Please Forward--

Call for papers:
Looking Both Ways:
Representations of Bisexuality in the Mass Media
A Special Double Issue of the Journal of Bisexuality

Dr. Keith Dorwick, The University of Louisiana at
Lafayette
Dr. Jonathan Alexander, The University of Cincinnati

Today, with the explosion of new forms of media, from
webcams on the internet to periodicals delivered on
CD-ROM to online editions of newspapers, the number
and locations of representations of bisexuality and
other forms of queer sex has also climbed.  Too, with
more forms of media that allow for various levels of
privacy, the explicit nature of those representations
range from the very public, such as Sharon Stone's
infamous bisexual killer (Basic Instinct, 1992); to
the less public, as with cable deliveries of
representations of bisexual; to the entirely private
(presumably), such as bisexual porno sites that
deliver full length adult films via broadband
connections through such technologies as Ethernet and
DSL.

As a result of this growth, the social issues that
surround representations of queer sex—in the past, an
entirely underground movement centered around the U.S.
mail service,  tawdry bookstores habitated by men
exhibiting a full range of sexual orientations (but
perhaps largely bisexual especially in smaller towns)
and dingy movie palaces reclaimed from vaudeville and
legitimate film—have become entirely complex. These
can include privacy issues, censorship, thrusting of
images and sound upon the unwilling viewer or hearer,
the roles libraries play in the electronic delivery of
adult materials, rural vs. urban understandings of the
depiction of bisexuality acts, the representation of
the tensions between bisexuals and other queers, the
concerns of the differently abled, of church and
religion, economics, politics of identity, community
formation, bi-eroticism, bi-curious and questioning
youth, polyamory, non-monogamy, inter-generational sex
and sexualities and so much more.

This special double issue of the Journal of
Bisexuality, scheduled to appear subsequently in book
form, is seeking papers that will tackle media
representation of bisexuality from recognized
theoretical schools and perspectives (including but
not limited to feminism, queer studies, Marxism,
reader response, deconstruction and other recognized
theory); material that lacks a theoretical
underpinning is not acceptable, though personal
narratives that do include such a perspective and
fusions of various theoretical schools will be
considered. In particular, the editors will welcome
essays that consider the ways the media represents
bisexuals who maintain membership in more than one
minority community: gay men married to women, lesbians
who have straight sex, the disabled, queers of color,
bisexuals who are celibate by choice, etc.

Please submit completed essays (no abstracts) of 20-25
double-spaced manuscript pages to BOTH
kdorwick@... and jamma@... in Word or
RTF format for consideration by 12/31/05; requests to
review relevant books on this topic may be sent to
both addresses as well. Inquiries are welcome, though,
again, only full manuscripts will be considered for
possible inclusion in this special issue.






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University of Cincinnati.  Composition and Rhetoric.  Visiting Assistant
Professor, one-year appointment (with possibility of a one-year renewal), to
teach first-year and advanced writing courses, and perhaps a graduate
seminar (depending on qualifications and scheduling needs).  Six-course
teaching load (2-2-2) in our quarter system.  Dissertation completed by
September 1, 2005, start date.  Competitive salary and benefits.  Letter and
dossier by 1 July 2005 to Leland S. Person, Head, Department of English and
Comparative Literature, ML 0069, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
45221-0069.  The University of Cincinnati is an equal opportunity,
affirmative action employer and actively seeks applications from women and
minority candidates.

________________________________________
Jonathan Alexander, PhD
Director, English Composition Program
Associate Professor of English & Comparative Literature
University of Cincinnati
513-556-6173
http://oz.uc.edu/~alexanj/
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ANNOUNCING...
The release of QP:queerpoetry 5
http://www.queerpoetry.cjb.net/
Spread the word...
j.

________________________________________
Jonathan Alexander, PhD
Director, English Composition Program
Associate Professor of English & Comparative Literature
University of Cincinnati
513-556-6173
http://oz.uc.edu/~alexanj/

Third Annual

  RACHEL CORRIE AWARD

FOR COURAGE IN THE TEACHING OF WRITING

2006



RACHEL CORRIE

Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old peace activist and senior at The Evergreen
State College in Olympia, Washington.  She was killed on March 16, 2003 in
Rafah in the Gaza Strip.  She was on leave from school to work in Palestine
with the International Solidarity Movement, a group using and promoting
“nonviolent, direct-action methods of resistance to confront and challenge
illegal Israeli occupation forces and policies.”  Rachel was attempting to
block an Israeli military bulldozer from demolishing the house of a
pharmacist and his family when the driver of the bulldozer ran over her,
then backed up and ran over her again.  Wearing a bright orange jacket and
using a bullhorn, Rachel was, by all eyewitness accounts and in horrifying
photographs published on the Internet, exceptionally visible.  Her parents,
some members of Congress, and grassroots organizations including several
Jewish peace groups have called for an independent U.S. investigation into
her death.  Such an investigation has yet to happen, and the U.S. media
virtually buried the story—though it was featured prominently in the U.K.
and in many other countries.



Corrie took courses like “Labor and the Environment” and “Public Art and the
Middle East Conflict”; she also wrote detailed emails from Palestine.  The
late Edward Said, who met with her parents in May, 2003, wrote, “Her letters
back to her family are truly remarkable documents of her ordinary humanity
that made for very difficult and moving reading....”



THE AWARD

The Progressive SIGs and Caucuses Coalition (PSCC) of the CCCC wishes to
honor the memory of this extremely courageous student by recognizing a
teacher in the CCCC who has taken professional risks in order to promote
social justice through the teaching of writing.   It is well known that the
politics of hiring, tenure, and promotion often motivate graduate students
and junior faculty to write, teach, and serve in “safe” subject and project
areas; many are encouraged by mentors to shy away from genuinely
“controversial” or “risky” subjects until they are tenured.  In making this
award, the PSCC hopes, conversely, to encourage writing teachers early in
their careers to take on research, pedagogy, and service projects that
promote commitment to peace, justice, and human dignity—even when hazarding
the ire of deans, chairs, editors, and hiring and review committees.



There will be one $500 cash award to an individual and up to two smaller
awards to individuals or groups.  The prizes will be presented at the PSCC
Annual Event at CCCC in Chicago in March, 2006—the third anniversary of
Rachel Corrie’s death.



ELIGIBILITYAND NOMINATION

Graduate students and junior (untenured) faculty members are eligible to
apply for the award.  To nominate an individual or a group, send an email of
500 words to Harriet Malinowitz at hmalinow@..., clearly explaining what
the nominee has done to merit this award.  Include the following information
for both the nominator and nominee: name, academic rank and/or employment
status, telephone, email, institution, department, and any other
organizational affiliations relevant to the award. The award will recognize
a specific project—which may be, but is not limited to, a research,
pedagogical, or curricular project, service to institution or professional
organization, or partnership with a community organization—that serves the
goals discussed above and that, frankly, takes guts.  Nominations that are
strong on specific information, rather than merely accolades, will receive
the strongest consideration.  Finalists will be contacted to present further
evidence of their project: an article (not necessarily published), a
dissertation abstract and chapter, a syllabus, a new curriculum design, a
more detailed project description with appropriate documentation, etc.  The
winners will be selected by a jury of three members of PSCC’s constituent
SIGs and caucuses.  Nomination deadline: Friday, November 18, 2005. More
info: http://www.progressiveteachers.org/pt/corrieaward.html.











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The message contains Unicode characters and has been sent as a binary
attachment.



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Colleagues,

As part of a book project I’m working on, I’m attempting to compile a list (a
sort of contextualized overview) of the best and most used teacher resources
related to the teaching of writing/composition courses in two main areas:

Technology/computers and composition
Visual Rhetoric

My goal with this section is to keep the grounding in the practical, rather than
the theoretical (a “Best Practices” in writing instruction, related to 1)
teaching with technology and 2) visual rhetoric.)  I’d like to draw on your
expertise in these areas if possible – what resources, assignments, key texts,
etc., spring to mind?  Thanks in advance for your wisdoms, friends.  Responses
off list to zcw@... at your discretion.

Best,
Zach Waggoner
Arizona State University

Oops--sorry.  Should've said.  GRADUATE.
j.

-----Original Message-----
From: techrhet-owner@...
[mailto:techrhet-owner@...]On Behalf Of elijah wright
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 7:44 PM
To: Techrhet@...
Cc: TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [techrhet] electronic literacies/reading list



> A question, probing (and frankly taking advantage of!) the wisdom on this
> list: I'm preparing a course on "electronic literacies" and I was
wondering
> if that title sparked in anyone's mind a list of TOP FIVE MUST READS.  I'm

undergraduate or graduate?


-----------------------------------------------------
If you want to help support the operation of TechRhet,
visit http://interversity.org/donate.php and pitch in!
-----------------
Thanks in advance!
-Eric Crump
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Folks--
A question, probing (and frankly taking advantage of!) the wisdom on this
list: I'm preparing a course on "electronic literacies" and I was wondering
if that title sparked in anyone's mind a list of TOP FIVE MUST READS.  I'm
hoping to cover (in an introductory fashion) a range of literacy practices
enabled by networked/Internet technologies, and I'm also leaving room open
for pedagogical considerations as well (e.g., how can we use such literacy
practices to further and extend the teaching of college composition). I'd
appreciate your input!
Best to you all,
j.

________________________________________
Jonathan Alexander, PhD
Director, English Composition Program
Associate Professor of English & Comparative Literature
University of Cincinnati
513-556-6173
http://oz.uc.edu/~alexanj/
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Some help?

I am the chair of the college section of NCTE. As such I represent
you in this large organization (scary thought, eh :). This year Randy
Bomer (UT Austin) is president of the organization, and he has
defined several issue areas that will consume the Executive Committee
and related subcommittees of NCTE this year. My objective is to
understand the over-riding concerns that college-level
scholar/teachers have about these areas. Recommendations for
readings, resources, consultants, or other committees are welcome.
The Executive Committee will then want to discuss what NCTE, the
organization, can do to address the most pressing issues in each
area. In the past this has meant writing policy statements, applying
for large grants, or developing professional development experiences.

If you will reply to me personally <rselfe@...>, I'll collate
comments and repost them to these lists and take them (in summary
form unless you say you want your name attached) to the Executive
Committee meeting in Indianapolis in two weeks. The issues are the
following and in the order that Randy will take them up this year.
Feel free to comment on any or all of them:

1. Multi-modal literacies (reading, viewing, composing in many media)
2. English Language Learners in English classes
3. The relationship of educational research to teaching
     (Needs a little translating:  Does research tell us what
      to do?  What is research for?  What do different research
      traditions offer?  How do teachers make decisions?)
4. Labor issues in English studies

If there are groups that you know who are dealing directly with any
of these issue areas, please pass along the names of the groups and
contact information. No reason to re-invent the wheel.




--

Dickie Selfe <rselfe@...>

                   (OO)  Director of
      CCCCCCC LLLL iiii  Center for Computer-Assisted Language Instruction
    CCCCCCCCC LLLL iiii  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
CCCC  ccccc LLLL iiii  138 Walker Arts and Humanities Center
CCCC cc     LLLL iiii  Michigan Technological University
CCCC  ccccc LLLL iiii  Houghton, MI  49931   906-487-3225
    CCCCCCCCC LLLLLLLLL
      CCCCCCC LLLLLLLLL  "It's hard work to be a good geek!"
                                                        -- Noel Maddy




.

As part of the onsite Computers and Writing Conference in Honolulu,
Hawaii, our Saturday workshop is inviting virtual participants to
join us in a discussion of

    Sustainable Technology-Rich Education &
    Technological Activism

On Saturday, June 12 at 8:00 AM Honolulu time (2:00 PM Eastern DST)
we will meet to discuss issues surrounding this important topic on
the Nouspace Virtual Environment (MOO space)
<http://www.nouspace.net:7000/> hosted graciously by Dene Grigar at
Texas Woman's University.

TO GET THERE & PARTICIPATE:
1. Log in as a Guest by hitting the "Log in" button (without a
password) once the site loads. Fill out the form that appears and
then ...

2. In the lower left-hand chat box, type
     @go C&W 2004
     or
     @join dickie
     (Case sensitive)

3. Each presenter has a link to their position statements, most of
which can be read ahead of time or during the first five minutes of
each presentation. A short discussion of sustainable practices
applicable to YOUR institution will follow each position statement.

Hope to see some of you there.

[All discussions will be recorded. All transcripts can be used
anonymously by participants and facilitators. All online published
materials can be used only with permission of individual authors. All
quoted, cited comments can be used only with permission of individual
authors.]



*********** Additional Information *******************
See http://www.hawaii.edu/cw2004/index.html for onsite conference
information and a link to the Online C&W Conference.

For information about Communicating and Navigating in Nouspace go to
http://68.91.180.249:7000/521/

--



Dickie Selfe <rselfe@...>

                   (OO)  Director of
      CCCCCCC LLLL iiii  Center for Computer-Assisted Language Instruction
    CCCCCCCCC LLLL iiii  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
CCCC  ccccc LLLL iiii  138 Walker Arts and Humanities Center
CCCC cc     LLLL iiii  Michigan Technological University
CCCC  ccccc LLLL iiii  Houghton, MI  49931   906-487-3225
    CCCCCCCCC LLLLLLLLL
      CCCCCCC LLLLLLLLL  "It's hard work to be a good geek!"
                                                        -- Noel Maddy




.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

***PLEASE FEEL FREE TO FORWARD***


Call for Papers:

For an edited collection tentatively entitled

*The What Next? Generation: Emerging (Re)Visions of Composition Studies*

Edited by Jonathan Alexander (University of Cincinnati) and
Jacqueline Rhodes (California State University, San Bernardino)

Kathleen Blake Yancey, in her Keynote Address for the upcoming CCCC, plans
to pose the question, “As we move into the 21st century, what do (and what
will) we mean by composing?”  The question…begs yet another densely
inter-related question: “As we move into the 21st century, what do (and what
will) we mean by teaching composition?”  As composition programs across the
country continue to change, develop, and assess curricula, methods, and even
the structure of administering composition and writing, it’s important to
ask what trends and values are emerging that will shape the future of
writing instruction in our colleges and universities.
Indeed, what we mean by composition, writing instruction, literacy—all are
in flux, and the next few decades promise to bring a number of changes due
to shifting economies and subsequent shifting in institutional priorities.
At the same time, composition specialists relatively new to the field are
bringing to bear on these changes their own ideas, their own responses, and
their own energies in thinking through the future of our field.

Often referring to themselves as the “Generation X” of composition studies—a
generation standing with one foot in the social-turn and the other somewhere
in the post-process movement—these compositionists attempt to juggle
innovative pedagogies and disparate theories, often in ways that challenge
recently-past pedagogies, theories, and assumptions about writing
instruction.  Many innovations that a new generation brings to writing
instruction come from advanced work with social-epistemic theories and
interdisciplinary connections made with a host of other fields of inquiry,
such as disability studies, feminism and women’s studies, psychology, queer
theory, religious studies, and sociology.  Additionally, new compositionists
continue to highlight the ongoing impact of digital and technological
literacies on how we communicate, both with text and visuals.  And finally,
as newer teacher-scholars experiment with distance-learning platforms and
other structural changes to the “delivery” of writing instruction, we need
to assess how such venues will impact our field and its commitment to the
development—and definition—of literacy among students.

Given these shifts, fads, and trends, our question is simple: what next?
That is, if the emerging generation of composition specialists takes a step
back and views the field as a whole, what would they see?  With their
immersion in the field of composition and rhetoric, and with their fresh
insights into pedagogical, theoretical, and institutional shifts, what do
these compositionists see as the “hot spots,” the major issues, the
immediate present as it refracts the future of our field?

We seek essays that address questions and that locate them in theoretically
informed and engaging discussions about the state—and future—of composition.
If you are interested in contributing, please contact the editors with an
initial query by March 1, 2004.  Queries may be either in the form of an
abstract of no more than 200 words or a letter of intent with some
indication of what you would like to do in your contribution.  Please submit
via email to jamma@... and jrhodes@....  Final submitted papers
will be approximately 20-25 pages in length, typed doubled-spaced, in MLA
format.  We hope to review complete drafts by June 15, with revisions
expected by September 1.


Jonathan Alexander is Associate Professor of English and Comparative
Literature at the University of Cincinnati, where he also serves as Director
of the English Composition Program.  http://oz.uc.edu/~alexanj/

Jacqueline Rhodes is Assistant Professor of English at California State
University, San Bernardino, where she has served as composition coordinator,
technology coordinator, and associate coordinator of the M.A. program in
English Composition. http://home.earthlink.net/~shehun/cv

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Folks...apologies for cross-listings...
I'm currently the Media/Culture/ Film and Video Track Coordinator for The
2nd North American Conference on Bisexuality (NACB 2003), and I'm actively
seeking session proposals for my track, as well as other tracks (see below).
Please consider submitting something and/or pass this along to others who
might be interested.
Best,
j.

Jonathan Alexander, PhD
Associate Professor of English
University of Cincinnati
http://oz.uc.edu/~alexanj/


***Please FORWARD widely***

The 2nd North American Conference on Bisexuality (NACB 2003) will take place
in San Diego, California on Aug. 21-24, 2003.

We are currently seeking proposals for papers, presentations, panel
discussions, performances, and workshops in the following subject tracks:

- Activism/Organizing
- Gender (includes all gender specific workshops)
- Health
- Media/Culture/ Film and Video
- Relationships/Families/Non-Bi Partners
- Sexuality
- Research/Theory
- Spirituality/Personal Growth
- Track X (other sessions)

Please follow the format of the proposal submission form below.  The
deadline for proposals is June 15th, 2003.  Send completed forms to:

Alexei Guren
1528 Cherry Lane Place South
Seattle, WA  98144
or via e-mail to: Alexei_Guren@... and including "ATTN: NACB 2003
PRESENTATIONS" in the subject line.

Further information about the conference can be found at:
  http://www.bisexual.org/nacb/default.asp

2nd North American Conference on Bisexuality (NACB 2003)
Session Proposal Form

Session proposals should be submitted as described below.

* General
Title of presentation:
Intended audience:
Track (may be more than one):
Description for conference brochure (25 to 50 words):


* Submitter
Name:
Title and affiliation:
Address:
Phone (day and evening):
E-mail:
Background:


* Other Presenter(s)
Name:
Title and affiliation:
Address:
Phone (day and evening):
E-mail:
Background:


* Content
Format (panel, workshop, etc.):
Outline:


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On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Dan Butcher wrote:

Chronicle article Dan mentions:
http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i36/36a03701.htm

> Lawyers say the problem with Turnitin.com is that student papers
> are copied in their entirety to the services' database, which is a

This is true of other detection systems. Once I tried one called
plagiserve.com and found it to be useful, but I was uncomfortable
doing so, since I could not be sure of the intent of the group.

And yes, I let the students know I was experimenting with such
software.  Actually I offered it to them to check their own papers to
help them determine of they had copied large sections and had
forgotten to include quotation marks and sources.

The plagiarism resource site at the University of Va. has this link
and indicates its concerns with the www.plagiserve.com site. I think
the concerns expressed here are valid in terms of all plagiarism
detection sites.

http://plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu/links.html

The fact that the entire paper at any site is loaded into a database
bothers me. I think students should be made aware that this happens
when they or their teachers use such software.  We have no idea what
happens to that copy of the paper.

On one level there are some positive elements to using a detection
software.  Such software can be helpful to both students and
teachers. However, there is the dark side.  So do we choose detection
software as the lesser of evils?

alex

Let me say up front, I¹ve never used this service.  An article in the May
17, 2002, issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (Andrea L. Foster,
³Plagiarism Detection Tool Creates Legal Quandary²) indicates that there
some potential legal/ethical issues with the service. Here¹s an excerpt:

Lawyers say the problem with Turnitin.com is that student papers are copied
in their entirety to the services' database, which is a potential
infringement of students' copyrights. (An author doesn't need to file for a
copyright; the law automatically bestows on authors the rights to their
written works.) And the copying is sometimes done without students'
knowledge or consent, which is a potential invasion of their privacy.

Those concerns contributed to the decision by officials at the University of
California at Berkeley not to subscribe to Turnitin.com, says Mike R. Smith,
assistant chancellor for legal affairs: "We take student
intellectual-property rights seriously, and that became one of the trouble
spots for us in moving ahead with this proposal."

Dan
___________
Dan Butcher
Instructor and Webmaster, Dept. of English
University of Alabama at Birmingham
HB207D, 205/934-8578
dbutcher@...
http://www.uab.edu/english/




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Greetings!

Once again, I am looking for presenters for NCTE/CCCC Mobile Technology
Center Computer Connection at 4Cs.

Last year we had 19 great presentations, covering a broad range of
topics -- we had presentations on particular classroom practices, using
specific software tools, MOOs, new online resources, and electronic
journals -- I am hoping that we can once again share our expertise and
provide engaging, dynamic demonstrations of how we use technology as
teachers and scholars.

This is a very good opportunity for people who are new to the
conference to give a shorter presentation (20 - 30 minutes); it also
gets your name in the program (which can be useful for gaining travel
funds).

Last year, we had a good mix of new folks, established scholars, and
graduate students (although certainly some of our presenters fit more
than one of those categories). One of the presentations, for instance,
was a demonstration of work that graduate students at MTU were doing --
really interesting work -- so I encourage graduate students and their
mentors to consider proposing topics for the Computer Connection.

You may present at the Computer Connection as well as presenting at a
regular conference session; because the Computer Connection selection
process is separate from the main conference, these presentations are
not subject to the 'only one presentation' rule.

The Mobile Technology Center uses a large-screen television for display
and a live Internet connection will be available.

If you are interested, please email to me your name and presentation
proposal by December 7; feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Thanks!

Douglas Eyman
eymand@...

Steve is right in that turnitin gives some false positives. For instance, if a
student types a space between her quote mark and the quoted text, that text will
show up as a copied and unacknowledged passage. But the reports turnitin gives
are so clearly laid out that it's fast to sort out the false positives from the
truly copied and unacknowledged text.

Judy

> ----------
> From:  Steve Krause
> Reply To:  TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
> Sent:  Sunday, November 24, 2002 5:59 PM
> To:  TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
> Subject:  RE: [TechRhet] Turnitin.com
>
> Tari wrote in part:
>
> >On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, Steve Krause wrote:
> >
> >>  Second, I'm not sure that the other student who got his or her stuff
> >>  from 9 different web sites was plagiarizing exactly.  Technically,
> >>  yes, but was it a case of "theft" or a case of not knowing how to
> >>  cite sources?  I'm constantly amazed how so many of my students,
> >>  freshman to master's students, don't realize that you have to follow
> >>  the rules of citing sources and giving credit where credit is due.  I
> >>  get this kind of "plagiarism" all the time, but these are instances
> >>  where I tell the student they've got to rewrite.
> >
> >
> >Actually, in a sentence that you cut, Judy says that both students
> >admitted that they plagiarized, one because of not having the time and the
> >other because of not taking the time.  So leaving aside the facts that we
> >haven't seen the paper and that Judy can probably tell plagiarism from a
> >mistake, I think if a student says, "I ran out of time so I copied my
> >sources," we can pretty much call that plagiarism, and not just
> >"technically."
>
> Oops-- my bad, you're right.
>
> >
> >But anyhow, let me see if I can explain what I think is really interesting
> >(in kind of a scary way) about this thread:
> >
> >Ed asks for turnitin users to talk about turnitin.com.  Instead of
> >information about turnitin.com, he gets a bunch of advice from people who
> >don't use turnitin about how he should be teaching, how his assignments
> >should be constructed--even though we haven't seen his assignments or been
> >in his class, and that's not what he asked about.
> >
> >Finally, Judy comes along and addresses Ed's actual question, explaining
> >how and why she uses turnitin.
> >
> >So now Judy gets advice about *her* teaching!
>
> Well, three quick thoughts:
>
> * I didn't jump into this thread until this morning, so I'm not
> one of those folks you're talking about.  But...
>
> * I *have* used turnitin before, albeit a few years ago (I'm
> sure the service has improved), and I was not impressed.  I tried it
> out on a "demo" basis of some sort, tried running through some of my
> documents, things like my dissertation I believe, and it had said I
> had plagiarized.  Or something like that.
>
> If EMU bought the institutional contract so I could use it whenever I
> wanted to, well sure, I'd probably use it once in a while.  But if
> someone asked me (highly unlikely!) if EMU should buy it, what I
> would probably say are things like what people have said:  it
> probably isn't worth the money, given other search engines out there,
> and it would be better to concentrate on assignments that discourage
> plagiarism.
>
> * I don't mean to sound like the wise teaching adviser to Judy
> or anyone else.  Sorry if it came off that way.  I was just thinking
> about this out loud in relation to my own teaching.  Which will lead
> to something else I'll write here in a second in response to
> something Judy wrote...
>
> --Steve
> --
> Steven D. Krause
> Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
> Eastern Michigan University * 614G Pray-Harrold Hall
> Ypsilanti, MI 48197 * 734-487-1363 * http://krause.emich.edu
>
>
>
> TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
> TechRhet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Tari wrote in part:

>On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, Steve Krause wrote:
>
>>  Second, I'm not sure that the other student who got his or her stuff
>>  from 9 different web sites was plagiarizing exactly.  Technically,
>>  yes, but was it a case of "theft" or a case of not knowing how to
>>  cite sources?  I'm constantly amazed how so many of my students,
>>  freshman to master's students, don't realize that you have to follow
>>  the rules of citing sources and giving credit where credit is due.  I
>>  get this kind of "plagiarism" all the time, but these are instances
>>  where I tell the student they've got to rewrite.
>
>
>Actually, in a sentence that you cut, Judy says that both students
>admitted that they plagiarized, one because of not having the time and the
>other because of not taking the time.  So leaving aside the facts that we
>haven't seen the paper and that Judy can probably tell plagiarism from a
>mistake, I think if a student says, "I ran out of time so I copied my
>sources," we can pretty much call that plagiarism, and not just
>"technically."

Oops-- my bad, you're right.

>
>But anyhow, let me see if I can explain what I think is really interesting
>(in kind of a scary way) about this thread:
>
>Ed asks for turnitin users to talk about turnitin.com.  Instead of
>information about turnitin.com, he gets a bunch of advice from people who
>don't use turnitin about how he should be teaching, how his assignments
>should be constructed--even though we haven't seen his assignments or been
>in his class, and that's not what he asked about.
>
>Finally, Judy comes along and addresses Ed's actual question, explaining
>how and why she uses turnitin.
>
>So now Judy gets advice about *her* teaching!

Well, three quick thoughts:

* I didn't jump into this thread until this morning, so I'm not
one of those folks you're talking about.  But...

* I *have* used turnitin before, albeit a few years ago (I'm
sure the service has improved), and I was not impressed.  I tried it
out on a "demo" basis of some sort, tried running through some of my
documents, things like my dissertation I believe, and it had said I
had plagiarized.  Or something like that.

If EMU bought the institutional contract so I could use it whenever I
wanted to, well sure, I'd probably use it once in a while.  But if
someone asked me (highly unlikely!) if EMU should buy it, what I
would probably say are things like what people have said:  it
probably isn't worth the money, given other search engines out there,
and it would be better to concentrate on assignments that discourage
plagiarism.

* I don't mean to sound like the wise teaching adviser to Judy
or anyone else.  Sorry if it came off that way.  I was just thinking
about this out loud in relation to my own teaching.  Which will lead
to something else I'll write here in a second in response to
something Judy wrote...

--Steve
--
Steven D. Krause
Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
Eastern Michigan University * 614G Pray-Harrold Hall
Ypsilanti, MI 48197 * 734-487-1363 * http://krause.emich.edu

Judy wrote in part:
>
>My point was and is that some people just plagiarize in spite of
>teachers' best attempts to teach them ethical uses of sources or to
>teach them anything else for that matter. And I don't think that
>these teachers necessarily do anything to encourage plagiarism. To
>me, some of this discussion smacks of "well, if people knew how to
>teach this stuff, students wouldn't plagiarize." I think that sort
>of implication is not terribly productive to put it in as polite a
>terms as I can think of right now.
>
Like I said in the message I just sent, I don't mean to imply that I
have the answers to this by any stretch of the imagination.  All we
can really do in any conversation like this is generalize, right?
You're not going to (at least you shouldn't!) share the specifics of
the case, and we all should know that individual circumstances vary,
etc., etc.

But...

There does seem to me in all of this to be a point in which all of us
as teachers have to kind of "let go."  As you write here Judy, there
are always going to be some people who plagiarize or try to
plagiarize no matter what we do.  The question is how far are we as
teachers willing to go to catch it?  I mean, I know people who have
spent hours and hours trying to track down what they were *certain*
was plagiarism only to not find "the evidence."  And after a point in
time, I just have to wonder if it is worth *my* time to "get 'em."

If turnitin works for some folks to get 'em, that's great.  But I
still find myself going back to the mantras (dare I say cliches?) of
plagiarism talk:  structure the assignments to avoid plagiarism, the
plagiarizer is only hurting themself, etc., etc.

--Steve
--
Steven D. Krause
Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
Eastern Michigan University * 614G Pray-Harrold Hall
Ypsilanti, MI 48197 * 734-487-1363 * http://krause.emich.edu

Oops. I meant to save and hit send instead. My unfinished sentence below -- "And
to be honest, I'm glad t" -- should have been a few sentences: "And to be
honest, I'm glad that teachers in large classes can explore options like using a
product like turnitin rather than replacing writing with multiple choice tests
or something else."

Judy
who's going to shut up for a while anyway


-----Original Message-----
From: Kilborn, Judith M.
Sent: Sun 11/24/2002 5:02 PM
To: TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
Cc:
Subject: RE: [TechRhet] Turnitin.com

Thank you, Tari, for putting your finger on exactly what it is about this
discussion is scary to me. I wish that I'd read your response before I'd posted
mine, but I probably would have said what I said anyway.

One other thing that I'd like to introduce into this conversation is the fact
that we in the field of English have much smaller classes than many departments
do, and we are more highly trained to deal with plagiarism than are our
colleagues in other departments. I know that plagiarism is a larger issue on our
campus than it has been in the past. In fact, the College of Business, which is
trying to prepare its students for writing in the workplace by asking for more
writing in major classes, have much larger classes than we do, and being able to
use a product like turnitin helps them to do that and to also make it clear that
plagiarism isn't acceptable. You might say that they could use many of the
suggestions people on this list have made, including searching for plagiarisms
via google, and accomplish the same thing as they would in using turnitin. But
the fact is that students can submit their papers via turnitiin, and faculty get
both the papers and the reports automatically.  And to be honest, I'm glad t

If people have other questions about turnitin, I'd be glad to talk with them
about it on list and off list even though I've only used the service once.

I'm asking people on this list to quit casting aspersions on people's teaching,
though, because they've asked simple questions about a service that has come
into being in part because of the wealth of materials to copy on the Internet.

Judy



-----Original Message-----
From: Tari Fanderclai [mailto:tari@...]
Sent: Sun 11/24/2002 9:47 AM
To: TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
Cc:
Subject: RE: [TechRhet] Turnitin.com


On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, Steve Krause wrote:

> Second, I'm not sure that the other student who got his or her stuff
> from 9 different web sites was plagiarizing exactly.  Technically,
> yes, but was it a case of "theft" or a case of not knowing how to
> cite sources?  I'm constantly amazed how so many of my students,
> freshman to master's students, don't realize that you have to follow
> the rules of citing sources and giving credit where credit is due.  I
> get this kind of "plagiarism" all the time, but these are instances
> where I tell the student they've got to rewrite.


Actually, in a sentence that you cut, Judy says that both students
admitted that they plagiarized, one because of not having the time and the
other because of not taking the time.  So leaving aside the facts that we
haven't seen the paper and that Judy can probably tell plagiarism from a
mistake, I think if a student says, "I ran out of time so I copied my
sources," we can pretty much call that plagiarism, and not just
"technically."

But anyhow, let me see if I can explain what I think is really interesting
(in kind of a scary way) about this thread:

Ed asks for turnitin users to talk about turnitin.com.  Instead of
information about turnitin.com, he gets a bunch of advice from people who
don't use turnitin about how he should be teaching, how his assignments
should be constructed--even though we haven't seen his assignments or been
in his class, and that's not what he asked about.

Finally, Judy comes along and addresses Ed's actual question, explaining
how and why she uses turnitin.

So now Judy gets advice about *her* teaching!

I think we all know about designing assignments to encourage original
work*.  I think we all know about recognizing mistakes in citing sources
versus deliberate plagiarism.  I think we all know we've all said that
stuff before.

The question is, why can't we address Ed's question, or let someone else
address it, without suggesting that the right kind of teaching practices
would eliminate the need for it?  How can this group be that suspicious of
a technology that many of us haven't even used?  Is it somehow immoral to
admit that students are going to plagiarize, and to let a nice handy
computer application do some of the legwork for us?

I don't mean you can't be skeptical about an application, but that's
different from not even wanting there to be a discussion of one you
haven't even tried!

Tari



*although if we're all going to moralize, here's what I think about
knocking yourself out to design assignments that are impossible to
plagiarize:  One, I once received a Georgie Anne Geyer column as a very
plausible response to a personal essay assignment--had I not happened to
read the column in the newspaper, I'd probably have had a harder time
identifying that trick--so good luck with that "impossible" thing.  Two,
I'd rather design a useful and interesting assignment than an 'impossible
to plagiarize' assignment.  YES, YES, I KNOW YOU CAN PROBABLY DO BOTH AND
I'M ADMITTING THAT RIGHT HERE IN ALL CAPS WHERE YOU CAN'T MISS IT WHEN
YOU'RE CUTTING UP MY PARAGRAPHS, SO DON'T BOTHER WITH THAT LECTURE.  But
you can become like those department stores that are so fixated on the
tiny portion of the population that shoplifts (and for most stores,
shoplifting is NOT a significant loss of profits) that their anti-theft
devices make the experience of shopping there very unpleasant for their
"valued customers."  I'd rather focus my attention on the vast majority of
students who aren't going to cheat (our valued customers) and who need to
know how to use sources correctly and effectively--and really, not knowing
how to use sources effectively is the real problem--once you're not
stuffing them into the paper because the assignment calls for three
outside sources or whatever, it becomes easier to see how they should be
cited, and, probably, easier to write a proper paper than to hunt around
for something suitable to rip off.



TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
TechRhet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com


Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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TechRhet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com


Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thank you, Tari, for putting your finger on exactly what it is about this
discussion is scary to me. I wish that I'd read your response before I'd posted
mine, but I probably would have said what I said anyway.

One other thing that I'd like to introduce into this conversation is the fact
that we in the field of English have much smaller classes than many departments
do, and we are more highly trained to deal with plagiarism than are our
colleagues in other departments. I know that plagiarism is a larger issue on our
campus than it has been in the past. In fact, the College of Business, which is
trying to prepare its students for writing in the workplace by asking for more
writing in major classes, have much larger classes than we do, and being able to
use a product like turnitin helps them to do that and to also make it clear that
plagiarism isn't acceptable. You might say that they could use many of the
suggestions people on this list have made, including searching for plagiarisms
via google, and accomplish the same thing as they would in using turnitin. But
the fact is that students can submit their papers via turnitiin, and faculty get
both the papers and the reports automatically.  And to be honest, I'm glad that
these faculty are assigning writing at all; requiring them to do what we do to
build up to these assignments is just a pipe dream. One reason I tried the
service in the first place is because my colleagues and some of my students (who
are high school and community college teachers) have asked about products like
this, and I was curious about how they actually worked.

If people have other questions about turnitin, I'd be glad to talk with them
about it on list and off list even though I've only used the service once.

I'm asking people on this list to quit casting aspersions on people's teaching,
though, because they've asked simple questions about a service that has come
into being in part because of the wealth of materials to copy on the Internet.

Judy



-----Original Message-----
From: Tari Fanderclai [mailto:tari@...]
Sent: Sun 11/24/2002 9:47 AM
To: TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
Cc:
Subject: RE: [TechRhet] Turnitin.com


On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, Steve Krause wrote:

> Second, I'm not sure that the other student who got his or her stuff
> from 9 different web sites was plagiarizing exactly.  Technically,
> yes, but was it a case of "theft" or a case of not knowing how to
> cite sources?  I'm constantly amazed how so many of my students,
> freshman to master's students, don't realize that you have to follow
> the rules of citing sources and giving credit where credit is due.  I
> get this kind of "plagiarism" all the time, but these are instances
> where I tell the student they've got to rewrite.


Actually, in a sentence that you cut, Judy says that both students
admitted that they plagiarized, one because of not having the time and the
other because of not taking the time.  So leaving aside the facts that we
haven't seen the paper and that Judy can probably tell plagiarism from a
mistake, I think if a student says, "I ran out of time so I copied my
sources," we can pretty much call that plagiarism, and not just
"technically."

But anyhow, let me see if I can explain what I think is really interesting
(in kind of a scary way) about this thread:

Ed asks for turnitin users to talk about turnitin.com.  Instead of
information about turnitin.com, he gets a bunch of advice from people who
don't use turnitin about how he should be teaching, how his assignments
should be constructed--even though we haven't seen his assignments or been
in his class, and that's not what he asked about.

Finally, Judy comes along and addresses Ed's actual question, explaining
how and why she uses turnitin.

So now Judy gets advice about *her* teaching!

I think we all know about designing assignments to encourage original
work*.  I think we all know about recognizing mistakes in citing sources
versus deliberate plagiarism.  I think we all know we've all said that
stuff before.

The question is, why can't we address Ed's question, or let someone else
address it, without suggesting that the right kind of teaching practices
would eliminate the need for it?  How can this group be that suspicious of
a technology that many of us haven't even used?  Is it somehow immoral to
admit that students are going to plagiarize, and to let a nice handy
computer application do some of the legwork for us?

I don't mean you can't be skeptical about an application, but that's
different from not even wanting there to be a discussion of one you
haven't even tried!

Tari



*although if we're all going to moralize, here's what I think about
knocking yourself out to design assignments that are impossible to
plagiarize:  One, I once received a Georgie Anne Geyer column as a very
plausible response to a personal essay assignment--had I not happened to
read the column in the newspaper, I'd probably have had a harder time
identifying that trick--so good luck with that "impossible" thing.  Two,
I'd rather design a useful and interesting assignment than an 'impossible
to plagiarize' assignment.  YES, YES, I KNOW YOU CAN PROBABLY DO BOTH AND
I'M ADMITTING THAT RIGHT HERE IN ALL CAPS WHERE YOU CAN'T MISS IT WHEN
YOU'RE CUTTING UP MY PARAGRAPHS, SO DON'T BOTHER WITH THAT LECTURE.  But
you can become like those department stores that are so fixated on the
tiny portion of the population that shoplifts (and for most stores,
shoplifting is NOT a significant loss of profits) that their anti-theft
devices make the experience of shopping there very unpleasant for their
"valued customers."  I'd rather focus my attention on the vast majority of
students who aren't going to cheat (our valued customers) and who need to
know how to use sources correctly and effectively--and really, not knowing
how to use sources effectively is the real problem--once you're not
stuffing them into the paper because the assignment calls for three
outside sources or whatever, it becomes easier to see how they should be
cited, and, probably, easier to write a proper paper than to hunt around
for something suitable to rip off.



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Steve, the case of the student getting her paper from nine sources was a case of
plagiarism, pure and simple. She knew what she needed to do to use her sources
ethically, and she just didn't take the time to do it. She was assuming that she
blended the source material well enough into her own text not to get caught.
(But there were the typical shifts in voice that we all hear.) Anyway, the
student told me that she hadn't left enough time to do what she knew she should
have done. And she told me that she knew what she had done was wrong.

And the student who turned things in late wasn't strung along and allowed to do
it by a softie. He did get things marked down. And perhaps he would have been
smarter to drop than turn in an essay from fouressays.com. But it was his
decision to stay in the class, not mine. I can tell you the student is pretty
arrogant by nature and pretty dismissive of women. He was cocky when he talked
to me, and I imagine he was cocky when he talked to the judicial officer at our
school since I reported him to her. I actually would have liked to see that
since the judicial officer is a powerful women who I personally wouldn't mess
around with.

Anyway, this whole thing isn't about me. I did do what a lot of other teachers
do. My students do a bunch of assignments leading up to the longer paper. Some
of those early assignments are tied to readings we do together. Some of them
(like a proposal and a webliography) are building toward the longer paper. But
our first-year comp requires the traditional individual research paper (which I
call a multiple source paper), and it must be an argument. We don't have the
flexibility to do a collaborate research project.

My point was and is that some people just plagiarize in spite of teachers' best
attempts to teach them ethical uses of sources or to teach them anything else
for that matter. And I don't think that these teachers necessarily do anything
to encourage plagiarism. To me, some of this discussion smacks of "well, if
people knew how to teach this stuff, students wouldn't plagiarize." I think that
sort of implication is not terribly productive to put it in as polite a terms as
I can think of right now.

Judy



-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Krause [mailto:skrause@...]
Sent: Sun 11/24/2002 6:26 AM
To: TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
Cc:
Subject: RE: [TechRhet] Turnitin.com

I don't know what I'm doing wrong or right, but honestly, I can't
recall a single instance in my teaching in which I've caught someone
with the proverbial red hands plagiarizing.  This can't be true since
I've been teaching as a grad student or part-timer or faculty member
since 1988, and as I sit here on a Sunday morning, I guess I can
recall incidents in which I spent far too much time researching to
find out if someone did or didn't plagiarize, but I can't recall any
dramatic scenes of confrontation of students over their work.  Maybe
I've been lucky, maybe I've been fooled a lot, I don't know.

Because I had good mentors even way back when, I've always given
assignments that would be either difficult or time-consuming to
plagiarize.  In classes like fy comp, I give assignments that were
either tied to a particular book or reading assignment.  When it
comes to research assignments, I don't assign "research papers;"
rather, my students have almost always done some sort of research
project where they have to write a series of things on a topic, often
collaboratively.  Things like that are hard to plagiarize.

Interestingly enough, I tend to have fy comp classes that go from
25-27 students down to about 15.  Fortunately, I've always taught in
situations where this wasn't a problem.

Judy wrote in part:

>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.

Two thoughts here:  I can't say this for sure since none of us knows
how we would individually react/behave in someone else's experience
and such, but if the student who just got the essay from
fouressays.com had been in my class, she or he would have almost
certainly dropped or failed the course by the time this project would
have come around.  Turning in stuff late and not formulating a
"focus" for a project are things that end up getting "graded down"
big-time in my classes.  I'm kind of a big meanie in fy comp-- but
it's all about tough love for me.  :)

Second, I'm not sure that the other student who got his or her stuff
from 9 different web sites was plagiarizing exactly.  Technically,
yes, but was it a case of "theft" or a case of not knowing how to
cite sources?  I'm constantly amazed how so many of my students,
freshman to master's students, don't realize that you have to follow
the rules of citing sources and giving credit where credit is due.  I
get this kind of "plagiarism" all the time, but these are instances
where I tell the student they've got to rewrite.
>
>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.

I could see that as being a pretty handy feature of something like
turnitin.  My only problem is I don't want to pay for turnitin
especially when I could do close to the same thing with Google...

--Steve
--
Steven D. Krause
Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
Eastern Michigan University * 614G Pray-Harrold Hall
Ypsilanti, MI 48197 * 734-487-1363 * http://krause.emich.edu



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, Steve Krause wrote:

> Second, I'm not sure that the other student who got his or her stuff
> from 9 different web sites was plagiarizing exactly.  Technically,
> yes, but was it a case of "theft" or a case of not knowing how to
> cite sources?  I'm constantly amazed how so many of my students,
> freshman to master's students, don't realize that you have to follow
> the rules of citing sources and giving credit where credit is due.  I
> get this kind of "plagiarism" all the time, but these are instances
> where I tell the student they've got to rewrite.


Actually, in a sentence that you cut, Judy says that both students
admitted that they plagiarized, one because of not having the time and the
other because of not taking the time.  So leaving aside the facts that we
haven't seen the paper and that Judy can probably tell plagiarism from a
mistake, I think if a student says, "I ran out of time so I copied my
sources," we can pretty much call that plagiarism, and not just
"technically."

But anyhow, let me see if I can explain what I think is really interesting
(in kind of a scary way) about this thread:

Ed asks for turnitin users to talk about turnitin.com.  Instead of
information about turnitin.com, he gets a bunch of advice from people who
don't use turnitin about how he should be teaching, how his assignments
should be constructed--even though we haven't seen his assignments or been
in his class, and that's not what he asked about.

Finally, Judy comes along and addresses Ed's actual question, explaining
how and why she uses turnitin.

So now Judy gets advice about *her* teaching!

I think we all know about designing assignments to encourage original
work*.  I think we all know about recognizing mistakes in citing sources
versus deliberate plagiarism.  I think we all know we've all said that
stuff before.

The question is, why can't we address Ed's question, or let someone else
address it, without suggesting that the right kind of teaching practices
would eliminate the need for it?  How can this group be that suspicious of
a technology that many of us haven't even used?  Is it somehow immoral to
admit that students are going to plagiarize, and to let a nice handy
computer application do some of the legwork for us?

I don't mean you can't be skeptical about an application, but that's
different from not even wanting there to be a discussion of one you
haven't even tried!

Tari



*although if we're all going to moralize, here's what I think about
knocking yourself out to design assignments that are impossible to
plagiarize:  One, I once received a Georgie Anne Geyer column as a very
plausible response to a personal essay assignment--had I not happened to
read the column in the newspaper, I'd probably have had a harder time
identifying that trick--so good luck with that "impossible" thing.  Two,
I'd rather design a useful and interesting assignment than an 'impossible
to plagiarize' assignment.  YES, YES, I KNOW YOU CAN PROBABLY DO BOTH AND
I'M ADMITTING THAT RIGHT HERE IN ALL CAPS WHERE YOU CAN'T MISS IT WHEN
YOU'RE CUTTING UP MY PARAGRAPHS, SO DON'T BOTHER WITH THAT LECTURE.  But
you can become like those department stores that are so fixated on the
tiny portion of the population that shoplifts (and for most stores,
shoplifting is NOT a significant loss of profits) that their anti-theft
devices make the experience of shopping there very unpleasant for their
"valued customers."  I'd rather focus my attention on the vast majority of
students who aren't going to cheat (our valued customers) and who need to
know how to use sources correctly and effectively--and really, not knowing
how to use sources effectively is the real problem--once you're not
stuffing them into the paper because the assignment calls for three
outside sources or whatever, it becomes easier to see how they should be
cited, and, probably, easier to write a proper paper than to hunt around
for something suitable to rip off.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong or right, but honestly, I can't
recall a single instance in my teaching in which I've caught someone
with the proverbial red hands plagiarizing.  This can't be true since
I've been teaching as a grad student or part-timer or faculty member
since 1988, and as I sit here on a Sunday morning, I guess I can
recall incidents in which I spent far too much time researching to
find out if someone did or didn't plagiarize, but I can't recall any
dramatic scenes of confrontation of students over their work.  Maybe
I've been lucky, maybe I've been fooled a lot, I don't know.

Because I had good mentors even way back when, I've always given
assignments that would be either difficult or time-consuming to
plagiarize.  In classes like fy comp, I give assignments that were
either tied to a particular book or reading assignment.  When it
comes to research assignments, I don't assign "research papers;"
rather, my students have almost always done some sort of research
project where they have to write a series of things on a topic, often
collaboratively.  Things like that are hard to plagiarize.

Interestingly enough, I tend to have fy comp classes that go from
25-27 students down to about 15.  Fortunately, I've always taught in
situations where this wasn't a problem.

Judy wrote in part:

>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.

Two thoughts here:  I can't say this for sure since none of us knows
how we would individually react/behave in someone else's experience
and such, but if the student who just got the essay from
fouressays.com had been in my class, she or he would have almost
certainly dropped or failed the course by the time this project would
have come around.  Turning in stuff late and not formulating a
"focus" for a project are things that end up getting "graded down"
big-time in my classes.  I'm kind of a big meanie in fy comp-- but
it's all about tough love for me.  :)

Second, I'm not sure that the other student who got his or her stuff
from 9 different web sites was plagiarizing exactly.  Technically,
yes, but was it a case of "theft" or a case of not knowing how to
cite sources?  I'm constantly amazed how so many of my students,
freshman to master's students, don't realize that you have to follow
the rules of citing sources and giving credit where credit is due.  I
get this kind of "plagiarism" all the time, but these are instances
where I tell the student they've got to rewrite.
>
>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.

I could see that as being a pretty handy feature of something like
turnitin.  My only problem is I don't want to pay for turnitin
especially when I could do close to the same thing with Google...

--Steve
--
Steven D. Krause
Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
Eastern Michigan University * 614G Pray-Harrold Hall
Ypsilanti, MI 48197 * 734-487-1363 * http://krause.emich.edu

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
>>


TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
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Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/








[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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
>>

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
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
>TechRhet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

In a message dated 11/22/02 10:49:29 AM Central Standard Time,
ejg1@... writes:

>
> Colleagues:
>
> I dutifully filed many messages about plagiarism on our list over the
> past two years and forwarded them to our assistant dean, who was very
> concerned about the rise of it on campus.

Roger writes>>Ed.  We have a horrid problem with plagiarism here as well. My
solution is to design all assignments so it is impossible to plagiarize.

I think this is quite easy to do actually.  One thing I do is require that
students use no source older than 3 years in their research.  If they choose
a text older than this they must bring it to me to certify that it is
suitable.  That usually stops a lot of nonsense.  Then again I will do the
research projects in steps, so that I see and approve the project in three
phases and meet with them to go over the draft so they can do a revised final
draft.  That also usually terminates any effort to plagiarize.

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


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Colleagues:

I dutifully filed many messages about plagiarism on our list over the
past two years and forwarded them to our assistant dean, who was very
concerned about the rise of it on campus.  He has now tentatively
decided to contract with Turnitin.com, and the committee that must
approve the deal has asked me to see if I can collect opinions from
people who have used it.  Any Turnitin folks out there willing to
comment?

Thanks--

Ed Gallagher


--

Edward J. Gallagher
http://www.lehigh.edu/~ejg1/ejg1.html

Society of Early Americanists' Teaching Page
http://www.lehigh.edu/~ejg1/topics.html

Reel American History
http://www.Lehigh.EDU/ReelAmericanHistory

Dickie--

I hear a program development opportunity knocking on  your door.

I am teaching a course in using technology to teach writing this semester.
It is fascinating to see how the teachers in central Illinois are going
through the same issues we went through 10 years ago, working out the
logistics of properly supporting computer classrooms. These are schools with
strong technology and strong technical staffs but who are desperately short
on people who understand the interface between technology and the classroom.
There is clearly a great and growing need for it people who understand
education and are interested in working in a k-12 environment.

I sent this note to the list because I wonder if anyone knows of programs
aimed at preparing these sorts of people.

Jim

> From: Dickie Selfe <rselfe@...>
> Reply-To: TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 13:25:44 -0500
> To: TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
> Cc: WPA-L@..., WAC-L@..., wcenter@...
> Subject: [TechRhet] Job seekers, of a different sort
>
> Every year in the Humanities Dept. at Michigan Technological
> University after years of training and work, undergraduate and
> graduate IT workers from CS, technical communication, engineering,
> and HU majors leave our school. These folks have designed and run our
> Humanities computing labs/classrooms/online systems. I mean, these
> paid and volunteer folks REALLY design and run them. They
>
> * set up and maintain Macs and PCs on a UNIX network;
> * write scripts and programs to benefit students and teachers;
> * install all manner of local and networked software;
> * develop the personal and collaborative skills necessary
> to talk with novice and expert users: students,
> teachers, and administrators;
> * research and evaluate new systems and software;
> * set policies for access and security,
> * help manage and spend our $160,000 budget and
> * help develop a culture of support for those using their
> systems.
>
> At our yearly two-week institutes (CIWIC and ECAC) they are
> consistently rated as one of the most important parts of that
> experience.
>
> They ARE my community of practice here at MTU--the heart of our
> culture of support in this department--and I hate to see them leave.
> But they graduate and need jobs. Many would like to stay in the
> 'educational' arena, K-college.
>
> So if you are looking for quality IT people who have some sense of
> how 'people' work and live with technologies or if you know the folks
> who hire for your school or department, please let me know. I'll
> grudgingly ;-) put you/them in touch with some wonderful people.
> --
>
> Dickie Selfe <rselfe@...>
>
> (OO)  Director of
> CCCCCCC LLLL iiii  Center for Computer-Assisted Language Instruction
> CCCCCCCCC LLLL iiii  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> CCCC  ccccc LLLL iiii  138 Walker Arts and Humanities Center
> CCCC cc     LLLL iiii  Michigan Technological University
> CCCC  ccccc LLLL iiii  Houghton, MI  49931   906-487-3225
> CCCCCCCCC LLLLLLLLL
> CCCCCCC LLLLLLLLL  "It's hard work to be a good geek!"
> -- Noel Maddy
>
>
>
>
> .
>
>
> TechRhet@yahoogroups.com
> TechRhet-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

Every year in the Humanities Dept. at Michigan Technological
University after years of training and work, undergraduate and
graduate IT workers from CS, technical communication, engineering,
and HU majors leave our school. These folks have designed and run our
Humanities computing labs/classrooms/online systems. I mean, these
paid and volunteer folks REALLY design and run them. They

* set up and maintain Macs and PCs on a UNIX network;
* write scripts and programs to benefit students and teachers;
* install all manner of local and networked software;
* develop the personal and collaborative skills necessary
    to talk with novice and expert users: students,
    teachers, and administrators;
* research and evaluate new systems and software;
* set policies for access and security,
* help manage and spend our $160,000 budget and
* help develop a culture of support for those using their
    systems.

At our yearly two-week institutes (CIWIC and ECAC) they are
consistently rated as one of the most important parts of that
experience.

They ARE my community of practice here at MTU--the heart of our
culture of support in this department--and I hate to see them leave.
But they graduate and need jobs. Many would like to stay in the
'educational' arena, K-college.

So if you are looking for quality IT people who have some sense of
how 'people' work and live with technologies or if you know the folks
who hire for your school or department, please let me know. I'll
grudgingly ;-) put you/them in touch with some wonderful people.
--

Dickie Selfe <rselfe@...>

                   (OO)  Director of
      CCCCCCC LLLL iiii  Center for Computer-Assisted Language Instruction
    CCCCCCCCC LLLL iiii  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
CCCC  ccccc LLLL iiii  138 Walker Arts and Humanities Center
CCCC cc     LLLL iiii  Michigan Technological University
CCCC  ccccc LLLL iiii  Houghton, MI  49931   906-487-3225
    CCCCCCCCC LLLLLLLLL
      CCCCCCC LLLLLLLLL  "It's hard work to be a good geek!"
                                                        -- Noel Maddy




.