Ha, Dorothy. Yes. As Jeffery says, we most definitely are not in Kansas anymore. Maybe he’s a friend of Dorothy’s?

I’ll bet he emails again as soon as he sees the reply, correcting himself that he needs an A, not a B.

Or maybe the fact that I very dramatically threatened to kick a plagiarist out of class for a minor offense.

(And, indeed, said plagiarist turned out to be both anonymous (because she immediately deleted her blog post) and one of the best students, who was very remorseful and thanked me for scaring the hell out of her before she went abroad and got booted from some program for a similar offense.)

That said, at least three people lost marks in another class, for plagiarizing not on essays, but “panel discussion preparation papers.” I had a series of panel discussions in my huge class, and every non-panelist had to hand in a preparation paper with ideas & questions for the panel, and a reaction paper grading the panelists (and explaining why & how the grades were chosen) plus reactions to the ideas mentioned during the panel discussion. A few people seemed to think this meant,
“Go to IMBD.com. Copy plot synopsis and paste into a word processor file with your name and student number. Print and hand in.”

But overall, plagiarism wasn’t such a big issue. Partly because, outside of the essay-writing class, I give my students very different tasks — tasks that it is very difficult to “cheat” on.

Of course, the MPAA would probably argue that my Media English students violated copyright law in making their trailer remixes and other video stuff for their final projects — I evaluated them on their creativity, ability to deliver a message, and ability to talk intelligently about the remix, process, and legal issues involved during the presentation on the final day.

So it’s a combination of few essays, big scare tactics, and a very clear explanation of what plagiarism is and how I will flunk you if you do it (in two languages) that may account for how little plagiarism I saw this semester.

Oh, plus, in the essay writing class, the process makes it much harder to pass, even if you do plagiarize and don’t get caught. You have to brainstorm your topic & hand it in. You have to propose a thesis with some explanation and hand it in. Then you must do up a rough outline, and hand it in. Then draft, and hand in. Then there’s a peer review and public critique. (And they know if there’s a shred of plagiarism I will say it in front of everyone, and expel them from the class on that most embarrassing of days.) And then there’s the final draft, which must be an improvement of the midterm draft.

Or maybe I was just lucky to have a good bunch in the class that required essays?

Jeffery Hodges

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Did you find plagiarism this time in your students’ essays?

The question, of course, is superfluous…

Jeffery Hodges

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