From: Edryce Reynolds [mailto:
edryce@yahoo.com]
I appreciate the "problem" of plagiarism and what to
do about it. However, it seems to me to be a symptom
of something we should pay close attention to.
When students cheat, I have found it due to laziness,
the fact that they find the assignments irrelevant, or
pressure to make good grades. Long ago I decided not
to be a police officer in this issue, but to find ways
to make it impossible to cheat. In doing this, I
learned many new ways to evaluate students other than
traditional close-book-answer-questions methods.
When it comes to writing, there is so much junk being
written already that students are required to read, I
can't really blame them for shirking writing
assignments. There are full professors who have
plagiarized but not been caught at it. So much of
"the literature" in just about any field is not worth
reading, let alone copying. [All this is understood
as MY OPINION, nothing more. It's an opinion based on
many years of going to school and teaching.]
So, instead of going to all this trouble to prevent or
"catch" plagiarism, why don't we talk about other ways
we could get around it? I don't have any ideas right
now, but I think we could brainstorm and create some
new approaches that would not require us to become
police officers. That is totally distasteful to me,
and does not fit in with my idea of education.
Let's examine our requirements of students. Are there
other ways we could have them demonstrate their
competence? I am in Beijing for one year, teaching
Chinese students management and management information
systems. My first semester here, I was amused by the
blatant way they cheat on closed-book tests. Sitting
in the front row, someone would be copying out of a
text (no one had a text for the class--too expensive)
or from notes. There is so much pressure to get a
college education here. I did not police them. I
asked them what they were doing, and without appearing
to be guilty or "caught," they acted as if what they
were doing was totally appropriate. So this semester,
all tests will be oral tests. That's my way of
"preventing" cheating, because I will not function as
a police officer.
Another aspect for me is that cheating or not is up to
the individual. I do not grade "on the curve," so
cheating will not "hurt" anyone else in the class. I
believe (and I say so to the class) each person must
decide what values to honor. Policing them will not
change those values.
Again, just my opinion. I would like to hear ideas
that might stop this wave of plagiarism, though.
Edryce