There was a great article in the Tribune last month--they bought a bunch of these, and handed them over to professors for grading. Now, admittedly there was a certain hindsight bias, but none of them got higher than a D, most failed, and several had very strong alarm bells (like not actually being on the topic).
I don't spend a lot of time searching for plagiarism unless I get that sort of alarm bell. If they don't learn, it hurts them more than it hurts me. Not to mention, they're going to have a lot of fun trying to do extensive revisions on a paper they don't understand.
There used to be a website that offered "research timesaver notes and paper topics so you don't have to read Lord of the Rings." Deliberately calculated to sound completely plausible and to guarantee a failing grade if used. Really artfully done, too; a kid who'd even sat in a class discussing it but not paying attention would be taken hook, line and sinker.
The one time I was working in a bookstore I remember how every year, around the end of the summer, kids would come in looking for the movie versions of the books they'd been assigned for summer reading. With their parents standing right there, ready to pay for their children to cheat at the only critical thinking class still remaining in the curriculum.
I did my damnedest to discourage it, but it wasn't helped by the teachers. One of them assigned a choice between The Hobbit, Great Expectations, and Roots, presumably to offer a non-British selection.
The Hobbit is 320 pages, absolutely a reasonable size for a summer reading assignment for a sixth-grader.
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I don't spend a lot of time searching for plagiarism unless I get that sort of alarm bell. If they don't learn, it hurts them more than it hurts me. Not to mention, they're going to have a lot of fun trying to do extensive revisions on a paper they don't understand.
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The one time I was working in a bookstore I remember how every year, around the end of the summer, kids would come in looking for the movie versions of the books they'd been assigned for summer reading. With their parents standing right there, ready to pay for their children to cheat at the only critical thinking class still remaining in the curriculum.
I did my damnedest to discourage it, but it wasn't helped by the teachers. One of them assigned a choice between The Hobbit, Great Expectations, and Roots, presumably to offer a non-British selection.
The Hobbit is 320 pages, absolutely a reasonable size for a summer reading assignment for a sixth-grader.
Great Expectations is ( ... )
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