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*Shaindelr* (re: MM Vents)
I hope you don't mind my asking but I'm really curious how you know when a paper is plagiarized? It is just hard to wrap my mind around because I know grading papers is very time consuming as it is. Let alone having to double check them all against possible cheating websites. Does your employer require you do that?
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Re: *Shaindelr* (re: MM Vents)
Hi,
I don't mind at all (but this will be REALLY quick because I haven't even gotten to pump or have lunch today since I'm prepping to leave tomorrow). Basically, you get to know your students' writing. I've been teaching at the college level for 12 years now. Generally, students who intentionally plagiarize aren't the brightest at it, and you can generally catch them with a quick Google search. For instance, I had a student YEARS ago who was writing a normal, B paper, and then the last paragraph launched into something like, "Even the spurious misnomer 'Indians' is an affront to the modern Native American." There is NO way that student wrote that. So, I paste it into Google, hit 'Enter,' and find out from whence it came.
We are FINALLY getting TurnItIn.com, which is plagiarism detecting software, next quarter. This is the first school I've ever taught at that doesn't have it, and it should be a lifesaver when we have it.
Hope that helps!
~S
Mac and cheese lover!
I'm sure Shaindelr will chime in, but I thought I'd answer your question too. I teach college-level history, but the same general stuff applies to English. I don't check every paper for plagiarism per se, but if a paper seems off, I will either copy and paste the lines I question into google and see what pops up or use my school's plagiarism program that checks whether the selection matches known websites/previously written papers/etc. Some professors require students to upload papers to such plagiarism checks such as safe assign.
It is usually not too hard to tell that a paper has been plagiarized. It either is vastly better written than a student's previous work, well-written but doesn't quite fit the topic, uses references outside the requirements/given readings, etc.
Wow. Thank you for sharing ladies. I had no idea schools actually had programs that do that. I shared your responses with my teenage sons. The youngest who is in middle school was very concerned such a program existed lol. Thanks, again, for the information!