Hard fail! If a student uses a translation app, the paper will be completely incoherent and nonsensical--no advantage there. A dynamically equivalent translation between languages will actually take more time than writing an original work in English.
If so, the student can just study translation. That way, many assignments would actually be translations and it wouldn't be considered plagiarism. How do you think I got my degree despite my poor math skills and fairly average writing skills?
It's simple, If you are in a translation program, very often, instead of having to write papers, you will just have to do translation instead. You do it yourself. This is the assignment. What's so hard to understand?
There are two points. The first, which is the one I tried to make initially, is that a student can get a degree the easy way by simply not having to write many papers or know too much math. A translation program is where this can be done without cheating.
The second point is that if a student must write a paper, the fact that it is translated will usually be obvious unless the student is a skilled translator and works hard on translating the paper. You can usually catch them just because the plagiarized text looks like a bad translation.
As for the one student who translates the paper really well, he or she might as well get into a translation program and use his or her skills in a permissible manner instead of putting so much work into cheating.
Hard fail! If a student uses a translation app, the paper will be completely incoherent and nonsensical--no advantage there. A dynamically equivalent translation between languages will actually take more time than writing an original work in English.
ReplyDeleteMais oui!
DeleteBut if one speaks two languages, it'd be quite a bit easier than developing new content.
DeleteIf so, the student can just study translation. That way, many assignments would actually be translations and it wouldn't be considered plagiarism. How do you think I got my degree despite my poor math skills and fairly average writing skills?
DeleteMonica, I'm afraid I do not understand your response. Translation or not, if you use someone else's work presented as your own, it's plagiarism.
DeleteIt's simple, If you are in a translation program, very often, instead of having to write papers, you will just have to do translation instead. You do it yourself. This is the assignment. What's so hard to understand?
DeleteI see - I interpreted this differently. Saw it as a re-naming of a problem rather than another task.
DeleteThere are two points. The first, which is the one I tried to make initially, is that a student can get a degree the easy way by simply not having to write many papers or know too much math. A translation program is where this can be done without cheating.
DeleteThe second point is that if a student must write a paper, the fact that it is translated will usually be obvious unless the student is a skilled translator and works hard on translating the paper. You can usually catch them just because the plagiarized text looks like a bad translation.
As for the one student who translates the paper really well, he or she might as well get into a translation program and use his or her skills in a permissible manner instead of putting so much work into cheating.
I always suspected that some use Google translate my students to bypass our detection of plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteSome submissions look like they went from English through a string of Romance and Germanic languages back to "English".
DeleteWhich will end up on RMP as: "Proffie says we must submit romantically with string."
DeleteThat sounds kind of fun.
Delete