Topic: Plagiarism

[bahgheera]

So I had a metallurgy class this semester. The instructor - well I'll be polite here - he was an illiterate non-thinking moron with no teaching skills nor any idea of what was going on in his class. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but only slightly. He pronounces the word 'malleable' as 'mallet-able', etc. He gave us a mid term exam that was supposed to be on chapters 1-8 in the book, but had questions from 9 and 10 as well, and then argued with us when the entire class pointed out that half the questions shouldn't count.

So fast forward to today, the last day of class. We were only assigned a half hour of class today, just show up and pick up our final exam and report. I did my report on uranium. A written paper and an oral presentation, the latter of which I feel like I nailed - even some of my class mates commented on how interested they were in listening to what I was saying, and I actually got a 100 on it. So anyway, today - I pick up the written report. Now, keep in mind that I spent HOURS on this paper, in the library studying, reading about uranium, and I was very interested so I gave it quite a bit of zeal and I felt like I wrote a rock solid paper. I expected, if worst came to worst, that I would get AT LEAST an 80. Imagine my chagrin when I opened it up to find that he'd given me a 48. 48! What could I have possibly done to get a 48, for crying out loud??? I flipped to the back and read his comments. Ok, comment #1, I forgot to put my name on the paper, and he took off 20 points. Yeah, I'm an idiot, can't believe I forgot something so simple, but whatever, I'll eat it cause it was my fault. Comment #2 - and this is verbatim - 'how much of this did you cut / copy / paste?'

Imagine, just IMAGINE how freaking insane I went. I literally flew out of the room headed for his office, I even knocked a chair over that was in my way. He saw me storming down the hall, and before he could say anything I was like 'ARE YOU INSINUATING THAT I PLAGIARIZED EVEN ONE WORD OF THIS?!'

'Calm down, take three deep breaths man, just relax don't get mad at the boss. You know what happens when you get mad at the boss.' The last he said while jerking his thumb over his shoulder, an indication that if I kept on then there would be some sort of academic repercussion equivalent to getting fired.

Now my attitude is that I pay to go to that school. They are getting my money. I am a customer. So I BETTER get some customer service. I'm not paying to have my chain yanked and told I plagiarized someones work when I put that much time into it. *I* am the boss, not him. So I made it known to him that the 22 points he took off for plagiarism better show back up pronto, or else he and I were going to be sitting down in HIS supervisors office for a little chat. His explanation of why he took off 22 freaking points? 'It reads like a website'. That was it. His whole basis was that it sounded, to him, like reading a website. That was the difference between an A and a B on my final grade. Needless to say, the 22 points showed back up about two minutes later. 

So, do any of you college educated people around here have any stories like this? I've always heard of the stiff penalties for plagiarism, but I've never heard of anyone actually doing it, or even being accuses of it. Sucks that the first person I've ever heard of being accused of plagiarism was me... 

[mr. angstrom]

thats sucks. i would just tell him that you didnt and if he really thought you did tell him to prove it. if he cannot prove it and he leaves your grade the same, take it to a greater authority.

[brstma]

I know a guy who does dirty deeds...dirt cheap 

[Dv2]

Sounds like the "Stupid Teacher Syndrome". I have suffered from it all my life. In my first year of college I had to write a paper and didn*t really know how to properly cite a source. All my sources were presented at the end of the paper, but IN the text it wasn*t always clear where a citation was. The citations made up around 5-10% of the text and revolved around basic definitions of certain terms.

A week later, everyone got their grades but me...There was talk that I might have the best paper, a 10/10 maybe. I thought it possible, because I worked pretty hard on this paper. When I was finally summoned to the teacher, he told me that my paper was "too good for a first year student", so he checked it with his "anti-plagiarism-software" and found that I had plagiarized my citation sources. xD
I explained it to him, was allowed to rewrite said 5% of the text and finally got a 6/10 for it
So, why was it too good for a first year student, when i only got a 6?? I gave up on understanding.

A year later I heard about someone who had to leave college, because of a similar act of "plagiarism".
A few students were also expelled for forging data for a "1st year psychological research program", which is absolutely useless anyway.
I think plagiarism is a serious thing, but there should only be penalities for people who steal other*s work, in order to professionally present it as their own. Students shouldn*t be expelled, just because they copy one line or something.

[brstma]

So, why was it too good for a first year student, when i only got a 6?? I gave up on understanding.

Because he didn't do that well in his first year 

[Unaspected]

You should ask your college if they could implement the Turnitin system. We use the UK version at my college and have to submit that report along with our papers. It's designed to prevent plagiarism and also means that you have proof that protects you from such comments.

I feel bad for you. That really does suck. I'm having to deal with an administration error at the moment which basically means I have work to complete over the summer that I could have finished before the end of last term. Though I can't go into details.

[RhythmScript]

I've had bad professors every semester since sophomore in high school. Never been accused of plagiarism, but I have a very distinctive writing style.

The grand irony, though, is I know a FUCKTON of kids who DID plagiarise and never got caught. The whole "written like a website" thing is stupid as poo; it means you actually took TIME to write. And you got punished. While the 15 kids who opened Wikipedia, copied the article, and changed words and sentences around to get it past the plagiarism detector never get busted.

[Zigbert]

The reason what your instructor did is bullshit is that at most universities, actual plagiarism results in a grade of zero for the assignment if not the entire course or even suspension from the university. Plagiarism is an explicit violation of the academic honor code, akin to cheating on a exam. If he'd believed there was sufficient evidence you had actually plagiarized something, he would have pursued it accordingly.

Instead, he just ganked you over his arbitrary opinion. Which is not surprising if among graduate instructers (or was this guy an actual professor?), and less surprising among those in a scientific/technical field. First of all, graduate student instructors often have no interest in teaching whatsoever and resent their students because they are forced to teach some classes. Also, a lot of graduate students are socially inept and underdeveloped to the point that they have no clue how to actually deal with actual humans. And additionally, I've come across a lot of people in scientific/technology fields who are really insecure about their writing (because they suck at it) and who also don't really know how to evaluate good writing when they see it.

I've been lucky maybe, because although I've had some professors who were lazy or crappy lecturers, and others who were extremely demanding in their expectations and their standards of quality, I've never had any who were just unfair and arbitrary in their grading policies. I have a friend who had a graduate instructor who was pulling that kind of bullshit though, and he and a few other students complained to the guy's graduate adviser and eventually to the department chair, and the guy ended up being replaced before the end of the semester.

[bahgheera]

Thanks for all the responses, I feel a little better about it today. You know, AA you hit on something and it's exactly the problem - professionalism. The instructors out there are just not pro. They don't even care to be. I have another class this semester, Industrial Controls, which is scheduled for 5:30pm to 8:50pm. The instructor shows up about six o'clock in his coveralls from his other job and flip flops. He gives us about thirty minutes of inane / insane lecture, during which he contradicts himself over and over and constantly stumbles over his words, gets all flustered when we start asking questions (although nobody asks questions anymore), and then cuts us loose at about 6:30. Ridiculous!

Yes, they are not professional. I think I may take this paper back to school and start myself a huge foofaraw. I want to see what the department head thinks of this.

Oh, and BTW Zigbert, no he's not an actual professor. He's just an instructor that's knowledgeable (purportedly) in his field.

[defect9]

plagiarism was way easier before that damn software.   Makes me glad it didn't exist when I was in school.

and even so, I admit I used to semi-plagiarize, but I was always smart enough to change wording to sound more like me, and toss in extra stuff to try and add humor.  In the end because of the analyzing and rewriting to make sure I didnt get caught, I'd actually absorb it.  And THAT is the point of the exercise.  Not that I could tell you any facts about it now, other than writing a report on Napoleon in french flipping SUCKS.

probably why I liked my graphic arts classes most.  Didn't need to plagiarize.

[metemi]

Thanks for all the responses, I feel a little better about it today. You know, AA you hit on something and it's exactly the problem - professionalism. The instructors out there are just not pro. They don't even care to be. I have another class this semester, Industrial Controls, which is scheduled for 5:30pm to 8:50pm. The instructor shows up about six o'clock in his coveralls from his other job and flip flops. He gives us about thirty minutes of inane / insane lecture, during which he contradicts himself over and over and constantly stumbles over his words, gets all flustered when we start asking questions (although nobody asks questions anymore), and then cuts us loose at about 6:30. Ridiculous!

Yes, they are not professional. I think I may take this paper back to school and start myself a huge foofaraw. I want to see what the department head thinks of this.

Oh, and BTW Zigbert, no he's not an actual professor. He's just an instructor that's knowledgeable (purportedly) in his field.

Is this a university? Or tech college.. Well either way, you should report this stuff to someone, you have the right to complain about it, you're paying for it! Maybe no one else has said anything before. 

Oh and everyone here is who is a student should plagiarize this and see if you get away with it  -
http://www.floobydust.com/turbo-encabulator/

[Tremingway]

ok, not to be offensive or anything, but back in the school I went to, reports without names are generally considered as copy pasted from somewhere.
That's usually when people don't do their reports and wait until the last 10 minutes before the deadline to submit them, and end up copy pasting and printing out one of the more generous classmates' works in hoping that the professor doesn't get around to reading each report anyway. And sometimes, in the hurry of trying to make the deadline in 10 minutes, they forget to include their name.

Sure is QUALITY education you're having though, I mean, did he really even consider the idea that you wrote it up yourself?

I've been to an "M___ Institute of Technology" (no, not Massachusetts, did I even spell that right? But regardless, it's an Institute of Technology infamous for being the 'best' engineering school in the country), and from the 5 years I've had? I can generalize that 2 out of 5 professors are any good, and 1 out of the 2 are very professional. The 3 just generally give you a passing grade without so much as caring whether you learn anything or not.