Job Discussion Forums

[Babala]

I had a student tell me that plagiarism was okay as long as you don't make any money from it. Some of them really don't think it's wrong as it is so widely practised. I simply make them repeat the assignment the right way. If I had given them an assignment as an examination though I would fail them.

[laska]

At the risk of being redundant (and sounding jaded) I just have this to say about plagiarism in China: I think most students know what it is and know that it is "wrong."

I have Chinese friends who are getting degrees just for the sake of getting the degrees. For them, it's just something they will put on a resume that helps them get a foot in the door at a company. They don't really expect to learn anything useful while they study.

So the game of graduating with the least possible effort makes a great deal of sense to them. Plagiarizing frees up a lot of their mental energy for tasks that they find more valuable, such as looking for a job, making money, starting a business etc.

Looking at it from their point of view, you would do the same thing, wouldn't you?

So I think part of the problem is demonstrating a need to write original work. Demonstrating that the writing exercise is valuable according to the students' set of priorities might help ensure that they take it more seriously.

Most multinational companies in China require students to write all their emails in English. But many graduates find writing English emails very difficult, which makes it difficult for them to advance in their careers. For some groups of students, perhaps assigning work-related business email type assignments might help them feel more motivated, especially if you can explain that this will help them in their future jobs.

Then maybe you can sneak in some poetry or literature... To: Melville CC: Twain Re: Fitzgerald.... ?

Just some baggy ramblings...

[SimonM]

Yeah...

Um...

I'm just going to go ahead and give 0s to the plagirists. They have gotten repeated warnings.

If they manage to Guanxi their way out of it all the power to them but I'm not passing work that would get you a course failure in Canada.

PS: Two kids tried to cheat on their speaking exam!

I mean they actually looked for a friend and tried to stage whisper a question in Putonghua to them during the exam. My putonghua isn't great but I know what "Shen me?" means.

I didn't give them 0s because I prevented the cheating but needless to say they weren't the most stellar speakers to begin with.

[pc-pocket]

[SimonM]

A parrot? A parrot? What because I don't think that Indians invented all of Chinese culture?

Please if you have something to say to me come visit me and say it to my face.

And if you want to talk martial arts please confine your trolling to the thread on martial arts. This is about school. You know the place where I go for working.

[Yu]

I agree this is a tricky issue in China.
I am now dealing with it with one of my students... HE wrote (well, didn't write anything) but it implied he was a girl, and none of the sources he quoted were actually in the library.
The solution that seemed most practical was a written apology to me admitting what he did.

I have more than 100 students. Each with 3-5 pages this semester, and 5000 words next semester.

First, they dont really know what to cite. They have not really written research papers before. Many of my students did not really know how to use the library.

I gave a long talk about why we cite, and a few students found it helpful.
I pointed out to them that by citing their ideas it shows that an expert agrees with their idea and that it makes what they think seem more believable. Second, I told them that citing makes it possible for the reader to find information that is relevent to their topic, and it is what makes it possible to continue to expand our knowledge. I also said that if they copy a stupid person's idea, it is much better to cite the stupid person than make the teacher think they are the stupid one.

I took the emphasis away from the constant stating that plariarism (how ever that word is spelled) is wrong, and tried to get them to focus on why we cite in the first place. After getting some drafts, I just pointed out places where they needed to cite. Sometimes they told me it was their own idea, I said, that they then had too much of their own idea in the paper and that they should find an expert to help support their idea to make their paper seem more believeable. Overall, I think I see progress. There is still work that needs to be done. On one had I think we should be hard on the students but we also need to realize this is a cultural idea that has been drilled into our heads for at least a decade. If copying has been drilled in to students heads for that amount of time, i think it is more reasonable to point out what areas should be cited. We need to teach them paraphrasing and summarizing skills.

The next issue I will have to work on is judging the credibility of sources.
Some problems with citation come from starting with crap that is well crap.

Talk to the leaders, see what they say. I dont think they will care as much as you do. If they dont care, why should you? This is what I am struggling with at least.

Students do need time, they need a few chances to document sources. Give them a little practice, this is not something we learned how to do quickly. I mean, I still have trouble with paraphrasing. It is not easy.

My next question to raise is related to "what are the harmful effects of plagarism?" I hope to figure out some answers to this and discuss them next semester with the same students. Students are not used to getting much feedback about their performance.

[SimonM]

School leaders said: fail em.

In the end I think I bascally got through to them. I only had to fail two people for blatant cheating... The spelling mistakes on their essay questions were identical.

[NateM]

Yup, I'm a big fan of the "fail 'em" approach.

One thing that seemed to work well was to start with small projects I corrected. I'd let the whole class know that the people who cheated/plagiarized failed the assignment. As the year wore on and I kept failing people who cheated, fewer and fewer students copied, or they all at least decided to smarten up about it.

[KaiEr]

It is quite a simple task, but you must do this at the beginning of the term.

Walk in with a copy of Mao's "Little Red Book" (You can purchase them all over China), anywhere you see his name, mark it out and write in your name. Hand it to the class and ask them if they like your writing. It helps if you start quoting the book, then look at them and say, "I wrote that... pretty good huh?"

When they give you that bewildered look, you can start to explain plagiarism to them.

One thing that feeds this practice is the fact that, in many schools, grades are bought and sold like candy. The practice of copying from the internet and handing it in, is accepted by many Chinese teachers.

It is for this reason that I will usually just call the student and tell them the following, "I know that some of your other teachers may allow you to turn in something from the internet, but I am a little different. I know you are a very smart student; so I want to know what YOU think about the subjet. Can you please write something for me?"

This usualy gives them an opportunity to correct their "mistake" without losing face, and it gives them a little ego boost at the same time.

Of course, it also helps if you tell the students, at the beginning of the term, how one would be kicked out of school for doing this in the "West".

[Brian Caulfield]

Thank you Yu . I agree with you they just need to recognize how do justify their thoughts. The funny thing is I too taught this class and backed out on it when I saw how much the author of the text had plagarized . Plus a third of the book was on Baiwoelf (spelling ) And then there was a chapter on the Beat Generation of New York at the end of the book . Whoever put this text together didn't spend much time on it . My text on English culture was peppered with spelling mistakes. Now today we have spell check so even an insipid,boorish,babling,bafoon like myself has no excuse for making spelling errors.

[SimonM]

Beowulf - since you asked.