Job Discussion Forums

[Lorean]

How much time are you willing to invest to eliminate plagiarism, and other forms of academic dishonesty in your classroom?

I am dealing with several cases of plagiarism at the moment (no surprise). In one case I asked students to write a summary of a movie. I have received several entries that where the student obviously went out and found a Chinese summary and used a translation tool on it. In another case, I asked students to interview foreigners, write down what they said, and present their transcript to the class. From the expressions they used I.E. "It's a pity ... " it was obvious they did not interview anyone, but pulled the transcript out of their h@t.

My University's English department is corrupt from the top down. The Dean forces all students to buy his poorly written book on English writing. I would be he did a fair bit of plagiarism as a student at Peking U.

I am willing to invest a small amount of time to track down and go after dishonest student. But after a point I simply don't care anymore.

At what point do you just say "screw it, I've got better things to do"?

[chia48]

I do believe that it's my job to make it clear to my students what the expected academic standards are. I'll spend time explaining what I want them to do, but the longer I stay in china, the more I see a lot of patience is required and to lower my expectations for what actually gets handed in.

I heard an interesting excuse for plagiarizing a movie review recently.
I had asked students for written comments on a movie I showed in class, and got a paper that was obviously downloaded. I told the student it wasn't acceptable. He replied that he had been so interested in the movie he had gone searching online and read many, many reviews -- and this was the one that most reflected his own thoughts! Great!

More explaining required, what does 'in your own words' mean ........

[Silent Shadow]

Lorean, I hear you, and sympathize.

I've been teaching writing in colleges in China for the last two years.
One way I've overcome the problem of plagiarism is to make sure all writing assignments are done in class and that the students NEVER know the topic until they arrive. This of course is far from perfect, because they don't have any time to do any research. But let's be honest here. How much true research do college/ university students do in China anyway?

I'm not kidding myself into believing that it's possible to get them to spend hours of their spare time researching on such "hot" topics as the "Origin of man", or the pros and cons of "Euthanasia", and present pages and pages of completely original articles to me. If some of you have succeeded in achieving this, then I stand corrected, and I say hats of to you.

I couple of weeks beforehand, I usually give them a handout that covers the layout and techniques of writing a certain type of paper, for instance: "What is
an argument? How do you write one? Blah, blah, blah... The next week we will discuss those questions, then I give them topics, from which they should draw opinions from, so as to practice writing thesis statements. I also give them a claim like "Air travel is much safer than any other form of travel" and ask them to discuss it and think of three points to back up that claim.

Then, the next week when they ARRIVE AT CLASS, they are given several topics. They choose one and then think of a thesis statement, and then write a basic five-paragraph essay consisting of introduction, three points and backing, and their conclusion.

They know they're going to write an argument, they know HOW to, but the only thing they don't know is the topic (of course choosing things that touch on their everyday lives like university rules for students or the issue of having boyfriends or girlfriends on-campus would help).

Obviously this system has it's flaws, but at least they get real practice from thinking about and producing their own work, and I don't have to waste my time googling on the Internet, and wondering if I'm grading the work of some professor in a North American university.

Basically, do all assignments in class and keep the topics secret. Let them prepare for the TYPE of paper they will write, though.

[mike w]

Plagiarism = Fail

I've been using that rule for more than 12 years in China. Don't see any reason to change or dilute the standard expected.

[Lorean]

[AussieGuyInChina]

As much as I abhor plagiarism, the students may have a better chance of developing good writing skills plagiarising "the work of some professor in a North American university" than studying with some so-called foreign teachers.

[Shan-Shan]

[AussieGuyInChina]

Earlier today, johnchina posted a message on another thread about people caring.

Do you care about the teaching quality of other foreign teachers, Shan-Shan?

Do you care that incompetence on the part of some foreign teachers probably serves to downgrade the image, and degree of respect afforded to, all foreign teachers?

[vikuk]

[KevinT123]

[johnchina]

Plagiarism is simply becoming accepted - unfortunately.

[Shan-Shan]

[johnchina]

Shan-Shan is right! I shall forthwith self-flagellate at the base of the nearest Mao statue for even thinking otherwise! If I bleed enough, the PSB might not revoke my visa! The only recognition that should exist is that China is the best at everything!

[China.Pete]

I've found the following methods useful in dealing with the problem of plagiarism in writing classes. One, as another poster has argued, is to have them do the writing in class. Preparation, and even some research for same, can be done out of class; but the graded work is done right in front of you. Two, is to adopt a marking scheme which discourages the practice. Only a very small percentage of the students' grade should be for "use of English," with most of the total point score allocated to their thesis statement, evidence, conclusion, paragraph format, etc. That way, you don't get involved in any guessword about where something came from, and those who most likely did copy the work from the Internet end up with a very low mark anyway because what they turned in had very little to do with the actual assignment. Three, is to reserve a "zero" for copying that is done under the teacher's nose during an exam, or when two or more students turn in the exact same written essay.

[vikuk]