a_cubed | Not only plagiarism, but STUPID plagiarism (Reply)

So, I've just finished marking the essays for my third year students. out of about 150 essays there are two (well, I've one left to mark) that are obviously plagiarised form the internet. for a course on social, legal and ethical aspects of computing and IT, I suppose we should at least be happy it's only just over one percent. What bugs me is the stupidity of the plagiarism. I'm not that harsh about referencing origination (lots of them had obviously copied a small amount of 'bald fact' from a couple of source - some giving proper credit, some not). I just mark them down on their referencing for that. After all they have only had to do one or two essays in their degree courses - that's a different argument I have regularly that we should expect them to write more - written communication is a skill even computer scientists should have. One of them had copied lots of stuff that didn't really answer the question: a quick google and the four sites he'd copied wholesale from (I don't think there was one word of his own stuff in the main section of his essay). The second one had, in his second paragraph a reference to "the example of the beginning of this article" which wasn't there. Again, a quick google reveals the three or four sites he'd copied the entire thing from. That second one had a chinese name and when I started reading I was impressed by the English (a couple of other students, including one with a Chinese name had terrible English, again a different worry) but it did raise some niggling little worries and this was confirmed by the non-existent example.

As with many lecturers I'm annoyed as much by the insult that I wouldn't notice as I am by the violation of educational ethics - on an ethics course as well!

(Spelling note: LJ thinks google shold be capitalised. Tough, it's now a generic verb not a trademark, just like hoover and kleenex (in the US anyway).)