Slashdot Mirror
Cheating Made Easy
jefu writes "This NY Times story talks about the kinds of papers that students might find (and buy) on the web. It also mentions turnitin.com a site that will scan papers and attempt to determine if it was copied. The article uses 'The Great Gatsby' as an example and notes that for the time it takes to read the book and write a paper, buying a paper seems a poor tradeoff. However, many books (or required papers) involve much more work on the part of the student, so the question becomes that much more difficult. If you have to do a report on 'Ulysses' it takes a bit more than a few hours just to read the book - let along understand enough to do a reasonable paper on it."
Check and make sure they don't copy others' work. Isn't that part of a professors/teachers responsibility? Kids are getting more sly about things, but teachers need to keep up also.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay
Just have the final exam include writing an impromptu essay about your class paper, and weight it enough that you'll fail the class if you don't understand your own paper.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Even if you are taking 18 credits that semester... sheesh, the professor sure thinks that's the case after he hands out a midterm paper assignment 5 days before it's due -- he did it when he was a whippersnapper, and so should you!
Karma whorin' since 1999
The odd part is that the attitude coincides with inflationary pressure on grades at universities.
Admittedly, I did a lot of work as an undergrad just for grades and deadlines. But having been an art student then, I at least got experience with the tools of the trade as part and parcel of the projects.
Now I'm happily involved in grad-level CS and it's actually quite a draw to do work that's not for credit. Too bad summer's almost over and the cycle will start again.
You've made a very good point. However, understanding a paper about a book you don't understand is difficult to fake. Try it.
> Then all you have to do is read and understand the the paper you bought.
Don't ask them to regurgitate a summary of the paper; ask them to motivate something they purportedly said in their paper.
> Seems like this would be a lot easier than reading the entire book and doing an original paper.
Yeah, I qualified it as a 90% fix because I know it isn't perfect. But if you're clever you should be able to fine-tune it until cheating and still passing is almost as much work as not cheating is.
Meanwhile, you've tricked them into learning something about the subject matter in spite of there worst intentions...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Because copying a paper word for word is hardly a study aid. Sure anyone can go online and read what a book is about and what its main themes are, that won't ever be stopped by turnitin.com's service. Turnitin is designed to penalise the people who are too lazy to even do that. AFAIK it's mainly a tool which compares your paper to other papers in the database and looks for similar phrasings.
The courses tend to be compulsory because they're viewed as being important. Whether the students agree or not is largely irrelevant; they have to do them, so, they have to do them.
Also, I personally think it's a good chance to learn an extremely important skill (imho): forcing yourself to do something that you don't really want to do. After all, you're going to have to do at least a degree of that in almost any job you get.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
That people have this attitude that "it's a waste of time," "he thinks its my only class!," "it's just too much work!," etc. My best experiences in undergrad were when I had a huge workload, knocked everything out, even the bullshit work, in incnredible fashion, and reveled in it sleeplessly the next day.
Word to the wise: this is how the real world works. No, it shouldn't be the way it goes, but it is. In upper division hard sciences and math, I pissed away more time googling for examples online that were like problems I was doing than really learning them sometimes. I paid for these times. Bide your time, do your work, but most importantly, carve out at least 5-10 hours a week for side projects you really enjoy. In an 18 credit semester where I was taking PChem, researching 20 hours a week, taking a 2 credit lab (read: 6 hours in lab, 4 hours writing lab reports, and I work quickly), I still had time to work on a software project, do sculpture, AND go out with my slacker buddies like it was my job. You. will. always. have. bullshit. work. Learn to live with it and quit bitching about the system; it's not some nebulous entity that's out to get you.
I counted no fewer than six errors of grammar or spelling in your four line post.
This may go some way towards explaining the value of study.
Maybe I don't understand but why would someone take a class where they had to right a paper on Joyce? What purpose would the paper have? How would it help them later in life? If I can read a complicated book and write down what other people through history have said how will that help me with organic chemistry? If the degree has makes that class of "skill" useful but people are cheating anyways maybe that a problem with the system that makes grades more important than learning.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
But that's the point of memorising.. You *can't* look up pi faster than recalling it if you memorized it.
Also having a good amount of readily available knowledge *in your head* makes it easier for you to decide or do a lot of things instantaneously, etc.
Memorizng stuff will always have its value.
I mean seriously, what the fuck? You're willing to build up an "immense collection" of other people's papers, skim them, synthesize the pieces and bolt them together like an origami Frankenstein, but not willing to READ THE DAMN BOOK(S) AND THINK FOR A WHILE? Seriously. It's easy. If you're really lost, look up some published scholarly papers on the subject and use them to give you ideas. THEN CITE THEM.
You know all that droning on the professor did in class? All that stuff about "themes" and "tropes" and "methods of analysis?" Guess what. The professor has already given you the tools you need. Look at your notes, then look at the book. Then hit yourself in the head with either/both until you make the connection.
In the humanities, as long as your argument (you do have an argument, right? as in a thesis statement?) holds water and is even remotely logical and grounded in the book, you're golden. Oh, and at the end you'll actually understand the subject, more than "a tiny bit;" as in, you'll be able to apply the things you've learned elsewhere. I hear there are still some idealistic flower-people wandering about who think that's the whole point of college. Damn hippies.
Plagiarism is like cheating at solitaire. It's not even solitaire anymore. You might as well be throwing cards around randomly. Why the hell would you want to spend four years doing that?
There was an argument in a report I read recently that as the internet becomes more prevaliant that studying as a whole will become less important as information will be avialable at your finger tips. The skills that will become more useful are the ability to search effeciently and work out which sources you can trust. Of course studying helps develop these skills but why should I remeber PI to 8 decimial places when I can look it up quicker?
Oh, I don't know, maybe so you don't make an utter fool out of yourself when you write to your significant other? Or, failing that (this is Slashdot ;) ), so you can hold interesting conversations without having to go to Google every third sentence to find out what your friend is talking about?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If a teacher submits a student's original paper to turnitin.com, doesn't that violate the student's copyright on the paper? (I believe turnitin.com stores the student's paper indefinately to check future papers against.)
Have you ever worked with a recent graduate, just out of college? They're astoundingly inept at everything, while thinking that they're actually pretty good. I submit that college is a load of crap, mostly, and makes no difference in the quality of new hires.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
If the goal is a good grade, the issues mentioned are relevant. If the goal is to learn something, there's no substitute for spending time learning it. Keeping this in mind, the usual idea of cheating can be understood as a confusion of these two issues. There's no way to cheat the learning process, and the grading process is just an algorithm which gives useful feedback to the student when the input is constrained to a certain domain.
The Internet is fine as a resource if all you need to perform your task is knowledge regurgitation (maybe just following Howto's or whatever) but if you need to do something even a little creative you need to know about what you're doing first. Seems fairly obvious to me.
I visited UCSD recently, and it is possible to legitimately buy exams, lecture notes, and past papers that people have written through a student-run office. Since they mentioned it in the tour, apparently it is widely used. However, it is also immediately obvious when a student has copied, due to the limited subset of papers available. Wouldn't this be a better solution than being Nazistic about it?
Unless you're getting a degree in Literature then a required course which insists that you read "The Great Gatsby" or "Ulysses" for a 'well-rounded education' is just another way for the university to soak money off of you while keeping otherwise useless staff on payroll. If I were a student today I wouldn't be terribly concerned about the ethics of the situation, since I'd see this as the university bending me over and giving me a good reaming while I was trying to learn the stuff that would actually be useful to me post-degree.
Although I always got A's on my papers. My failing was that I had a hang-up about the laughable ethics of selling papers, and so missed a prime opportunity to make a bundle selling my work to athletes and frat boys. If I could go back and do it again, you can bet I wouldn't miss that opportunity a second time.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
college is not about learning its about paying for a piece of paper that says nothing. we live in a society where this piece of paper means more then the person who owns it. students go to college because society tells them too. if you do not go to college there is something wrong with you. your parents tell you to get good grades but you dont know how to 'think' because public education has failed you. so you pay for a paper or steal one under the slogan "this class doesnt matter". what does matter is getting a degree so you can get a job and consume. the universities are focused on making money, they have become a private industry. they hire sub-par professors who are products of the very same system. they assign papers and the students cheat. the professors try to eliminate cheating by treating all their students as potentinal cheaters. this only weakens the already fragile relationship of teacher and student. learning becomes a less of a goal in the classroom. its the student trying to pass and the professor trying to get paid. and in time people will forget that colleges had anything to do with learning. its just a place you go because you have to or there is something wrong with you.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Like I said, it really depends on the program. Of course some won't have a lot of flexibility in alternative courses they can offer, but some others certainly can.
If different options are possible why not allow students to tailor their courses to their interests? Why must all students conform to the same program instead of having the program conform to students interests?
Isn't learning about stuff you're interested in and likely to continue to persue as a career the point (again, I'm only talking about programs where this is possible).
Sure if you're forced to take something you wouldn't have taken on your own you might end up discovering a new interest but that argument doesn't seem to be very convincing. Especially in light of the more frequent occurence of people taking courses they hate because they have no choice.
I also teach at a large public institution, and I don't think the cheating is that bad either. It is much worse at the more prestigious research universities. I once had a rash of cheating -- this was blatant plagiarism from websites -- from U Michigan students at a summer course I taught. I got to talk with a few of them after they were caught and they said that it was simply rampant where they went to school and that teachers there never catch them cheating. I can say at my university it happens a lot but there are a lot more professors trying to catch it, and the most blatant and stupid stuff, like copying websites verbatim, is usually caught. Funny thing was most of the students I talked to about it saw cheating as a legitimate way of getting ahead, and some even said the risk was worth it and they would do it again in the same situation -- this is after getting caught! Somewhere along the line they are learning values that suggest that cheating can be a worthwhile risk to take in order to move forward.
Well, if you cannot understand books by reading them and need help... do you really deserve to pass?
I read animal farm in high school and I thought it was a decent book. However, on my own I had *no* idea that it paralleled Russian history. Reading other people's analysis isn't cheating (according to me).
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
This is actually one of the many properties of being a professional: being able top perform at near your maximum performance regardless of task, i.e. being able to perform well regardless of wether you like the task or not.
This is not something that is all that common.
"There is no substitute for thinking" - Bjarne Stroustrup
I agree. Those courses teach you one of the most important lessons in life: when someone forces you to do something you hate, how to avoid doing it anyway :).
Seriously, learning to cheat and slack off without getting caught is one of the most important skills in the working life. Given a chance, any company will simply work you to death - you are expendable labor to them, not worth the shit in your bowels. Once every last bit of juice has been crushed from your carcass, you're simply thrown aside to make room for fresh prey. To prevent this, learn how to give the absolute minimum effort required to stay on their payroll while seeming to work like crazy, to leech on them just like they are trying to leech on you. You owe them nothing, so give them nothing.
This is neither a joke or cynicism. It is simply the truth. You are likely to work for a company, and companies exist to make money, not to benefit their employees. Learn how to protect yourself from them, or prepare to be drained. And school is a place of learning, so...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
IANA(teacher) and this is just my opinion based on observations but, cheating, to me,has never been the main problem with having an inept workforce. Across the united states, public elementary, jr high, and high school are rediculously underfunded, teachers are underpaid, and classes are overcrowded. On top of that, or maybe due to that, the education system has become more predominantly a testing system where the focus has shifted away from papers and being able to demonstrate a knowledge of the subject. Massachusetts has implemented the MCAS tests which are supposed to ensure that a student has a grasp on the minimum knowledge required at each level. While this is a great idea in principle, now schools are spending most of the time helping students cram for this exam. These scores seem to be the end all and be all of education; better scores on these tests even impact real estate prices in that school district.
Now here's something that everyone who's attended college should know, colleges in the united states are Businesses (that's right, capital B). While some very few strive to actually educate and graduate a student they consider to be worthy of that school's reputation, the majority could care less. The majority of colleges out there care only about reputation as it affects attendance weighted by cost. They'll allow entry of everyone to the point of overbooking, rake in the money, allow them to drop out or leave, and then cite the remaining students' graduation to job ratio in their pamphlets. Meanwhile, _some_ college atheletes are given every opportunity stay in school, basically for free, at least until the they're no longer ncaa eligible. You'd be surprised to see graduation rates of college atheletes in football and basketball, especially in major programs. Basically they use these atheletes to rake in the lucrative tournament money out there. Colleges also like to participate in brand placement. They get tons of money for carrying only coke or pepsi, nike or reebok, dell or gateway etc. All in all, a very...cost effective way of doing business but maybe not the best way for a place of higher learning to be run.
Perhaps, but still when a work is self-contained and does not make implicit references to concepts and ideas outside the subject (course) domain, then the person *should* be able to understand it (to a small degree) if they wish to pass.
The point is that a university degree sets one apart as a leader and not a follower. The first person to make a specific link between a written work and an outside reference is a uniqe thinker or a well-read person. Why should you be rated with the same level of credentials by just copying his work?
Sure one can read other people's papers in regard to this... but most people will ONLY read papers pertaining to that particular topic... THAT's cheating. One should read other people's articles on all subjects possible within the same domain, to learn new ways to analyse and think. Not to just blatantly memorise and copy facts!
I love watching art/classic movies and read books... I read other people's views on these, not because I need to understand the films, but to see how other people perceive things. David Lynch's Mulholland Drive point in case... it made no sense, and I don't think Lynch had an idea in mind while making it. (The point of the movie was for people to draw their own conclusions... but then again, that's my view.)
If you don't know that Animal Farm had parallels in Russian history, then perhaps you have not read enough other fiction? Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky? Chekhov? And perhaps that is an indication of a lack of encompassing knowledge and perhaps you should fail to pass? Hmm...
I'm not an English major... in fact I've got very little English experience. (with it being my second language and all) Thus I expect a person who is actually doing this language at university level to have at least a fundamental knowledge of literature and preferably know more than I do.
I've never read Animal Farm... so would not be able to make informed statements in this regard, but I have read 1984 and know a bit about George Orwell. (Having made a point at one time to try and read the top 100 books (subjective) of all time...)
It isn't cheating according to any reasonable definition of plagiarism, either -- if you give the sources. Include a complete "works referenced" list and you're not cheating, you're doing research. Of course, if your "other people" turn out just to be, say, your classmates, then your work will naturally suffer...
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
But you're conflating two things here. I wouldn't argue against pre-reading some things (although that can bias your own reading) but I think you should in the end read the original as well. What's more, you say you never cracked the original books, but then say "without at least first getting some idea" -- which implies a second, i.e., actually reading the text.
I don't doubt you can get by, or even do well, grade-wise by just processing secondary sources. But your actual learning is in fact diluted, I believe.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
So, how do you get those good grades? Ideally, through understanding. How do you measure understanding? Ideally, through good grades.
The era of small classes with the mentor leading the students through 'self-discovery' has been dead for centuries. Too bad, tuff.
Those who cheat now will fail and pay later. Again, too bad, tuff.
My wife has taught at university too (French). She can tell when someone uses an internet translator for large amounts of text. Come on, we know that babelfish isn't supposed to make perfect translations, and we have seen the funny results.
If they do use one, or buy a paper off the internet, they fail the course - no questions asked. They are told, up front and several times in writing, that if they do this they will be caught and they will fail. And they still do it. It is amazing. Usually a quick trip to google for some phrases will uncover the source, but sometimes it is more subtle. Even if she knows that they cheated, unless she can prove it they get away with it. But those things usually take care of themselves. They will cheat again and again, and eventually get caught. Or they will just not learn anything. It is kind of tough to pass a course without learning anything.
The only time I somewhat cheated in classes was when I had to retake a class. The instructor was a hard ass, and required a certain percentage AVERAGE on the tests. On one test, he refused to grade it on a curve, and it was really hard. I failed, as did about 80% of the class. The problem was that my percentage on that one test knocked down my average such that I couldn't pass the class (C or better in major). So I had to retake it. Because of scheduling conflicts, I didn't retake it until a year later. There were several people in there that were in it the first time I took it. When he handed out the first programming lab, I caught the other guys smiling too - the same ones. He used all the same programming labs. I didn't cheat, because I used my own work, but it is amazing how much cleaner your code is once you already have a working version of it. It is also amazing how much easier a class can be the second time you take it. I almost got a perfect score for the entire class.
It has always been odd to me that people would cheat so much. They would put a lot of effort into it, and it was a constant struggle to keep up with it. It is funny to me that knowledge, even in something you aren't interested in, is avoided. I wonder if this is a by-product of our quick-fix culture, or if this affects other countries as well.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
becomes the primary goal when "no child gets left behind." Now I know it is non-politically correct to say this, but not everyone is college material. Back in the day, college was intended for the cream of the intellectual crop. Now it's been watered down to job training and high school remediation. Everyone wants a college degree. Is it mere happenstance that the rise of grade inflation on the part of the teachers and cheating on the part of the students coincided with swarms of people enrolling in college?
Have you ever sat an oral examination? The point is not to 'riff on a theme', but rather to be pushed to the point of your ignorance, which is basically how an oral grade is determined.
When a student is examined orally concerning a paper, the prof goes well beyond questions of content: the arguments are extended into new terrain, research methods are inquired into, methodology and structure are investigated, and so on.
I guess one can always try to bluff, and even be successful at 'owning' the argument. But to be convincingly responsible for the text in its many aspects beyond mere argument, well, that's a lot more work. And difficult.
Moreover, I agree completely with your characterisation of the academic arms race. That's what's so nice about the system of which I am speaking: rather than relying on technology to suss out cheating, the prof can use his own intelligence through the dialectic of the exam. And if cheating is suspected, then the prof can later seek evidence (or simply fail the student objectively for having a weak grasp of the paper, if the oral component of the grade is large enough).
cheers, potor
Especially since in high school kids do not have access to cliff notes or spark notes ;)
Back then, I read only books of interest to me (Ender's Game) not those that did not (The Scarlet Letter). English teacher's are well meaning but are fairly easy to fool. The first thing you do in writing a paper is say that the book epitomizes the prevailing thought of the time or represented "fill-in-the-blank" during a transitional period in "country-it-was-written-in"
I also found comparing any classic book to "The Great Gatsby" was effective.
Then throw in buzz phrases like "paradigm shift", "curious amalgam", etc. and you have got yourself an A paper.
We had to write a paper on a song by Bessie Smith. 2 hours later, I composed the entire paper without doing more than a google search worth of "research."
Not only did I get an A, the teacher suggested that I join the humanities because I "got it".
It shows that how you write is more important than what you write
Boo humanities, yay engineering!
--Joey
Turnitin is not a foolproof way of finding plagerism. It is concievable that two people can come up with very similar results independently.
Case in point: in college I wrote a paper for english class - which my professor liked so much that he circulated among the faculty. Several faculty members accused me of plagerism - because my work was very similar to another essay on the subject by a 'professional' author. I stuck to my guns and eventually they caved. I did not plagerize - but there was nothing I could definitively do to prove otherwise. I had nothing but my word (which these ivory tower yahoos chose not to believe).
I was lucky. Someone else, perhaps not the right ethnicity in the mind of the professors, might not have been given the benefit of the doubt in the same situation.
We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before; it is hard not to use a turn of phrase that is completely unique in each and every paper. Additionally, the infinite monkey theorum might also apply - given a large enough database. This will lead to false-positive identifications - more to the detriment of excellent writers, I fear, than any good that comes from positive IDs.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Here's a rule of thumb for you: assume that everybody else is smarter than you, and then change that assumption only if a preponderence of fact forces it to change.
Deux questions, deux reponses:
1) Given that the class in question is English Literature (or at the very least, English) there isn't much value in analyzing a science manual, whose only realy judgeable qualities are "does the book communicate the required information?" and "Is the information communicated factually correct?"
2) So what if he owned the book? You were given a list of books you could analyze, you chose to do a book not on the list. Case closed.
Now the interesting questions that arise are: why not do the report on one of the assigned books? What was the purpose of disobeying instructions? And why feel that, when punished for disobeying instructions, that you have been slighted?
That's right, you are a precious and rare individual. Just like everybody else.
DGWant to learn about race cars? Read my Book
"Hate to burst your bubble, but many high school teachers, schools and districts are asking parents to sign waivers."
You might be right in some cases, but most schools don't do this. Turnitin.com actually encourages schools to not inform students. And in any case, it's very questionable whether or not a public school can compel students to sign a FERPA waver.
"And I know, first hand, that some are removing all identifying information except a unigue ID from the essays."
Sorry, but simply stripping off identifying information like a student's name doesn't allow you to get around FERPA. It is well-established that FERPA applies to all graded work that is turned in by a student, even if the student's name isn't included.
"No offense, but your smarmy attempt to invalidate the legitimate use of the service, makes you sound as if you would suffer should your school subscribe."
I guess different people have different opinions regarding what qualifies as 'smarmy'. Personally, I consider it smarmy for a school to violate privacy laws in the name of expedience and for companies to violate copyright laws in order to make a profit. You apparently consider it smarmy for someone to be concerned that their rights are respected. Difference of opinion, I guess.
"While you might find some high school teacher, administrator or superintendent intimidate into relenting, please try this argument with a college professor."
Actually I teach (as a graduate student) at a major state university, and many of the professors here have stopped using turnitin.com because of the legal risks involved. It is a pretty clear violation of both FERPA and the Copyright Act. Most college professors are smart enough to understand the law.
I'm not saying all teachers are perfect. You have lousy teachers, just like you have people who are bad at whatever they do. The point is, you also have lousy students sometimes.
Have you ever taught? Some students walk into a classroom with absolutely no motivation to learn. Asking a teacher to be able to motivate each and every student is unrealistic. Is you doctor a bad doctor because he/she can't get you to lose weight, quit smoking, etc.? Well, obviously yes! A good doctor could motivate patients to do what's best for them.
I spent almost ten years in the classroom, and I wasn't one of those sadistic teachers who made passing as difficult as possible. I made every effort to help my students learn -- and pass. What I wouldn't do is give grades away. When I sign off on a grade, I'm certifying that student knows the material. I won't pass off a student who doesn't to the next instuctor or to an unsuspecting employer. It's unfair to them, and it's unfair to the student.
One particular student comes to mind. She turned in an absolutely hideous essay as her first assignment. If there were a grade lower than F, I would have given it to her. I asked her to rewrite it, and she proceeded to explain that she was dyslexic and therefore couldn't be expected to write. I reminded her that she was, in fact, in an English class and writing was mandatory. After several conversations, she redid the essay. She ended up writing every essay more than once, and some three or four times. She came to me at the end of the semester and thanked me because I was the first teacher to expect her to do the same work AND believe that she could do it. I've never seen a student so proud of her accomplishment.
Had I passed her on the first essay, she would never had felt that pride in her achievement, and I would have sent her to an unsuspecting employer.
Yes, you have bad teachers, but you have good ones too. Don't lay the blame for every unmotivated student on the instructors.
Visit my serial fiction site at www.cornerscribe.com