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[teachbert]

Regular reader, semi-regular poster here, borrowing someone else's account (with permission) so as not to out myself to my TA or my colleagues, because I find this story so amusing that I must repeat it to several people, not just get it out of my system here.

My TA told me of this encounter a few weeks back: She gave the standard spiel about plagiarism, what it is, why it's bad, why not to do it. Student responded, "You'll never know!"

A week or so later we collected the papers. Just flipping through them, she singled out one as potentially problematic, because it had square bracket, "Wikipedia-style" reference marks, reference marks leading to nowhere.

On reading the papers, it was apparent to her that one was plagiarized, from Wikipedia. Why, yes: the same student who pretty much admitted that he would plagiarize and challenged her to catch it did in fact plagiarize so poorly that it was evident from flipping through the stack of papers.

[crowie]

Welcome and great story!

[cgfunmathguy]

This is classic. Students amaze me sometimes.

[tee_bee]

Ha! Please let us know the fate of this student. I hope you find the most severe punishment for this dope--and then apply it. It's too bad we can't use dunking stools or the stocks for this sort of thing.

[drmooks]

Any chance the paper was titled "Monkey Business"?

This reminds me of an incident the first time I taught a large (i.e., 100+ student) course.  A senior in his last semester and a major in my discipline submitted a 5 page paper, with footnote indicators at the end of each paragraph.  After reading the introductory paragraph - a well-written introduction, mind you - I noticed that there were no actual footnotes.  A quick google search of the first sentence led me to the source the student plagiarized.  Upon returning the paper, said student explained he thought he could get away with it because it was such a large class and didn't believe the TA or I would bother investigating a blatant case of plagiarism.  It wasn't his last semester, after all.

[ls410]

I personally enjoy when they turn in papers with multiple fonts, margins, and text colors.  It's like a big neon flashing light directing me to what they cut and pasted.

[kedves]

Any chance the paper was titled "Monkey Business"?

This reminds me of an incident the first time I taught a large (i.e., 100+ student) course.  A senior in his last semester and a major in my discipline submitted a 5 page paper, with footnote indicators at the end of each paragraph.  After reading the introductory paragraph - a well-written introduction, mind you - I noticed that there were no actual footnotes.  A quick google search of the first sentence led me to the source the student plagiarized.  Upon returning the paper, said student explained he thought he could get away with it because it was such a large class and didn't believe the TA or I would bother investigating a blatant case of plagiarism.  It wasn't his last semester, after all.

That last line is the perfect ending.

[locutus]

These stories get me wondering. Does anyone show the students just how easy it is to catch plagiarism when giving the usual schpeal? They seem to think that a cut a paste job from Wikipedia is like a Holmesian mystery to the professor.

[spectacle]

It's like they think they're the only people with access to the internet. 

[call_me_al]

I tell mine that the quality of the plagiarised passage's English is going to give them away: the crappier their own English (not their native tongue), the more the cut-and-pasted phrases will stick out ... So I usually don't catch them out on the content but on a particularly elegant choice of phrase.

[philrels108]

These stories get me wondering. Does anyone show the students just how easy it is to catch plagiarism when giving the usual schpeal? They seem to think that a cut a paste job from Wikipedia is like a Holmesian mystery to the professor.

I always tell -- and show -- students how easy it is to spot.  I tell them that sentences such as "The epistemological difficulties facing this view are insuperable" are dead giveaways.  I tell them that I always attach a print-out of the Google search page that busted them with "This search took 0.19 seconds" highlighted.  And still I'm not sure it does much good. I want to tell them -- but don't -- that if they're going to cheat, at least do it right: don't compound venality with stupidity.

[drmooks]

These stories get me wondering. Does anyone show the students just how easy it is to catch plagiarism when giving the usual schpeal? They seem to think that a cut a paste job from Wikipedia is like a Holmesian mystery to the professor.

Ha!  Reminds me of a student who turned in a paper containing three examples of cut & pasting from a Wiki entry.  When confronted, the student claimed innocence on the grounds that he may have lifted from Wikipedia but doing so did not mean he plagiarized.  I could not wrap my head around this argument, but got a second bite at the apple when hu appealed.  At the AJ hearing, he insisted we ignore the part where he took another author's words and passed them off as his own.  Instead, we needed to take note of the fact that the content of what he copied could be found in other sources.  Care to guess how this hearing ended?

[cgfunmathguy]

These stories get me wondering. Does anyone show the students just how easy it is to catch plagiarism when giving the usual schpeal? They seem to think that a cut a paste job from Wikipedia is like a Holmesian mystery to the professor.

Ha!  Reminds me of a student who turned in a paper containing three examples of cut & pasting from a Wiki entry.  When confronted, the student claimed innocence on the grounds that he may have lifted from Wikipedia but doing so did not mean he plagiarized.  I could not wrap my head around this argument, but got a second bite at the apple when hu appealed.  At the AJ hearing, he insisted we ignore the part where he took another author's words and passed them off as his own.  Instead, we needed to take note of the fact that the content of what he copied could be found in other sources.  Care to guess how this hearing ended?

I sure hope that the student got the book thrown at him.

[toothpaste]

I don't tell students how easy it is to catch them. They invariably don't understand that their voice is distinctive; and I don't have any wish to help them figure out how to be better plagiarists.

[drmooks]

These stories get me wondering. Does anyone show the students just how easy it is to catch plagiarism when giving the usual schpeal? They seem to think that a cut a paste job from Wikipedia is like a Holmesian mystery to the professor.

Ha!  Reminds me of a student who turned in a paper containing three examples of cut & pasting from a Wiki entry.  When confronted, the student claimed innocence on the grounds that he may have lifted from Wikipedia but doing so did not mean he plagiarized.  I could not wrap my head around this argument, but got a second bite at the apple when hu appealed.  At the AJ hearing, he insisted we ignore the part where he took another author's words and passed them off as his own.  Instead, we needed to take note of the fact that the content of what he copied could be found in other sources.  Care to guess how this hearing ended?

I sure hope that the student got the book thrown at him.

In a manner of speaking...  At the outset of the hearing, the panel chair explained we would each present a case, respond to questions from the panel, and a decision would be given in 48 hours.  Two hours after the hearing, the chair sent a panel to both the student and myself explaining he had been found guilty and the F (course grade) would stand.