Monday, November 29, 2010

Hark, the Harried Students Sing


Hark, the harried students sing:
It's time for... plagiarizing!
Final paper isn't done;
Guess I'll have to "borrow" one.
Topic: "broadcast media"?
Thank you, Wikipedia!
Hark, the harried students sing:
It's time for plagiarizing!
Hark, the harried students sing:
Easy, peasy, copying!

--

Hark, the harried proffies sing:
Who'd believe this spurious thing?
When I fail him, there's no doubt
That he'll curse, and shout, and pout.
Once it's back from Turnitin,
He'll tell lies to save his skin.
Hark, the harried proffies sing:
Students, stop plagiarizing!
Hark, the harried proffies sing:
Easy, to catch copying!

8 comments:

  1. We're not "allowed" to use turnitin where I work. It makes for a great deal of... college misery trying to catch plagiarizers.

    Lovely songs. So heart warming.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Dr. Snarky: Love it!

    @issyvoo: It's fairly easy to catch plagiarists using Google if you put a suspect phrase in quotation marks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's really sad when I can detect plagiarism without having to resort to Turnitin (or the Google). Yes, they are just that obvious.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Most English proffies are experts at catching plagiarists without benefit of Turnitin or Google. The problem is that now administrators pretty much require ironclad proof of the cheating before they'll do anything about it. One of my colleagues found two students he knew had cheated. The difference between their in-class and out-of-class writing was glaringly obvious in terms of vocabulary, syntax, and sentence structure. But he could find no one to back him up from admin because he had no online or print source from which the material came. It was a clear case of collusion with too much help from family, friend, "tutor," or paid source. He ultimately had to allow the students to redo the assignment in class for full points. This provided further proof they had cheated, but instead of the zeroes they deserved, the redos gave them enough points to pass with a B and a C respectively.

    ReplyDelete
  5. There's a brilliant moment in "In the Loop" (a film I heartily recommend for its absolutely brilliant use of profanity, among other things) in which one of the protagonists protests that something will not be "easy peasey lemon squeezey," but will instead be "Difficult...difficult...lemon difficult!" Hilarious.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Brilliant! I have taught my children your anthem. They are singing it around the table as they do their homework. (Which, yes, well, it does involve Wikipedia. But as a RESOURCE, I keep telling them. Not as a SOURCE.)

    ReplyDelete
  7. This post does not suck. Respect.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.