I also believe strongly in the value of tailoring research assignments and
working individually with students as well as in class to help students learn
the conventions of research and research writing so that they can avoid
plagiarism. But I use turnitin too (as I think I've already discussed on this
listserv).

Last semester, I got two research papers that had been plagiarized -- one from
fouressays.com and one from nine websites. I knew both papers had been
plagiarized when I looked at them. In fact, I knew the one student (the
fouressays.com student) would plagiarize before I actually saw the paper because
he had been late on all of the assignments leading up to the multiple-source
paper and had rejected any of my attempts to get him to refocus or rethink what
he was doing -- classic warning symptoms of an impending plagiarism. Some
students are like this regardless of all of our attempts to engage them, and
these students especially are why I like turnitin.

With both of these students, turnitin found the sources without any effort on my
part. When I talked to both of these students, the evidence of their unethical
scholarship was right in front of us in bright colors (since turnitin color
codes the "borrowed" text and that same text in the original), and the students
simply had to admit what they'd done. For me, dealing with this sort of
situation is always uncomfortable. But I felt more comfortable in these cases
because I hadn't had to spend any time tracking down evidence: in other words, I
didn't feel as if I was forced to waste my time because these students didn't
want to put any time or effort into my course. And both students, by the way,
admitted that they plagiarized because of time -- one because she didn't have
the time, the other, because he didn't want to spend the time, on the
assignment.

By the way, I talk to all my students about why I ask them to submit electronic
copies of their papers, so both of these students were forewarned. And the
discussion of turnitin in class leads to an interesting discussion about why
academics are all fired up about copying and how people can learn the academic
conventions so that they don't inadvertently slip into plagiarism.

Judy

-----Original Message-----
From: Carolyn Birden [mailto:cmcb007@...]
Sent: Fri 11/22/2002 4:30 PM
To: TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
Cc:
Subject: Re: [TechRhet] Turnitin.com

Using a computer class for at least part of the course is a
possibility: for research papers, I have students bring in their
notes and outlines, already revised under my supervision several
times, and work on screen for several hours and on different parts
of their essays: I can tell immediately if someone has not done any
work, hasn't a clue as to the content, etc. This won't work later in
the semester, as purchased and plagiarized work will have arrived by
then and some students are amazingly clever at reverse-engineering a
paper. My final check is the final exam, in which I ask students to
write a summary of their papers from memory, which I then can compare
with the paper. If it is markedly different, I look for more proof
of authorship, or not. But monitoring ongoing work and scheduling
computer workshops during the semester prevent a great deal of
plagiarism: students have dropped out when it became clear that they
would actually have to write the paper themselves, produce sources,
etc. And weaker students benefit greatly from the workshop approach
when I include work on attributive tags, organization, and rhetorical
skills. Scheduling the computer classroom for a few hours, preparing
the assignment, and doing careful monitoring is worth the effort, I
find.

Carolyn Birden
Assistant Professor of English
Community College of Philadelphia
cbirden@...



>I think Roger's right about tailoring assignments so that plagiarism
>is impossible -- in composition courses where the teacher has a
>chance to see essays in stages and comment on drafts. In literature
>classes it's not always possible to do this oversight, however. For
>assignments on anything to do with Shakespeare or widely studied
>authors, there are hundreds of papers out there on every conceivable
>topic. Even if one includes creative and/or Web projects in the mix,
>sooner or later one has to require an essay of traditional critical
>analysis of the kind that students can locate online. It would be
>nice to be able to draw from a whole range of assignment types, not
>just those that can't be plagiarized.
>
>In upper division courses we have small enough classes that the
>instructor can get acquainted with students' individual thinking and
>writing styles, but an instructor of a large general ed section of,
>say, Intro. to Lit., might not have that luxury. Could turnitin.com
>help those folks?
>
>
>
>Margaret Barber
>
>
>
>>There are many things one can do to so tailor the project that plagiarism is
>>quite impossible. I think this is both more effective and cheaper than using
>>a service such as you suggest.
>>
>>just me
>>roger
>>
>>Dr. Roger Easson
>>Professor
>>Department of Literature and Languages
>>Christian Brothers University
>>Memphis, Tennessee
> >38104
>>


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