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fiona
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« on: February 02, 2012, 01:13:32 PM » |
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So I had students write little essays on Kate Chopin's story "The Storm," and many essays discussed the character "Bibinot."
In the story, his name is Bobinot, with a circumflex over the O.
Because I am a mean person, I flunked all the essays that misspelled his name. And then I googled and discovered a lot of "study guides" and "free student essays" using that spelling.
So I'm wondering if the paper mills are incompetent, OR--and I like this--they're participating in the rumored tradition that every Cliffs Notes has at least one deliberate error, so as to catch miscreants.
Is it deliberate treachery or incompetence? Discuss.
The Fiona
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The Fiona or perhaps La Fiona
Professor of Thread Killing, Fiork University
The Right Reverend Fiona, PhD, Bishop of the Fora
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hegemony
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« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2012, 01:21:04 PM » |
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I imagine it's a function of the fact that most students have no experience in how to make the computer produce a circumflex, plus foreign names used in English-language text typically do not retain their accents and similar features. For instance when English-language sources write about Bjork, there's no foreign thingy on the "o." I don't think it's the default to retain the circumflex, and I wouldn't have thought to include it if I were a student in your class.
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Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight.
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fiona
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« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2012, 01:23:39 PM » |
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I imagine it's a function of the fact that most students have no experience in how to make the computer produce a circumflex, plus foreign names used in English-language text typically do not retain their accents and similar features. For instance when English-language sources write about Bjork, there's no foreign thingy on the "o." I don't think it's the default to retain the circumflex, and I wouldn't have thought to include it if I were a student in your class.
Er, you've misread. The misspelling was BIbinot, with an I. The correct spelling is BOBinot, with an O. I don't make an issue of the circumflex. My point is/was that the students copied their spelling from paper mill papers. The Fiona |
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The Fiona or perhaps La Fiona
Professor of Thread Killing, Fiork University
The Right Reverend Fiona, PhD, Bishop of the Fora
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neutralname
A person without qualities, except for being a
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« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2012, 01:50:25 PM » |
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Given that many students tend to spell as if they were typing under the influence of Parkinson's disease, I'm not sure you can conclude the papers with misspellings were plagiarized. Indeed, isn't it a corollary of the infinite monkey theorem that students will use the same spelling as the paper mills some portion of the time.
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"My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music." Vladimir Nabokov
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fayefaye
number one
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« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2012, 02:21:29 PM » |
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Some bad speler is going to make an isue of this. I know I wold have. Seams like an unwaranted asumption.
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I am only guessing that you've gotten back from an interview because of the subtext of desperation in your questions
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rebelgirl
"The only and thoroughbred lady" --Joe Hill said so.
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"A hardened English teacher"--Disgruntled Student
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« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2012, 04:21:32 PM » |
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Given that many students tend to spell as if they were typing under the influence of Parkinson's disease, I'm not sure you can conclude the papers with misspellings were plagiarized. Indeed, isn't it a corollary of the infinite monkey theorem that students will use the same spelling as the paper mills some portion of the time.
Sure, many students read poorly and spell even worse. But paper mill cheating is rampant now. I think it's eumaios who tells of students whose spelling and plot errors reveal that they bought papers about Anouilh's, rather than Sophocles', Antigone. Visit the Center for Academic Integrity - their stats on the percentage of students who admit to cheating truly are staggering. We have to assume cheating as close to normative, design assignments to forestall it, and bust it when we find it. We can also inoculate against it. I like to boot up GradeSaver or Sparknotes after we've gone through a text and let the students kick the living sh!t out of their summaries. Students are invariably horrified to see how unreliable these sites are. The exercise may not inspire moral revulsion to cheating, but it does plant seeds of distrust in students about the garbage they assume is fine. I used to subscribe to a few paper mills, and did the same with some of their papers. It helped some. |
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I blame all of our problems on that frikkin' Timmy. Lassie should have left his lazy @$$ in the well.
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kaysixteen
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« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2012, 04:24:51 PM » |
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I suspect you would have a very hard time sustaining the F on plagiarism grounds, against a grade appeal. Sharing a misspelling with a paper mill paper is hardly any evidence of cheating.
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femmawatts
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« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2012, 06:20:49 PM » |
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Honestly this makes you sound desperate for a plagiarism case.
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"I got drunk last night and whizzed in my laundry.
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wilbrish
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« Reply #9 on: February 02, 2012, 07:27:14 PM » |
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I assigned an essay on a very well-known book last term. 80% of the paper mills (I showed the examples to my class) spelled it wrong. I think it may be intentional on the part of the mills.
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fiona
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« Reply #10 on: February 03, 2012, 12:11:27 AM » |
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I'm not looking for a plagiarism case. I'm trying to get students to do right, and I don't want to spend time and energy on those who won't.
I assign a lot of short papers, and students need a minimum number of passing ones to pass the course. The papers can be on stories, current events, historical subjects, or other things that I assign. There are lots of opportunities.
I screen the papers when they're turned in, and anything that doesn't follow the instructions (number of words, double-spaced, simple stuff) gets screened out, is not read, and does not pass.
From now on, any paper that misspells main characters' names will not pass the screening.
The Fiona
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The Fiona or perhaps La Fiona
Professor of Thread Killing, Fiork University
The Right Reverend Fiona, PhD, Bishop of the Fora
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femmawatts
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« Reply #11 on: February 03, 2012, 02:17:09 AM » |
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I'm not looking for a plagiarism case. I'm trying to get students to do right, and I don't want to spend time and energy on those who won't.
I assign a lot of short papers, and students need a minimum number of passing ones to pass the course. The papers can be on stories, current events, historical subjects, or other things that I assign. There are lots of opportunities.
I screen the papers when they're turned in, and anything that doesn't follow the instructions (number of words, double-spaced, simple stuff) gets screened out, is not read, and does not pass.
From now on, any paper that misspells main characters' names will not pass the screening.
The Fiona
Fiona, Have you ever thought about who course policies like these might hurt? Helping students learn what is expected of them in writing, and in the university in general is helpful; but I worry that the strictness that you wish to adhere to might hurt some of your students more than help them. Refusing to read papers that have misspellings, formatting issues or other glaring grammatical problems might shame and deter students who would benefit from a university education the most. I'm thinking specifically of non-native speakers, students with disabilities, and people who grew up speaking a non-paper-writing variety of American English. For these students the academic world often feels foreign and scary. The expectations are unfamiliar causing non-native speakers and speakers of non-dominant varieties of American English to faulted more easily. These restrictions can also reek havoc on students with disabilities, as they fail to account for the limitations of such a person. Also just expecting students to know doesn't really help them learn. Giving students both positive and negative feedback and a grade that reflects that feedback will help them learn. But rejecting student on the grounds which you propose will only lead to hostility and anger on the part of students, neither of which is conducive to learning. Sure students plagiarize, and this should be dealt with, but equating plagiarism with misspellings is hardly justifiable. Maybe, the spelling problem that you describe along with other aspects of a plagiarized paper, such as finding section of it on the internet, or a voice that doesn't sound like the student's might be a cause for calling plagiarism. But suspecting plagiarism based on misspelling seems absurd. |
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larryc
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« Reply #12 on: February 03, 2012, 02:19:35 AM » |
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From now on, any paper that misspells main characters' names will not pass the screening.
What about students who have funny names? You aren't going to let them just skate on by, are you? Weirdos. |
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fishbrains
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« Reply #13 on: February 03, 2012, 07:04:42 AM » |
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Bobinot's kid in the story is named Bibi. It's not hard to see where the misspelling is coming from. That said, they probably did go to some site. Pretty much every essay on "The Storm" is plagiarized--or looks like it is.
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fancypants
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« Reply #14 on: February 03, 2012, 07:50:32 AM » |
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Pretty much every essay on "The Storm" is plagiarized--or looks like it is.
Ha! However, I'll say that misspelling main character names and author names, while annoying, is rampant in my students' non-plagiarized papers. Iago invariably becomes Lago. Mrs. Turpin becomes Mrs. Turnip in that story by Flannel Connery. Torvald Helmer becomes Elmer Fudd. Carl Marx wrote Animal Farm. And so forth... Okay, so I made up one of the above examples. It will hurt your brain to know which one because that means the others are true. |
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