English teachers have a way to deal with this. What you do is
"intervene" in any paper from the beginning. Require all drafts to be
handed in as the paper develops and mark them up. At the end require
all drafts plus the final copy to come in. It is a hell of a lot more
work, but it is good teaching practice; you get to help in developing
the thinking behind the paper. Of course it is not fool-proof. One can
hire someone to do all the work done, but the cost-benefit may preclude
most form doing that.
I seem to recall that the wealthier students, often in the Ivy League
colleges, had some popular places in Canada that advertised original
papers done for a large fee. There was a article in Harpers a few years
ago done by a worker in one of these paper factories.
--Gene
Eugene Bartoo
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: UTC Staff E-Mail List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
James Russell
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 8:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [UTCSTAFF] plagiarism site--
Thanks to Kit for alerting us to this site. I assign essays written
outside of class and worry about plagiarism, especially in the 200 level
classes. I try to ameliorate the problem by listing specific topics on
books required in the courses. Any variation from that list must meet
with my approval. In one class the essay assignment requires a personal
reflection that would be difficult to incorporate in an essay "borrowed"
from the internet.
However, there is another danger that I don't have any idea how to
overcome. Years ago I had a student write a very good essay that was not
at all reflective of what she had been able to produce in class. I
called her into my office and adopted my most intimidating manner.
Finally, she burst into tears and admitted that she had hired a student
to write the paper for her. What in the world can we do about that?
Mike Russell
-----Original Message-----
From: James Inman <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2005 08:45:36 -0500
Subject: Re: [UTCSTAFF] plagiarism site--
Hey, Kit and all--
What the continued flourishing of paper mills (like schoolsucks.com)
emphasizes for me is how carefully and creatively teachers need to
design assignments.
The best way to fight plagiarism in classes seems still definitely to
create assignments that are unique in nature at the outset, rather than
giving more general assignments and then trying to track down the
sources of possible plagiarists/plagiarism after papers have been
submitted. By "unique," I mean assignments that are formulated from
specific class contexts and thus not readily transferable.
It's clear that if students are given a general assignment like "Write a
term paper on [insert subject here]," there will be paper mill options
for them. And the paper mills are becoming increasingly specialized,
too. In my area of composition and rhetoric, for instance, lots of paper
mills have rhetorical analyses available, so if I was to ask students to
"Perform a rhetorical analysis of [insert subject here]," I would have
to deal with possible plagiarism, unless the subjects available to
students were unique to my class. General and largely context-free
assignments are no doubt what the schoolsucks administrators mean when
they say teachers are in a way writing the papers they provide.
So long as we're designing assignments in our classes that are unique to
those classes and not transferable, the paper mills really don't have a
chance.
Happy New Year to everyone.
James
-----Original Message-----
From: K Rushing <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2005 07:13:32 -0500
Subject: [UTCSTAFF] plagiarism site--"free term papers"
From: [log in to unmask]
------------------(from the World-Wide-Wed)--------------
> It all began six years and a few thousand homework assignments
ago.
>Word got out quickly. Nervous teachers. Phone calls and faxes. The
media
>showed up. Students came and stayed. Our answers surprised all - if we
>wanted students to plagiarize, we'd charge for the papers. They're free
for
>everyone - students and teachers - to read. And we don't rate them -
you
>could be downloading garbage. That garbage is the result of the
education
>system. In a way, teachers write these papers too.
http://www.schoolsucks.com
---------------------(end of forward)--------------
--
____________________________________________________
....................................................
James A. Inman
[log in to unmask]
Dept. of English
Univ. of Tennessee Chattanooga
615 McCallie Ave.
Chattanooga, TN 37421
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