So, I'm coming into the home stretch with my end of the year grading. My goal is to get all my final grades in by Friday so I can go see Mom for a while before heading to University Town for Dr. J's defense and graduation (next week is gonna be FUN)! In the process of grading, I've been getting bogged down in the long papers for my Major Course sections, so I've broken it up by grading exams (which goes quickly) and grading the papers for my Specialty Course in between small stacks of Major Course. Well that's when I discovered I had a problem. I pulled out this one paper yesterday and noticed that on the first page, there are random bold words throughout the page. I then noticed that all the bold face words correspond with proper names and places--like you might find on...say a webpage with hyperlinks. So I Goo-gled the first line of the text, and what pops up--good ol' Wikicheatia. My student copied an entire article into the first couple pages of the essay and was gracious enough to leave in the hyperlinks and the punctuation mistakes of the original author. However, my student did insert random APA citations (of course I asked for MLA) throughout the article--citations to a book that (of course) I own and know for a fact that the information does not appear in (for example information on books that were published after said reference). Following the copied article are a series of sentences that do not sound anything like this student, the first of which belonged to the second site that came up after Wikicheatia.
So as I expressed to Dr. J, I'm mad because now I have to do paperwork. Our institution has a "process" and at this stage in the semester I really don't have energy for a process. I'm disappointed in this student because the paper was already late--s/he might as well have taken the time to have actually written something. I'm frustrated because this class has been a disappointment all semester--due in part to the lackluster performance of the students. And I'm just dumbfounded that this student could be this blatantly unethical.
Blogs I'm Rediscovering
-
-
Tourist Day 1 Recap1 year ago
-
Social media in education7 years ago
-
*waves*8 years ago
-
Secret thank you to a stranger11 years ago
-
-
-
Housekeeping13 years ago
-
-
This blog has hit the road. . .15 years ago
-
-
-
6 comments:
Oh, what morons these students be. So sorry you have to deal with this crap!
wow! one would think that a person who is going to cheat would try and cover their bases a bit more than this person did. sheesh!
sorry you have to do all of that extra work.
Yup - I had one of those too. A full 10 page research paper, entirely cut ans pasted form two or three web sites (including whole excepts from reports published on the World Bank website), and wikicheatia on that paper and throughout the term. Just like you, I caught it because of the remaining hyperlinks. I don't understand why students cheat, but I get really pissed when then operate as if we're too stupid to notice. The paperwork is a drag, but it's worth doing. In my case, I'm certain mine wasn't the only class where no original work was being done.
Hey Dr. Mon -
A few years ago I had a kid who turned in a paper, ostensibly on the depiction of African-Americans in Historical Films, in which he extensivlely discussed the Supreme Court's stewardship doctrine in the Roe v. Wade case. Needless to say, this raised some red flags. (Like a whole marching band's worth!)
I went through every sentence of this 10 page paper and found that only 2 sentences were original. Everything else had been copied from 15 different websites, one of which was, get this, Cheathouse.com.
When the disciplinary committe met, the kid acted as if he hadn't done anything wrong -- until I presented page after page after page of evidence.
At the end of it al, his advocate turned to him and said, "Kid, do you understand what it is you have done here?" I felt pretty vindicated.
I get totally livid at those cheaters, not just for the cheating, but for the time it takes to track their sorry asses down.
Anyway, thought I'd share. And am sympathetic. Congrats on finishing out the semester!
SG
SG--
That is crazy! Thank you for sharing that story. I just found out that I'm going to have to go back to Gorgeous City (a little sooner than I planned) for the disciplinary committee meeting--so this is fresh on my mind.
Wikicheatia.net does not condemn nor condone using its articles for cheating on school tests.
Post a Comment