ripping off other people's work and using it to justify your grades.
Lets put it this way, if that "Linus stole Linux" paper had been submitted as literary critisism it would have got an A.
The guy was a prat, he cheated, he was caught. But cheating in English... damn that is a waste of time. What jobs come out of that ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Sure. Blame someone else for the consequences of your own actions. Sheesh! Grow up and take some responsibility.
...is that the university didn't warn him that they knew he was plagiarising papers for his courseworks, but instead let him keep going until the week of the final exams and then told him there wasn't any point in him taking them, as they wouldn't let him pass anyway, thus letting him build up debts of $15,000+.
.A verbal warning first, then a written warning; and finally suspension or being expelled.
There are two other possible options they could have done at the first time they he was plagiarising text:
(1) Throw him out immediately.
(2) Follow standard industry disciplinary procedures:
. .
Given that the university stated that plagiarising won't be tolerated, why didn't they warn him? If a students wasn't getting some topic and constantly getting wrong answers, wouldn't the department have told him? If someone decided they wanted to become a pilot, attended flying school, but lacked the concentration/attention span required to learn, would the instructors waste their (and his) time stringing that person along only to tell them that they shouldn't bother attending the exam?
There are standard punishments for this type of behavior. To allow someone to build up this amount of debt is purely vindictive and would probably amount to a "cruel and unusual punishment". It seems to me, the department were only interested in collecting as much money from him as possible.
All I know, is that whenever I hand in a single piece of coursework, however minor, we are always given a sheet to read and sign, stating that the work is entirely our own.
And I'm a student in England.
I hope he doesn't win, if he does, I'm going to feel really silly for the hundreds of hours I've put in on work over the years, when I could have done this.
/Me Rolls Eyes.
Who is Jon Katz and what is he doing in this HOWTO? (OK, I know who he is, but the reference to 'Jon Katz stories' is a bit outdated nonetheless)
My karma really hurts.
Upon first detecting the offense, they should have booted him.
The University's behavior was clearly out of line in that it was unduly cruel and unusual. Further, it was a drain on resources they were not entitled to since they had decided from the beginning they were not going to give him the degree he was spending time trying to acquire.
His method of acquisition was inappropriate but punishment should fit the crime. The punishment itself, in this case, was fraudulent since they decided from early on that he would be removed.
He should have a complete refund awarded to him though of course he should receive no degree since he didn't earn it.
if I were the person he plagurized, is to sue him for copyright infringement. I mean in the off chance he actually wins anything, have the person that actually did the work sue it off of him again.
...
I wonder if he took any of my stuff
As a corollary, it is amazing how stupid today's plagiarist is.
What an imbecile. He was clearly warned in the student handbook that plagiarism was unacceptable. I don't know about his particular classes, but my teachers always make a point of defining plagiarism, explaining why it's unacceptable and clearly outlining the consequences. If his argument is that the school should have checked his work for plagiarism sooner, then whatever lawyer agreed to file this suit should be ashamed of himself.
My blog
...is that many countries no longer have public canings.
Like they do in Singapore
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
Other jobs for English grads:
1) barrista
2) Kinkos clerk
3) Sears salesman
4) babysitter
5) dog groomer (lesbos only)
He's already got the morals of a lawyer. The suit should be a good start to a new vocation.
As a lecturer, I've found the level of plagerism from the internet as worrying. I've always warned my students that I will take random sentences from their reports and plug it into Google to check for unreferenced and unmodified sources.
Turning a blind eye to plagerism devalues the quality of degrees. I feel no pity when cheats are caught out.
ummm a
i think he may only win because hes compiling information off the internet and getting it to the teachers satisfaction for the context they like it in
The University is running a pilot scheme which uses plagiarism detection software to analyse student work.
So it's not like they knew all along and were stinging him along. They just got smart, started using the same technology he was using to cheat, and finally caught him.
This was the English department after all. It took them awhile!
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
Yep, as this weekend we celebrate the greatest generation ever, it is stories like this that reminds me this is the lamest generation ever.
Instead of taking responsibilties and accept full blame, he points the finger at someone else for his lack of moral compass and honesty.
"Oh I admit that I am a shop-lifter but I am going to sue the store because they should have caught me long time ago and set me right on my way so I would learn my lesson." Apparently he knew what was right and wrong and chose the wrong path to follow.
If you can't do the time then you shouldn't do the crime.
I know that the university lawyers are actively searching out if he had talked about the fact he plagarised, and he knew it was wrong, anywhere prior to the event of getting caught. His whole arguement hinges on the fact he didn't see that his plagarism wasn't a problem if he didn't get caught.
Also the fact that his signed onto a school with a contract of rules, even if was ignorant to the fact there were rules.
I watch far too much Law & Order.
Even the samurai
have teddy bears,
and even the teddy bears
get drunk
There is no reason to discuss this kid. He should be killed.
I don't think that this guys issue is that he was kicked out for plagarism. Its that the university waited for so long before kicking him out, in essence taking his money for as long as they could before they booted him. I'm in university myself and at my university action is taken immediately when you are found to be plagarising. And that is what he is arguing they should have done, disciplined him in the very begining.
Just my $0.02 on this.
Building a case takes time. A suable entity, like a university, doesn't simply go off making accusations it can't prove. A better analogy than yours is a store security officer who sees Winona Ryder on the security monitors clipping the price tags off of articles of clothing on the store racks and stuffing them in her bag, then arresting her once she's on her way out the door with the merchandise in hand. That gave the security personnel everything they needed to prove intent.
It's not like the university officials did anything remotely analogous to "shooting him in the face", either. They imposed a completely legitimate penalty on him, that he already knew about. He's doing the equivalent of the burglar complaining, upon being arrested, that he shouldn't have been arrested JUST THEN because you waited too long to call the cops, thus "robbing" him of the opportunity to run out of your house before you could catch him.
As I pointed out elsewhere in the thread, you seem to assume that the university was making money by keeping this yobbo paying tuition. That's almost certainly not true.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
I highly doubt that the uni waited till the last minute for his money etc... A British person pays around 1,000 pounds a year. An International Student pays around 7 to 10,000 a year. And anyway you really think that a university like Kent would go through all this trouble just for 2,000 pounds? I entered Kent as an international student because i was living abroad, although i was a british citizen. A few months later, i explained it to them, and they refunded me my money immediately, and hence i only paied ~ 1k that year. Tuff luck kid. Uni is for you to learn something.. its your fault for plagiarising (however you spell that) be it you got caught early or late throughout your degree.. Then again, i left that uni coz the staff and the board there are the worst bunch of racist pigs i have ever encountered in my life, so i do hope their reputation gets affected in one way or another.
I can see it now.... to enroll in future colleges or univeristies, you'll have to sign a contract like taking an IT or medical job. All your IP must get assigned to the school, and you have to pay all the legal fees required to do so, you cannot compete with the school in any way, and if you quit, then you cannot attend any competeing school for a period of 2 years afterwards, you have to pay all legal fees for the school if anyone ever sues them for any reason because of you or your actions, and you cannot sue them for any reason unless you agree to pay all their legal fees in advance before doing so.
In a course in computer engineering, we once had to do group presentations and reports on some research topic of interest. We were a group of 3 so we divided the three reports with each person being the primary writer for one of the reports. I knew my teammates from other classes but imagine my surprise reading the report of one of them. I was just amazed at the quality of the report and his command of english given the limited experience that he had. But he didn't cite any quotes in the report for all the references that he used. So I decided to do a google search on a few key phrases so they could he properly cited. Then lo and behold I enter one phrase and the entire first 4 pages of the report are literal cut and paste from something on the internet. Overall on the 10+ page report maybe 90% was plagerized. I was freaked out a the possiblity of putting my name on the report as a team project. I tried to get him to understand that what he did was wrong but he didn't think it was a big deal. Eventually we did pressure him to rewrite it in his own words. I shudder at the thought of what he did for his master's thesis!
In the case of this kid, I think it's pretty cut-and-dry that he should bite the bullet. If you get caught plagiarizing, then you get busted. The fact that he didn't get caught before isn't evidence of negligence or discrimination, but rather his own luck in previous instances.
When I submitted the story today, I had hoped to generate a debate about the rights-and-wrongs of plagiarism, but also about the issue of whether or not universities should be requiring the usage of online plagiarism-checking services.
I'm pretty torn about online plagiarism-checking services. I think plagiarism is bad. I mean...every style book has a reasonable method of documenting where you got a quote from, and you can quote a whole paragraph in if it's relevant. For that matter, for most university papers, you can paraphrase a paragraph as long as you (a) cite the original source after you do so and (b) provide some more analysis to suppliment the material you used.
On the flip side, I do feel a bit violated when I have to submit these papers. One at least one site, the user agreement you MUST agree to states that the site basically inherits ownership of the paper. Now, that really bothers me. I post all of my academic papers (as well as personal poetry and other writings) on my own personal website. Based upon those user agreements, this site could post my paper, with our without indication that I authored it, or even sell it, without even informing me. Worse, if a professor requires that I use the service, I don't have a choice in the matter. I am forced to either (a) take a failing grade on the paper (and potentially the class), or (b) give up what intellectual property rights I have over my paper. That really irks me.
I don't have anything to hide; I don't rip off other people's work for my papers. At the same time though, I know other students DO rip off other authors' writings. I don't think it should be a professor's responsibility to be a source checker. If a fifty page paper has forty to eighty sources, the professor shouldn't have the responsibility to hunt down all of those sources. At the same time though, schools are putting their students in an academic guilty-until-proven-innocent situation.
label this as another of the thousands of frivolous lawsuits and be done with it. acknowledging stupid people like this makes more stupid people want to become famous.
Have $5250 deposited in your PayPal account guaranteed! Click here to find out how. You will make money.
If you take a look at the projects on RentaCoder, you will find that a good amount of them are homework assignements from students in the US and the UK. I find this ironic due to the fact that they are making themselves less prepared for a job that will probably get outsourced anyway. And they wont be in a position to try to find a better job.
Whats even better is how some poeple make it easy to track down thier professor. They post a pdf or word document given to them by thier professor, some people forget that it automatically stores the name of the person or orginization where it was created. A simple email to the professor of the course, and that cheater is history.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
I might consider the sun to be the moon, but that doesn't make it so.
Take a look at a dictionary definition and see if it's reasonable to call recycling your own words plagiarism. It MIGHT be reasonable to outlaw reusing your own words from one assignment in another assignment (although it sounds as though the poster was simply using something he wrote in another context for an assignment, not turning in the same work twice), but it's NOT plagiarism.
Take a look at the definition and see if you see anything to support that interpretation. Yes, I'm aware that different dictionaries give slightly different interpretations to words, but I don't know of ANY reputable dictionary that would support the definition you mention.
==========
plagiarism
n 1: a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work 2: the act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own
- infringes on music copyrights... applaud
- infringes on non-GPL licensing stipulations
... applaud
- infringes on GPL licensing stipulations
... flame
- infringes on website owner copyrights by reposting text that requires free registration
... flame
- infringes on website owner copyrights by putting up an (unauthorized) mirror of the same material
... cheer
- cheats in class by using a graphing calculator's memory functions
.. cheer
hmm.. it's not here.writes in additional line
- plagarizes in class by plagarizing from the web
... flame
glad we got that sorted.What I can't cheat anymore, I'm going to sue, I just hope my lawlee did not cheat to get his law deegree like I cheated to get my English deegee
roamingfeet
"Now what did you learn?"
;-)
I mean there is no way this kid could claim with a straight face that he thought it was okay to copy other peoples work. If that's what he though a degree is then they would award the degree to the person he copied from.
Instead the university took his money put it to use [e.g pay staff, maintain building]. If anything he did community service
Though in all honesty the kid should be thinking more about trying to at least start over in school. As it stands now his academic track is screwed.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
He admits he plagiarised. From the article:
"But they have taken all my money for three years and pulled me up the day before I finished. If they had pulled me up with my first essay at the beginning and warned me of the problems and consequences, it would be fair enough."
He's complaining that he spent 3 years and lots of money submitting stolen papers and that the University should have made him understand EARLIER that submitting stolen papers would REALLY get him kicked out of the program.
His case is that no one at the university REALLY explained to him that stealing papers was not acceptable and what the ACTUAL consequences would be. Or at least that they didn't do it early enough to satisfy him.
Whether he wins or loses that case, you have to ask yourself, would you want to HIRE him to work for you?
In reality, the student got what he paid for - class instruction - for years. He doesn't have that coming back to him. He paid tuition for a service (instruction), and he received that service.
The fact that he is unable to complete his degree puts him in the same category as all the drop-out and flunk-out "students". Should they be refunded their tuition, simply because they cannot finish? Doubtful.
Court adjourned; ruling in favor of the defendant, in summary judgment.
Fuller story here
Hey! What pretty widgets?
I read the article expecting the student to have some interesting grounds for suing the university.
It was a disapointment to hear his sorry excuse rather than sn interesting creative excuse. But then, if he were creative, he wouldn't have had the problem he had.
I went to the University of Kent where I studied VLSI circuit engineering... It was made very very clear over and over again what the consequences were for plagarism... There's no way this guy couldn't have known he'd be kicked out...
University of Kent were experts at extracting as much money as possible from the students... but I doubt they let him keep paying until the end of his degree once they'd discovered his plagarism.. I've seen people kicked out for abusing the computing systems, and all of them were kicked out as soon as their misdeeds were discovered... I suspect this guy got caught out as they were finishing off the marking for his coursework...
Regardless of whether or not that is true, he broke the rules, and I have a hard time believing that he didn't know what he was doing. Ignorance is no excuse, he deserves to be kicked out. That said, though, if the student can prove that the university knew that he was plagarizing but didn't do anything about it until he graduated, well, then the University was taking him for a ride. Therefore, they would owe him whatever tuition he paid between when they first figured it out and now.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
I am almost done a 4 year double major degree, and I applaud any university that kicks out students for plagerism or cheating.
/. entry, this is just a subject I feel very strongly about)
I am sick and fucking tired of watching classmates cheat on assignments, term papers and final exams, while the faculty does nothing. I have reported someone cheating to either a teacher or TA at pretty much every exam I have written and nothing gets done. 'Stern' warnings are pretty much as far as it seems to go. Occasionally I have heard of students being forced to repeat a class, the odds of getting caught by someone who cares enough to do something about it are so small, that the penalty pales in comparison to the crime.
This pisses me off because they are devauluing my degree. Random employer A goes out and hires someone with the same degree I am getting, sees that they know jack shit, and fires them. I'm not even going to get an interview walking in 2 months later because they have already discounted that peice of paper I spent 4 years of my life and many thousands of dollars on.
If you want to get a degree the easy way, do it mail order, and get the fuck out of the class room.
(I beleive this is the first time I have sworn on a
paul reinheimer
1. copy 2. get caught 3. sue insensibly 4. become famous 5. ???? 6. profit
Striving to be common...
If this student can sue the university "because they didn't catch him before" I guess that serial killers can sue the police "because they didn't catch him before".
Does anyone else see the flaw in this logic?
How any person can get to university without realizing that plagiarism is wrong is beyond me.
You get it wrong. He's suing them for not catching him earlier . He admits that he's been cheating all along and that he knew it was cheating. His complaint is that, if they had caught (and kicked him out) earlier, he wouldn't have stayed in school for so long (and paid his tuition).
It looks like he's going to go into court arguing that he's been cheating since day one. I expect the university to use (among other things) the 'clean hands' defence (you can't claim the protection of the court if you're breaking the law). Plagirism is also copyright violation, so he's likely to get laughed out of court just on that basis.
I can just imagine the disclosure request for:
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
If this student can sue the university "because they didn't catch him before" I guess that serial killers can sue the police "because they didn't catch him before".
:)
Does anyone else see the flaw in this logic?
I was about ready to tear the kid's head off too, and then I read the blurb. Although I don't think he would ever win a lawsuit, I do think that, if they knew that he was plagarizing earlier, they should have kicked him out instead of letting him wade through 3 years of school and then opening up the history of his plagarizing.
The analogy to that would be seeing a burglar in your house, and sitting there as he took almost everything (and he knows that you're there watching and not saying anything about it). When he goes to take the last valuable item in your house, THEN you pull out your gun and shoot him in the face.
Now granted, what the kid did was stupid, and his excuse is lame ("I didn't know it was wrong"). But if they knew that he had been plagarizing the past 3 years (as the article incinuates), then they should have kicked him out immediately. Doing otherwise does kind of look like extortion, or rather making someone pay money under false pretenses.
That being said, I don't feel sympathy for the kid. You lost money? Too bad, you shouldn't have been plagarizing. You're 21 years old, you should know better.
-Vendal Thornheart^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
-Ben Taitelbaum
How long before someone writes a program that uses random key strokes and clicks to rearrange the words and sentence structure of a paper using a thesaurus and some smart programming, so that it is impossible to discover where the work came from.
Creative Demolition
There are two reasons.
1) Citations are useful for people doing research. If I read your paper, and I want to know more about a specific item, I will look at your references and get other related books. This is not applicable or useful in this case because the only purpose of the paper was to demonstrate the student's abilities, NOT to create a work that will be read and used by others.
2) To make a clear distinction between what is YOUR thinking and what thinking you BORROWED from someone else. This is the primary reason why plagarism is frowned upon; you're tricking the teacher into thinking you did work when all you did was copy someone else's. However, this isn't applicable here either, because the student actually did the work.
Really, this is just the product of a paranoid administration more obsessed with the letter of the law than the purpose.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
...in which, committing murder is a death- sentence crime, and the murderer is supposed to be executed right away as soon as possible after the crime. Now suppose a young man kills someone, and the authorities know right away he did it, but for whatever strange reason he doesn't get arrested, sentenced and executed immediately like as is the normal case with murders. The young man thinks that the police aren't on to him, and lives on to later have a wife and children, becomes a prosperous businessman and respected member of the community despite his evil secret past. Now later, his murder case out into the open even though the police have known of it for years. The courts try him, find him guilty and sentence him to be executed right away, but also the sentence is such that since he should have been sentenced to death immediately after his murder, that he had no right to have had a family, so that his children must also be put to death too and his wife imprisoned for consorting with a murderer. And all his posessions and wealth are seized by the courts too. His entire history from the time of the murder to the present are to be erased. Even everyone who had had contact with him in the past and prospered from that contact must give up whatever good will came of their relationships.
That's also the reason you can't challenge exams without taking the course... (more money for them) that, and they load an otherwise generic exam with information specific to only that course.
This guy shouldn't have lifted material, but I'm not surprised how the Uni screwed him.
Didn't know if it went through. Please mod this one down -2 Redundant?
Can we get over this "greatest generation" meme already? Please?
Coming through the second world war and the great depression is an impressive feat, but we conveniently forget that the generation of Americans that included heros like FDR and Eisenhower also brought us criminals like Al Capone, made "Mafia" a household word, and revitalized the Ku Klux Klan. Compared to the rose-tinted selective memory of what some people did in the past, every generation looks like a lame imitation of the previous one's greatness.
I think the Sumerians said it best: "The youth of today are lazy, without God, and disrespecful to elders." And the youth always will be lazy, godless, and disrespectful, at least until a new generation comes along to take their place.
0 1 - just my two bits
All these comments about turning in your own work twice being plagiarism are beside the point. Some professors don't want students turning in a paper written for another class, since presumably you should have learned something unique in that class that merits a unique assignment. In many situations that could be considered academic dishonesty (although I don't agree with that view), but hardly "plagiarism," which as others pointed out involves taking another person's work and pretending it is your own.
These essays were obviously read by the student's teachers. Some students from the same class obviously prepared their essays together. Did the teachers just not care? Do they realize that next year those judging the competition will not take their students seriously. I was put off by the experience, and don't really want to judge again next year. When I was that age, we didn't have online sources for this kind of thing. I guess I'm naive to be surprised by the sheer percentage of kids cheating. I know there have been articles recently that cite studies that have found extremely high percentages of kids cheat, I just figured that these numbers applied to a kid's entire academic career - I can see someone cheating once or twice in the period of time from kindergarten to the end of high school, or until the end of college. Apparently, I was underestimating the problem.
The way my undergraduate university dealt with this was to have an honour code. We signed an agreement on our first day of school that we wouldn't cheat, and if we did, if we were discovered, if we knew that someone else cheated, and we didn't do anything, there were clear penalties. The code was clear and as far as I know, the implementation was fair. There was a case of a fraternity getting copies of an exam before it was given, and those involved were punished.
I indirectly caught someone cheating once when I found their class notes in the bathroom while they were taking an exam. I knew that it was early in the exam period. I didn't follow the honour code, but just took the notebook, kept it for a few days and then dropped it off with the professor, not telling them when or where I'd found it. I felt bad for the student, but I figured that when they went to the bathroom and found it missing, and then had it returned to them several days later by the professor, they would be freaked out enough. Yeah, that was probably mean, but I could have been meaner.
I am not sure about the paying him type of hiring...but he has shown initiative and would have a great deal to contribute to open source development (especially, if he wings a job in a company with a good repository of juicy proprietory code.)
Actually, the poor guy is falling into one of the great dilemmas of the modern world. While there is still a need for people creating new content, there is also need for people who excel at taking constructed pieces and putting them together.
I once copied somebodys Pascal program and they caught me out. I was actually supposed to be thrown out the entire course, but I only failed that assignment (I never understood Pascal and I failed that module anyway).
I use 'stealth plagerism' - I would take chunks and rewrite them to suit the conditions (in some instances, I would just leave them 'as is' as quotes). I do cite my sources, however, and I haven't been called up on it yet.
Please remember
Can you sue for pretty much anything......yes!
Will you win..... No!
He admitted he murdered... there should be no problem.
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
his comment is pure plagiarism (see some posts above)
# infringes on music copyrights... applaud ... applaud
# infringes on non-GPL licensing stipulations
Since when do slashdotters advocate this?
infringes on website owner copyrights by putting up an (unauthorized) mirror of the same material
This, I agree, is annoying.
since this above post is plagiarism, should you mod this funny, given the context... or troll?
It seems this chap's whole case is that the university should have noticed his cheating and confronted him sooner.
The timing of the disciplinary action is irrelevant. He knew that cheating was liable to get him disciplined and/or dismissed, and he even admits that. Does he seriously expect the university to check every piece of work he handed it, at the time he hands it it? Does he expect them to do the same for every student?
Surely, the more likely situation was that a few of his later pieces of work aroused suspicion. This then led to a fuller investigation to assess the rest of his work. Then once the investigation had been completed, and a clear case could be made, he was confronted by the evidence.
When I was at University, one of the student's had managed to cheat in each formal set of exams in a full 6 year medical course. She was only dismissed after the final exams, days before graduation, and after paying fees close to 100,000.
The cheating only came to light when one student who was absolutely certain he had passed a certain paper (it was his 2nd attempt and he had worked like a dog for it) was told he had failed. He was called up before the Dean a couple of days before the results were published. He asked to see his paper, and it wasn't his - somebody had switched the answer papers.
Subsequently, there was a full investigation and several other exams were scrutinised - evidence of cheating was found throughout the course. Suspicions were also raised about some informal 'prize' exams during the course, but this could never be proved as the papers were destroyed after marking.
Is that people who steal your neck-vein?
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
I did not see anything in article suggesting that university knew he was plagiarizing earlier.
The lawsuit will probably start a discovery process whereby his student records are subpoenaed from the school.
Actually, if the unversity strung him along just to collect tuition, then they should BOTH be punished. Don't refund the kid, but simply require the university donate the difference to a charity or something.
Table-ized A.I.
I am an adjunct professor of world history at a local university. Typically I require 2 or 3 short papers in addition to take-home a final and midterms. In my syllabus, which I go over with students on the first day of class, I inform my students that plagiarism is a serious breach of university regulations.
There was only one case where I was fairly certain that the student had procured a paper from the internet. How did I know? The student could hardly speak English. The paper was about 350% of what was required. It would have been acceptable as a term paper in an undergraduate seminar. The student swore that he wrote it.
What did I give the student? I think it was a D or D+. It was a while ago, and I don't have my records handy. I was pretty sure the student had copied the paper from somewhere, but he had insisted that he had written it for a class in Korea. I reluctantly accepted his explanation. I didn't know how far I wanted to take it, and I wasn't so very sure that this incident should put him at risk of expulsion. But a stern warning, and an unpleasant grade should have gotten the point across.
But you know the funniest part? The student had a D/D+ average for the rest of the work for the class.
What do I tell my students now? If they are going to plagiarize, they had better be consistent about it. Nothing stinks of plagiarism than a sequence of grades like "C-, A, D, D+, D". Especially when the "A" is for maybe 5% of your grade.
Classes that base their grade mostly on one final paper are much more amenable to plagiarism than classes which require several short writing assignments on specific topics. Another preventative measure is to require an outline, or an abstract of the final paper with the proviso that any changes of topic have to be approved in advance.
Plagiarism is wrong and shameful. But, I also know that virtue is weak and sometimes needs to be helped along by making it easier to do right than to give into vice.
He went to school and paid money where they educated him. He indeed to learn something for his money, not to plagiarise. Class is now over. He got what he paid for.
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
"If you wish to be a writer,
The Way of Harry should be
your way,
Because the Way of Harry
does not close off any options,
But just makes your job simpler,
And easier to do."
Any thought you've ever had has already be
The guy cheated but it appears the University cheated more. If a university is supposed to be the pinnacle of learning then why are they being so immoral? The hypocrisy here is overwhelming.
" Also similar to the "I didn't know smoking was bad for me" argument ... "
The tobacco lawsuits are different. When a company's internal documents show that they knew a product was both chemically addictive and highly carcinogenic, and they continued to sell it for decades while assuring consumers that it was neither addictive nor deadly, they are responsible for damage done to those consumers.
Given full disclosure up front (as cigarettes feature now), I'm more willing to blame the users.
Student sues university over being kicked out for plagerizing. Common sense surrenders. Seriously though, it's nice to see that the lawyer schisterism of the US has gone across the Atlantic. I would have thought this kind of crap could only fly in US courts. The only way this kid could have a case is if he snuck unto the dean's office at night and found an entire file cabinet with documents outlining the vast conspricy against him, all for the purpose of taking an inconsequential amount of money from him (inconsequential to the university anyway). No college is going to risk a few thousand pounds over the possibility of it getting out that the school accepts plagerized work, because that could damage the school's reputation to a very significant degree.
I was looking through the comments today and RTFA. The guy deserves what he got. The real question is whether or not the University is in the wrong for not telling him that he was cheating.
It's pretty obvious that the Judge that hears this case is just going to throw it out and give the guy a big, "You had it coming!" What bugs me is that if the University did know that he was cheating the entire time then why didn't they do something about it. Was it because they just wanted to hold onto a student who was paying his bills?
I agree the student got what he deserved, but I think the University does have a responsibility to both the students and itself to discipline rule-breakers immediately, otherwise it may take years for the student to learn his lesson.
What worries me most is that the University may be as morally bankrupt as the student...
Sad thing is the kid does have a point about universities not being aggressive enough about cheating and plagiarism. The fact that he got away with it for so long is symptomatic of cheating at many universities here in the US. I taught a summer course at a prestigious university once (I teach full time at a not-quite-as-prestigious one normally) and there were 11 students in the class. Several were students at another big well-known school in the midwest. I caught 6 of them plagiarizing, cases that ran from a couple students who had no idea they were plagiarizing (I didn't believe them at first but after talking to them I actually believe them; they basically did clip jobs of stuff from other sources, a paragraph here, a sentence there) to a couple who openly admitted that they plagiarized.
The ones who admitted it were from the midwest school; I had a long chat with one of them afterward and she told me that she and everyone she knew cheated on just about every assignment. She said she didn't want to at first but when she saw her friends getting away with it and getting better grades than her, she changed her tune. She was kind of blown away that she had gotten caught - she said professors at her university simply never made much attempt to catch cheaters. If students are being essentially rewarded for plagiarism, they may not have enough incentive to avoid it.
I had another case a few years ago with a student who looked up to me a great deal. After I caught him he was extremely apologetic and embarrassed. But he said the strangest thing in an email to me -- he basically said, "I'm a Marine, and I learned in the Corps to do whatever it takes to get ahead. If I was in the same position again I would do it again." Now, I've never been in the armed services, but I can't imagine the USMC is teaching him to cheat in school. And the idea that he would do it again if he was in the same position -- what the fuck? He got caught. He flunked the course. He didn't "get ahead." You'd think he would learn from the experience. But I think the problem is, when people get away with it so many more times than they get caught, they really believe it is in their best interest to cheat.
I'm all for giving people a second chance in many of these situations but I think professors should always document instances of academic dishonesty at the university level (our university requires it; I think all should) so that students who do it in different classes do not keep getting "second" chances.
By knowingly allowing a cheater to participate in classes (and, presumably, giving him "fake" passing grades which they intend later to revoke - or did he continue despite getting all F's?), they were harming all other students in his class, both directly through an unfair grade curve, and indirectly in many ways.
That is kinda screwed up, and if your account is accurate, many other students may have a case against the university.
from a web site. I saw the website when I was researching the topic and copied the pages fro my information. Later I was copying from the article as another source. As I copied the 2 together I realized I had the same paragraphs.
I reported same to the editor of the magazine. I eventually got an e-mail from the author apologizing for the error and a promise that he was going to apologize to the owners of the website as well. (A non profit organization). Apparently, he did just what I was doing, copying the data into his computer to rewrite, and the wrong version of the article got submitted.
I don't know about any further follow up from that incident.
Slashdot has no collective morals beyond the most trivial. You will find people who applaud, cheer, flame, congratulate, adulate, despise, and ignore any of the activities you listed and more. There are more than three quarters of a million of us, we're bound to disagree on some things.
Why is anything anything?
While I understand what you're saying, you're A) oversimplifying and B) assuming Slashdot thinks as a single hivemind. (Which, while more true than may be optimal for true arguments and discussions, is NOT as true as your little quick-reference sheet makes it seem.)
The first point is a gross oversimplification as, while SOME people here have said specifically 'All copyright is wrong and should be abbolished," MOST people have expressed something more mild. Along the lines of, "The current copyright system is extremely unfair. However, I do understand the possible good uses for copyright as an idea, just not how it is currently implimented. Because of that, I have more sympathy for those who chose to ignore the unreasonable restrictions used for copywritten entertainment (usually music) than those who use the copyright system to impose unreasonable restrictions on media." Which, in your mind, gets boiled down to all Slashdotters saying, "Infringing on music copyrights is good." This isn't even true for all Slashdoters, though, as every time music copyrights come up there are well-spoken arguments by artists (or even just those who disagree with downloading music without paying the artist, or programmers who apply the argument about music to software) who explain why they believe the copyright system is valid, and you're an ass if you "pirate" music or software.
The second two points ignore the type of licensing stipulations. You seem to have a missunderstanding you seem to have on how (many) Slashdoters view software licensing. The issue (as I understand it) is that the GPL grants privledges BEYOND what would normally exist for code. As such, violating it makes you look like an ass, because you're already being given allowances you wouldn't have had without the GPL. On the other hand, the software licenses which are "applauded" when broken (usually) impose a restriction that (by Slashdot hivemind, popular concensus, the phase of the moon, or whatever company is currently in or out of favor) have been deemed unreasonable and overly harsh. For the most part, these software licenses impose restrictions vastly beyond what 'normal' copyright law would suggest is standard, and often due so in a questionably legal fashion (click through licenses, EULAs, popup browser downloads that say they are "required," etc.) So violating the GPL makes you look greedy while violating 'standard' software licenses (according ot Slashdot groupthink) can be the "right" thing to do.
I don't even understand your points concerning mirroring and reposting text. Karma whores or ACs will often copy-and-paste text from Salon or the NYT and get modded up for it. Likewise, posting mirrors often gets you modded up. The idea for the first is that many (not all) people feel the registration systems imposed for some news sites are overly harsh and appreciate not having to give up such info to read what - in the newsstand print edition - would require no personaly identifying information. The logic behind mirroring is that many of the sites Slashdot posts about are, by their nature, hobby sites with low bandwidth and the webmasters appreciate not having their site hosed. When an entire word has been devoted to the negative effect of having a website posted on Slashdot, I don't think mirroring is unreasonable. For small sites, it's often considered a polite way of being helpful, rather than copyright violation...
Maybe I missed a story, but how is the graphing calculator even slightly on topic? Because it's a story about school? I admit I don't read every story and don't have them all memorized, but I don't recal seeing a story about some kid getting in trouble for using a graphic calculator. (I wouldn't be copmletely surprised if it happened, but I think you're jumping the gun by posting about it.) That said, as a student... graphing calculators are tools and, if the teacher allows their use, I'm going to damn well use every tool I can to make my life easier. I'm not writing papers by hand because computers make it easier. Lik
Not necessarily, there are places that do in fact sell papers that come with the rights to redistribute. There are works in the public domain (Shakespeare etc..) that you can republish without copyright infringement. And paraphrasing without citing the source, while not illegal, is still plagirism.
This women didnt just spill hot coffee on herself, and sue. McDonalds intentional kept it at 185 degrees. Normal home coffee is 135 degrees. McDonalds knew that this would cause injuries. This women was hospitilized for 3rd degree burns, as others had also been. Click here for more information.
When you go to uni, you don't pay for a degree. You pay for tuition (and other related services) and the twit recieved these services. There was no contract that said he had to get a degree. The fact that he elected to not bother to do the work that would have led to a degree is his affair -- the contract between him and the uni is intact.
He doesn't have a case, unless there was something really odd in his contract with the uni.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
So if she had placed this coffee cup into a cupholder and hit a bump and was scalded, who would be to blame then?
McDonald's had repeatedly been warned about their coffee in and out of court before this. This was not the first suit against them for hot coffee burning people. McDonald's was purposefully overheating their coffee so that if it was a slow morning, they could keep the same batch around longer. The purpose of the original large judgement in favor of the woman was to teach McDonald's that it actually doesn't pay to use unsafe practices to save a buck.
This falls under the category that protects the average person from Big Corp, Inc. that cuts corners and doesn't worry about customer safety. This has nothing to do with intelligence, at least not on the woman's side.
No problem with the plagiarism as long as he admitted it (and repented?), or no problem with the punishment since they have a confession? I hope you mean the latter.
Why is anything anything?
If this holds up, everyone who was sued by the RIAA should sue them back, claiming ignorance of the law.
What a total asshat. Here is a tip: Don't cheat.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
People are stooopid.
Now, if this guy won, THAT would be news.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Just a story to indicate that plagiarism may be a serious problem, but it isn't a good idea to get paranoid about it.
And believe me, people are getting paranoid. I know a Ph.D. student who days before the ceremony was confronted with a claim of plagiarism, because in his thesis a few pages were detected which he copied from a book he had written himself. The problem was that one of the co-authors of the book claimed that those pages were written by him, even though all the research in the book was by our Ph.D. student. You might think that such a claim would not mean much, but the Ph.D. ceremony was delayed for weeks (which cost a lot of money) and was even in jeopardy of being called off at all. All because people react like being stung when they hear "plagiarism".
Waaah! I admit that I did wrong, but I was misled into thinking it wasn't a problem!
File this one under, "Sit down and shut up!"
In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.
-- Yun-Men
I am completely amazed that this person is acutally NOT an American (as I am, don't worry, no foreign criticism here).
Apparently, in our courts and society, ignorance of the rules, or in fact, ingnorance in general, is usually enough to get yourself out of trouble (or at least, excuse yourself from it).
People have brought up a large number of similar cases (most notably coffee), where people basically claim ignorance (unreasonably) and try and make a legal case out of it.
I didn't know the coffee was hot, I didn't know plagerism would get me kicked out of school, et cetera. What sickens me more than when people wrongfully claim ignorance, is when judges don't throw that shit out of court.
Tobacco company executives all testified under oath before Congress that they knew of no scientific evidence of nicotine being bad. Turns out they were lying their asses off, that for decades they had been suppressing their very own studies which showed that, and intentionally adding oddball ingredients to boost addictivity.
Tobacco companies are evil and deserve more than they will get. Unfortunately, what with tobacco taxes bringing in so much revenue, governments are unlikely to give them what they deserve.
Infuriate left and right
And the academic Darwin Award goes to.... He should have been thrown out for stupid logic alone.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
seriously, though. i thought arts students dont need to study and have all the time in the world. how hard is it to even find time to write your own paper. gee i'm sure they dont have time to do that.
idiots.
I rest my case bitches.
Just give him the degree. But say that there's an additional plagarism protection fee of - say, $100,000, and that he must pay because the work is not his own. But don't deny the creep the degree. Make him walk away instead.
The essay which I lifted the paragraph had been written about 4 years previously, while at secondary school (High school, to americans), and I used it because there are *very* few ways to explain convoluted mathematical theori in plain english. Also, it was never formally marked, one of those assignments where the teacher goes 'wow, that looks great. Put it somewhere, I'll look at it one day, maybe'.
"A student who was booted off his degree course for plagiarism is to sue the university."
I am religious about citing sources and a fanatic about trying to be original in my writing, coding and just about everything I do.
Yeah, but they are the bosses. Ultimately, life gets down to doing what the bosses tell you or live on the street.
You know, I'm just about cheering for this kid, and I'll tell you why:
First, colleges have a tendency to take BUCKETS of your money and make no guarantees with it, e.g. if you don't learn the first time, we'll let you sit in on the class again, FREE! There are PLENTY of accredited specialty schools that have this guarantee, so don't tell me it can't be done. So, just as with almost every institution I've ever run across, it is inherently violent by creating false hope and not taking responsibility. (Think about it...corporations are legal entities that NEVER DIE, but when they fuck up, it's REALLY difficult to get them to take responsibility)
Second, the money...again. College is OUTLANDISHLY expensive! Most people will NEVER have the money it takes to go to one, and the price just keeps going up with no restraints on it at all! Example: just last year, the University of California Regents decided to raise tuition by 30%. Just like that, one simple little vote, and it happens. I complained about this to a former UC Berkeley student and he laughed. "HA! That's nothing! When I was there they raised it by 300%!" I merely looked at him agape. They have a monopoly on the goods, folks, and they raise prices at will.
Third (and this is a lesser complaint), living conditions. I once visited the UC Davis campus to see a couple of friends and they told me about how they had to live on campus the first year. H-A-D to, those were the words they used. The place they HAD to live was a glorified closet that housed not one of them (which would have been cozy but respectable) but T-W-O of them. The entirety of their living quarters was less than that of your average PRISONER. Now, I'm sure that not all colleges have this requirement, but the ones that do are defrauding their students for HUGE amounts of rent for those cramped closets. If any college told me that I had to live under those conditions I would tell the dean to offer me his neck to repay the insult.
Fourth, the kid admitted to plagiarism, I'll grant you that. But doesn't the old saying go that if you steal it from one source, it's plagiarism, if you stal from many, it's research? Okay, no, I can't really defend the kid here. Crow copied Gypsie's paper word-for-word (even if his downbeat was on Basehart) and didn't get to eat the Hostess Snowballs. The kid should have a disembodied floating head in his dorm room for pulling that stunt. But I know how *I* would have dealt with it: I would have made sure my bibliography was complete. Quoting other works in a paper is STANDARD PRACTICE! If it were me, I would have used entire paragraphs from Paglia's works, but I would have given her credit and probably gotten away with it!
But frankly I'm under the impression that the University of Kent is running a scam on him and I hope he repays the favor in a court of law.
Fight the University monopoly! Practice auto-didacticism!
Useless opinions, worthless observations, and more!
he was lazy and never read the university code of conduct. They all have them, and it outlies what you may and may not do. It's an important document to read. For example here in Arizona it's legal to carry a gun, both openly (with no permit) and concealed (with a permit). You can do this everywhere that isn't prohibited by law, or by the owners. The universities are not prohibited by law, and have no signs posted, so one might assume you can carry on campus. Well, you could in the past, but not any more. The regeants changed the rules. This is important to know, if you are in the habit of carrying a gun.
The same applies to cheating. They outline quite clearly what constitutes cheating, and what the punishments can be (which include explusion). Thus you have no reason to be supprised if you get nailed for cheating.
He's just whiny because he thought he could get away with it. If he didn't know the punishment, that's his own fault. As is often said, ignorance of the law is no excuse. That applies to the criminal code, and it applies to rules and regulations of a university. They make them public knowledge (and usually hand them to you as a new student), it is YOUR responsibility to know them and follow them.
He's admitting to his transgressions, so there's no doubt the guy is "guilty". Of course, this might require further investigation: is it verbatim copying without referring to the original writer, or is it interpretations of other peoples' work? A lot of "research" straddles this fine line! However, it does seem like his university had a hidden agenda, you know, "let's squeeze this guy for as much as we can until we kick him out" type-thing. It's likely that they've been onto this guy for some time.
At my university at least, there are about a million warning labels in the form the the student code of conduct, univeristy rules and so on. They lay out all the things you can and can't do at university, and what happens if you do them. It's very much like a little mini-legal code, only it's actually readable by normal humans. Cheating, and plagarizing, specifically is covered and expulsion is listed as a potential punishment.
If a university lacked this sort of bylaw listing, he would have a case. I mean if they never say plagrazing is against the rules, it is hardly fair for them to suddenly change their minds. However, there is no real university that is like that. They ALL have these rules, and generally hand them to students when they start there. Thus you can't claim ignorance. That you chose not to read them is your own damn fault.
he's qualified to be the leader of the province of alberta now!
The text says "has sued the university" whereas the actual article says "A student...is to sue the university" and other articles state "is planning to sue".
This seems to me that his legal action is very much in the formative stage, if it is anywhere at all. Good luck on finding a solicitor to take the case. Especially given that the university has made it perfectly clear what plagiarism is and the consequences thereof.
Most frivolous lawsuit stories are about lawsuits that where filed but never made it to court. I have a feeling this is going to be one of them.
I recently retired from University teaching in an Engineering dept - plagarism is a well known and increasing problem - for Engineering assignments for non-Native English speakers (+ a significant number of natives) seeing a semicolon used immediately caused me to try the google test !
"I'm in college and I don't know that it's wrong to plagarize." Yeah right. This worm is suing the university because he was ignorant of something he should have known since 4th grade?
In other news today, military private wounded in Iraq sues Pentagon: Should have been told being there is dangerous.
Making a real-world analogy, that'd be like me getting caught stealing and then claiming that no one told me not to: All the cops would fall over laughing.
"I thought it made perfect sense to me that all music freely belongs to everybody, so I'm shocked that the RIAA is suing me for $10,000 over the 80GB of pirated MP3s that I traded and served to the world over Kazaa, Gnutella and Morpheus. If only the RIAA had slapped my hand over the very first 3 minute song I pirated, then I would have stopped and this action would be reasonable."
This is probably one of the worst things I could say, but I'm actually a student at the University of Kent.
In fact I am doing a Computer Science and as such, I do assignments as part of my degree, in the same way that the student in the article would have.
Now, this is potentially the reason why this may be why I shouldn't post this, but I have sort of plagarised.
As part of one of the assignments I needed to submit I was conducting research to answer the question, and as such I looked at a few of the examples given by one of the lecturers. The main issue is that one of the examples was a complete replica of the answer to the question. Now after reading the example my thoughts were tainted and as such I could not think of any better way to answer the question.
Now this is neither here nor there, but as a computer science student we have always been told that if something has already been done before, i.e. someone else has written a function to do x, then why produce our own version to do x. I've been very close at times to submitting some work with a note suggesting I didn't write the code but merely copied it, with the previous statement attached.
I understand this is quite an aside to the article, but I felt obliged as a fellow student to post this.
You're new here, arn't you?
...
-S
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
I think that suits like this are good.
Only for the reason that the lower end of the gene pool gets spotted and we as a society can adjust. Those of use that have taken a class or gone to school (most of us) basicly understand that the purpose of taking the courses / classes etc is so that the teacher / prof / school can certify that we know what they have taught us to a percentage degree (90%,50%).
This kid is freely admiting that he has done nothing and has been avoiding the ciriculum since day 1? Will that make his future employers more trusing in thier descision to hire him?
If I was able to I would allow him back into the course on the one condition that on his transscript it would show that he has actively plagerized and admited to it. Let him pay for the remainder of his courses. Thank him for bringing it to thier attention and send him into the world with his stupidity following him all the way.
Just my $0.02 CDN
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
The student's argument only has merit if the University is selling the degree for the money. However, this is not the case. The money is for attending classes and for the educational services of the University. The money is NOT for grades or a degree. The student received the classes and the educational services, therefore the student was not deprived of anything he was entitled to for the tuition money spent. The degree is awarded for meeting the academic requirements of the University, not for paying tuition. The student, because he cheated, did not meet the academic requirements, and therefore is not entitled to a degree.
Although a bit OT... What happens if a school knows a lot of students are cheating and only "punishes" a few cheaters and not all?
I've seen this exact same "omg the mcdonalds case that lady was stoopid" and the same "No, you're wrong, the McDonalds case was important". The exact same text.
If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a troll and his accomplice or sock puppet posting strategically to get free karma.
First of all, plaigerism is wrong, but I have to say that if they knew about it since his freshman year, they should have kicked him out sooner. They might have known that he was a plaigerist from the very beginning but they wanted his money, so they waited until he had almost graduated to kick him out. Or #2 they knew he was a plaigerist from the very beginning, but they wanted to maliciously and unnecessarily hurt him, so they waited until the last moment to kick him out. With the schools I go to, they have a two year limit by law to accuse you of plaigerism. If anyone accused me of plaigerism, I'd sue, but not like this guy. I'd sue because I've never plaigerized in my life and never will. I write too well. I'm also so legal minded that if I sued anyone, I'd probably win.
For your analogy to work the cops would have had to known about #1 through #26. What do you think would happen if the media reported a police department knew about someone commiting 26 murders before they took action?
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
If this idiot were to win this lawsuit it would be pretty scary for our University system.
This reminds me of the cheating scandle at Georgia Tech a few years back, where a bunch of whinny bitches got F's in a CS class because the professors setup a way to compare peoples programs to see if they had cheated. (I was a TA for one of those classes and I had less then a 3 or 4 students ever ask for extra help all semester.. and shocker.. those that did go the material and weren't caught for cheating).
The idea behind school is not to see how well you can avoid doing any real work of your own, but to learn something.
There can be no guarentee that because you paid to take a class means you paid for the right to pass that class. The last thing we need is for college level eduation to be reduced to the level that grade school education has in many places.
The teachers should have to kept to certain standars, but ultimately the burden should be on the students to learn.
I'd like to see the university countersue for fraud.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I can just imagine the disclosure request for:
A list of all assignments on which you cheated
For each such assignment on which you cheated,
A description of where and how you obtained your work,
any agreements you engaged in to obtain it,
how much (if anything) you paid for each assignment, and
how you think the markers should have recognized your cheat.
He'll probably just crib the list from someone else.
The ______ Agenda
See Morris v. Brandeis University.
Here is the story.
Just remember, copying from one source is plagarism, but copying from many sources is research!
So, it would be more like the police catching someone for #27 and then looking in the basement. The killer would be mad because he spent a lot on a party (for one) each time to celebrate that he'd gotten away with it. "No fair suddenly using DNA evidence!" Boo-hoo.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I don't wish to defend this guy at all, but in my experience it is possible to not get that message, especially if you're coming from a different culture.
I do a lot of computer science tutoring in an english speaking university (not in the US) where we get a lot of international students from mostly asian countries for whom English is a second language. Often they've only had a few months to learn it after flying over before starting academic courses here.
What sometimes seems to happen is that people who aren't natural English speakers have trouble reading or understanding the assignments that we give them. The normal procedure is for them to get together in groups of their own and translate the assignment, work on it and then translate the answer back into English as a group. (I don't know for certain but I'm reasonably sure that this is what happens from observations and a reasonable amount of marking.) It's not so much copying someone else's work as all handing in the same work.
They may know that it's wrong, but combine it with:
The result is that we sometimes get groups of assignments handed in that have very similar answers, often in nearly identical broken English with occasional variations here and there. It's also obvious when they've switched to copying something from another source because the writing style very suddenly changes to much more fluent language. It's not just because they don't understand that it's wrong -- often they do. But there are a lot of other factors also causing it.
I don't mean to imply that this is okay, either. We stress to students over and over again that plaguarism isn't acceptable. When we spot it happening, it's dealt with. At the very least, the students will usually be spoken to and where appropriate, marks will be docked. Kicking them from a course isn't something that will normally happen, though, unless they're excessively bad offenders. More often than not people tend to drop the programme before they get that far -- they're too stressed out.
Seriously if the University of You Are a Fucking Criminal is so high and mightly about their blessed standards then let's audit all their profs and anyone found plagarizing should have to give back 100% of their salary from that point onward.
Let Slip the muthafuckin Dogs of War.
Frankly, the bigger probem wasn't the coffee being too hot, but the cup being to "convienent" to use while driving and automobile. Generally, these cases are because the driver wasn't paying attention to their driving, or should have stopped the car to have their meal.
Personally, I always thought that McDs should have served stone cold coffee for a week with a printed copy of the judge's comment & phone number on the cup!
... your knowledge of the subject.
I got to disagree, your view on this is absurd. The better grade you would get is deserved. Grades you get are based on what you know of a subject, penalizing someone for having a special interest in something is silly. Following your train of thought, what would you do with people who work out on their sparetime when it coems to gym classes? I didn't work out and I would never say that the ones who did cheated, even though they had clearly worked on "assignments" much longer. Similarly anyone who has programmed BEFORE starting a CS course are clearly not on equal footing with someone who hasn't. Whether you had it in writing before you got the assignment is irrelevant.
Basically, you got "lucky", and this happens all the time, like when you have an exam and you get questions on the things you know best. You also claim that you don't learn anything, hell i didn't learn much new stuff in most of the programming classes. For the majority I never even showed up for class. Should one punish student for already knowing the curriculum?
I think it stands to reason that grades should reflect YOUR knowledge of a subject, regardless of how you got it, as long as you wrote/made/did it.
Another thing that has come up in this thread several times is reusing things from previous assignments, if you've ever taken an OO programming course, you'd know that reusing code is the holy grail of OO programming. Not doing so would violate the prinicples you are taught in class.
Rest in peace Malin "looxn" Kristiansen. We miss you...
T'is true -- but if he's been cheating consistently since he entered University (as he claims), then I'm betting that not all of his cheats have been legal.
I'd also guess that he's cheated since high school. Hmm.. I wonder if the university could counter-sue him for misrepresentation of work... which kept him in school, wasted University resources and possibly bumped somebody else out of a (more legitimate) spot.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
What happens if a school knows a lot of students are cheating and only "punishes" a few cheaters and not all?
To save money, McDonalds had reduced the amount of styrofoam used to make the coffee cups to the point that they were not stable without the lid attached. The woman removed the lid to put cream & suger in the coffee and the cup simply came apart in her lap.
This was entirely McDonald's fault, they deserved to be sued and they deserved to lose.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
let him keep going until the week of the final exams and then told him there wasn't any point in him taking them, as they wouldn't let him pass anyway, thus letting him build up debts of $15,000+.
;-) Getting $2 Nigerian from a 419 scammer is priceless.
Sounds like classic scam baiting to me. P-P-P-Powerbooks, anybody?
It would be funny if they went along with it just to punish him. (If they knew.) But it would not be very ethical. If plagiarism was held as something of a sport and never taken seriously before, that would be wrong.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
The clause states that any work for which you had previously received a grade for (if it was your own) cannot be used.
They don't call it plagiarism anymore either; they call it "Academic Dishonesty," which just means that they don't only worry about plagiarism, but about things which are "academically dishonest," like passing the same portions of a paper off for marks multiple times.
That has nothing to do with plagarism. Plagarism is misrepresnting OWNERSHIP of work. Schools may have academic honesty policies in place which prohibit that kind of thing, and it frequently gets lumped under the same thing, but it's really unrelated.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
The original poster was talking about quot[ing] another source (regardless of who or where the quote came from)
i.e. including if the person wrote it themselves. You're the one who introduced the word plagiarism, whereas he was talking about reasons why copying your own work (or any others) wouldn't be allowed.
Why don't you find some major authors who reused their own earlier works? I know Whitman used large portions of his earlier poems in making "Leaves of Grass." I'm sure some of Dickinson's poems went through transformations during publication without any kind of notation. If this is such a major offense, these authors ought to be "expelled" from the curriculum too, right?
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
The *original* poster was talking about plagarism.
9 0442
Take another look. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=109409&cid=92
Here's how the discussion went.
1) Student complains about persecution for reuse of published works.
2) Elid points out that universities consider reuse plagarism.
3) As you so insightfully pointed out, Picklepuss extolled the virtues of all forms of citation.
4) I pointed out the fact that citation exists for one of two reasons, and his generalization was merely a confusion between the good academic policy of careful citation and a university's own efforts to ensure that students do not attain advantages in certan classes, etc.
5) You missed the boat, and tried to broaden the benefits of citation again. The point of my post was to demonstrate that the academic policies exist ONLY TO AID RESEARCH AND AVOID DECEPTIVE PRACTICES.
In summary, the source for this entire subthread was Elid's assertion that the UK student's actions were plagarism. That was an incorrect assertion. Case closed.
I'm sorry, if you don't understand by now I'm not going to bother making it any easier.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Right now, there is some little bit of a disarray, with online degrees, people returning for online degrees later in life and so forth.
No, I don't think that there is enough talk about plagiarism, I think that a lot of people have no idea what it is. See, now that there is online checking, everybody talks about it. Five years ago, it wasn't a really big deal, it was just "don't copy other people's work", which of course, you would never do. The internet is a new thing, and copying off the internet is an instinctual thing, because the internet has not really been defined to the level that "other people's papers" or "books at the library" have been.
I think the individual has a point, and I do think that this is all just that it fits into a formula (i.e. our software says you are a plagiarist) as opposed to something that is a pattern of laziness.
Obviously, what he did was wrong, no doubt, but expelling and individual from the university is going too far; it's not fair. Of course, in the spirit of competition, it's fair, but this is a transition phase right now, and these services are a new thing. In the future, everyone knows about plagiarism, but five years ago it wasn't that big a deal.
If you are willing to pay someone to find criminals or "plagiarists", they will find lots of plagiarists. If you are willing to pay someone to criticize you, you will find someone to criticize you. There is always someone who will find something wrong and egregious, ESPECIALLY if you pay them to. These services are being PAID to find plagiarists, of course they are going to find plagiarists.
I think that it's gone too far when there is financial incentive to find plagiarists.
that anyone ever take responsibility for their own actions. It always has to be someone else's fault.
In a related story, a nerd sued God, saying God should have stopped him before he got hairy palms. "You f*cking bastard!" said the nerd.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I say we just kill this fucking moron now, before he has a chance to breed.
As another Anonymous Coward already pointed out, the majority of this is a direct rip from http://spiralx.dyndns.org/index.html. The rest is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_trolling_phe nomena. You are a fucking plagiarist!
No problem then -- he can return the education he got and the school will return his money.
-- not a
WTF? do you actually expect us to believe that you ask women to sign a waiver before you order them a drink? What, pray tell, does this waiver specifically say?
Even more to the point: what type of women do you expect to hook up with by this obvious show of what, at best, can easily be (mis)interpreted as suspicion and mistrust?
Mod me down as a troll but in response to your statement of "Maybe that's why I never get laid. Hmm. Nice guys finish last.. *Sigh*" are you really so surprised? With that kind of behavior, you will likely find yourself fulfilling the truism of "getting what you deserve."
I AM a "nice guy" and was low on the totem-pole of popularity (i.e. geek) in high school with few socializing skills. But even then, being teased/abused/mistreated by men AND women alike, I didn't automatically suspect anyone I met of less-than-honest motives; I let my slow-but-sure social learning/instincts clue me in on who was trustworthy and who was not. Meaningful sex with beautful women eventually came my way in college without the need of a waiver.
You should consider using your powers of observation and judgement of character (you'd be surprised at how good they are if you'd actually pay careful attention to your instincts) instead of a waiver/contract. You might get more meaningful/rewarding interaction with women. Treat them with trust and respect and you may actually get it, and more, in return.
end of rant.
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Response 2 is actually why I got my BA...The six girls in my CS classes were all dating other people.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
> The money is NOT for grades or a degree.
:-)
This argument doesn't fly with me at all. In fact it's the kind of thing I'd expect a university to claim. And it's that kind of dishonesty that has people cheating, because they had role-models. The schools need to practice an honesty-first method of administration, or they can expect that many students will cheat the system. I would think that there is an equation in there somewhere...
My point is that any claim can be made by administration about how degrees have zero value, but if you consider the worth of these advancements, and there is a tangible value.
Don't get me wrong, I dislike plagiarists immensely. For the amount of time it takes to write a good essay, you'd think people would figure out that it is totally easy to spot a fraud. I taught courses at college and caught someone plagiarizing; I noticed something in their report that stood out as far too advanced for the course and I googled it. F!!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I license all my papers under the GPL. You can fork them and turn them in as though you wrote them. Fine with me.
What happens to the student in this case? It's not copyright infringement; he has my permission. Any ideas?
My other car is first.
what a dickhead.
I think the problem is with education. They stress to us that we are to do good in all classes that we are taking. They make us take classes that don't have anything to do with what we are actually going into. When the moment you finish university/college, all that knowledge essentially becomes worthless except for the knowledge that has to do with what u had planned to go into. All those extra classes u had to take are now worth nothing in the real world. Having a well rounded education does NOT help you out then. Being good in a specific field does. It's no wonder so many people cheat in classes like english, history, etc. Cause they know they won't use any of that knowledge once they are done the class, so why bother trying to learn it?
My Gawd WTF...
He isn't complaining that he wasn't explained what the consequences would be he seems to assert (hard to be sure from the article) that the University knew about his cheating but let him continue until just before he got his degree.
Now, given the amount of honesty and remorse he has displayed so far (he doesn't even seem able to fake remorse) this lawsuit is probably groundless but if he indeed has reasons to think that the University knew about his cheating but let him continue to get his money then I can understand his action (just because one of the parties of a lawsuit is dishonest doesn't mean the other party is honest).
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Steve Martin did a comedy act back in the 80's
"I forgot you had to pay taxes". "I forgot murder was illegal". I guess this works for plagerism too.
Ah, yes, you looked up that policy after I had that fight with my teacher about it.
:P
As no one cares in any way about this topic, I shall waste my time examining PSU's policy on this topic.
First it can be found in http://www.psu.edu/ufs/policies/ on page 12. In the preable to this section it states: "The Code of Conduct describes behaviors that are inconsistent with the essential values
of the University community." Interesting the document does not define these values. But certianally I doubt they include any reference towards working as effectively as possible.
As a note, to be referred to later, this opening also state: "A person commits an
attempt when...he/she
performs any act that constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of that
violation."
Moving on for now, we come to the issue of whats actually banned. And that is: "10. Academic dishonesty...submitting
work of another person or work previously used without informing the instructor." This scope is not limited to work submitted for credit, but ALL previous work. The vagueness alone is stupid.
Being outlandish, but symentically correct, how previously must it have been done to be applicable. If I work ahead on assignments before they are assigned, techincally, I've violated this policy. Heck, techincally, if I complete an assignment before its due, it would be agianst thier rules.
More importantly and less on symantics, what are the limits of reuse. Certinally they can't mean all. I mean, am I not allowed to reuse for loops because, opps, I used them in the past. Thats silly? How about reusing predefined file routines that handle more complex and vital tasks. Is that allowed?
See the policy crumbling beneath the crushing weight of reality. And that is before any morality is introduced with motive, intent to decieve, etc.
Now, for more symantical fun. Remember the above quoted section. Well in order to breach this rule, you need to do two things. You need to submit already created work without informing the teacher. A requsit to that is to actually create the work. Thus, doing any assignments is a substantial step toward breaking a university policy, and agianst the rules.
Obviously, the rules are not ment to be read. They are designed to be selectively used agianst students to further the agendas of the faculity and administration.
No one will read this. PANCAKE. Yes, I know my spelling is off, but Evan does most my grammer checking for English anyway
Parent was responding to this post, not the one about the burgers, you person of low intelligence. Read the fucking post please.
Web-cheat student to sue university
By Lucy Sherriff
Published Friday 28th May 2004 20:36 GMT
A student who was booted off his degree course for plagiarism is to sue the university. He says tutors at the University of Kent should have spotted what he was doing and stopped him sooner.
Michael Gunn, a 21-year-old English student, freely admits using material downloaded from the Internet to complete his assignments. He told the Times: "I hold my hands up. I did plagiarise. I never dreamt it was a problem."
His problem, then, is not that he was caught, but that he was caught too late. He argues that the university should have warned him of the consequences earlier.
"I can see there is evidence I have gone against the rules," he concedes. "But they have taken all my money for three years and pulled me up the day before I finished. If they had pulled me up with my first essay at the beginning and warned me of the problems and consequences, it would be fair enough."
University authorities wouldn't comment directly on the case stressed that the university is very clear on the subject. David Nightingale, the deputy vice-chancellor said: "All students are given clear guidelines as well as practical advice and support as to what constitutes plagiarism. These spell it out that it is not acceptable under any circumstances." ®
In Soviet Russia . . .
Oh, never mind.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
> Is it a coincidence that the school was making money off him and they have a motive for waiting until his senior year to can him? I think not.
I agree with this statement, and it touches on the administrative dishonesty that needs to be corrected. Students learn from example, and the administrations everywhere need to have tough policy, but back it up by following their own policies on a per-case basis. Clearly this university has failed their entire student body by being evil.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
> They are quite up-front and honest about policies on plagarism and cheating.
:-)
Yes but the methods in which administrations conduct their day-to-day demonstrate a far cry from customer service and best practice. Look at the horrid lineups for everything, look at the facial expressions on everyone working in administration, and examine the public need for status-driven education. All these archetypes lead many students away from an honest education toward a philosophy closer resembling the administrations that serve them.
In other words, the entire system needs to go back to formula because it breeds dishonesty. Students who don't measure up will always resort to cheating, in any system. But what if cheating was somehow impossible? There could be a system designed where cheating had less of an impact, even if it was happening. Plagiarists everywhere reap direct rewards if they don't get caught, and big penalties if they do. So they get better at it, and by creating super-plagiarists, universities are contributing to a poisoning of society, because a plagiarist in school is a plagiarist in their career.
And plagiarism on the world stage is rewarded heavily. Look at all the knock-offs in the world. Japan revitalized its whole economy after WW2 because of plagiarism, by copying the western technology and making it better. That still is a form of plagiarism, IMHO, and yet it saved a whole country from the brink of disaster.
I mean it's easy to say that plagiarists are all bad people, but when you look at the big picture, it's not so cut and dry. Personally, I've graded every plagiarist in my courses with an F, and reported them. But after doing so I have always felt like I'm doing something wrong. Maybe plagiarists need harder exams or something?
Telling the students is just silly. I think maybe the better path would be individual assignment loads based on merit. The greater your grades, the less work you get assigned. In our current information age, it would not be that difficult to design dynamic courses that could adapt to each student. Plagiarists could be assigned a mountain of work that could not be plagiarised for punishment. Like 20,000 multiple choice questions or something hideous like that. Even if they cheat on it, it won't matter because it would be like a study session, and they would learn from it.
I'm sure after a few semesters of that, you'd find a sharp rise in original work!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
A student plagarized a paper for his 3rd year project-report. To cover his tracks, he steals the original paper from the library. Then, he does the same thing for an essay, but fails to realise that the essay he is plagarizing is one of the references given in the assignment.
It is in this section. Just scroll down to the bit with "Student copies paper from Phys" in it.
In Soviet Russia ... never mind !
-------------------------------------------- Se você consegue ler aqui então fala português. Óbvio
If something like 50-75% of college students cheat on tests, term papers, programming projects, etc. (according to recent ABC TV special and the book "The Cheating Culture"), do they STOP cheating when they become professionals like journalists, scientists, politicians, etc.? I've read about the ten or major journalists fired for plagarism in the past couple years, and the scientists caught submitting false or plagarised results. However these numbers are less than one percent of the field.
Another data point is that 30% of resumes submitted to checkout services have significant distortions of education levels and experience. Almost 500 federal managers were found to have diploma mill degrees by a GAO study.
I was just wondering how students whom have a high cheat level become model professionals. Or is it we havent begun to detect cheating levels of adults?
They need to bring back the stocks for people like this...
"I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevski. In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: 'Plagiarize!'"
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Maybe it's just me, but I've found that the concept of "team" is most abused in humanities classes. In my very small experience you can count on it.
In my core classes (mass comm, yes, a den of idiots) I was almost always able to get with a crew that cared. Maybe I was lucky. In my Anatomy & Physiology class my 3 blond bimbo lab partners couldn't see the point in dissecting a cat because they were going to do physical therapy on humans. The only part they took their time with, and enjoyed, was dissecting the cat's testicles. No, I'm not joking.
I got a funny look from the lab TA at the first lab when I said I was a mass comm. major. That was fun.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.