What sort of cognitive failure leads to someone copying and pasting a paragraph from a website into their paper, and then, when called on the plagiarism, claiming "I didn't do it intentionally."
What the tea party does that mean? You didn't cut and paste intentionally? You didn't get caught intentionally? You used someone else's words without giving them credit. You didn't think that was plagiarism? Goddamn it, you idiot, that is the very definition of the word plagiarism. It isn't any other thing than what you, exactly, here, and quite intentionally DID.
And you have to do it now, when I'm already overworked? Now's when you drop this load of shit on me, and then you look all upset when I tell you that you have an F and you cry at me and you say you really, honestly, didn't mean to, professor Chiltepin?
You know what? You know what the F you earned stands for? It stands for "fuck you."
--Prof Chiltepin
If it were acceptable, I would print this out, take it to a craftsman, have in inscribed on an ornate wooden plaque, and display it in my office.
ReplyDeleteMake sure you properly cite the author because, well, you know...
DeleteI think when they say they didn't mean to plagiarize, what they mean is, before they turned the assignment in, they had meant to edit the passage(s) they copy/pasted, periodically replacing words with others that mean almost the same thing, such that everything was then "in their own words", but those edits were forgotten or lost.
ReplyDeleteHey heh! They don't realize how much they can piss us off sometimes. They really don't.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I do think they are trying to say they did not realize it was cheating. I've silently listened to some passionate speeches to this effect.
I believe that when the students state that they did not intend to reproduce other people’s work without attribution, their intent is that, prior to submitting the academic work, they intended to change the section(s) they copy and pasted, at regular intervals substituting words with others that have almost the same definition, so that all was then “in their own words”, but those modifications were lost or forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThis is like the four-year-old socking her sister when she thinks Mom's not looking, and when she's scolded for it, wails, "it was an accident!
ReplyDeleteGo, Chiltepin, go! I went through this twice recently. Shitty little fucks. Gave them both fat ZERO's for the assignments, sealing the F's firmly in place. They both dropped. Idiots. Grrrrrrrr..... Prof. Grog WAY pissed.
ReplyDeleteMy contention is that learners who claim that the inclusion of the prior writings of others was inadvertent, are in fact expressing their original conation to revise said passages with a judicious synonym here or there, thereby creating the impression that everything was then "in their own words", but those edits were forgotten or lost.
ReplyDeleteI am of the opinion that apprentice writers who contend that their plagiarism was accidental really mean that they had planned, prior to handing in their text, to rework the quoted but unattributed matter by periodically substituting words with similar meaning, thus allowing them to claim that the ideas were couched "in their own words," but, due to carelessness of some sort, those changes either never happened or did not appear in the final copy.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that novice scribes who propose that their ethical lapses were unintentional intend to say that they previously intended, ere they produced their literature, to massage the putatively stolen substance by intermittently replacing lexemes with congruent denotations, ergo permitting them to propose that the notions were in propia voce, but, out of a lapse of judgment, these alterations never manifested or failed to concretize in the ultimate submission.
ReplyDeleteI feel that when we discover aspiring writers in our modern society today have clearly lifted passages from the works of others but claim they intended to do otherwise, what they'd really intended was to fob off those passages as their own after a session of serious thesaurus-bashing. But they fucked up.
ReplyDelete"I think when they say they didn't mean to plagiarize, what they mean is, before they turned the assignment in, they had meant to edit the passage(s) they copy/pasted, periodically replacing words with others that mean almost the same thing, such that everything was then 'in their own words', but those edits were forgotten or lost."
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIn this paper, I will show that with the advent of plagiarism-detecting software and Internet search tools readily at the educator's disposal, student misuse of scholarly sources has been on a rapid decline and has all but vanished. As Beaker Ben states, "they didn't...plagiarize...before they turned the assignment in...everything was then 'in their own words'." [1] Students having access to these same tools is a contributing factor: they flag any inadvertent misattributed sources, thus the students will take corrective action prior to submitting an assignment for grading.
[1] Ben, B. (2016) What your F stands for; a review of current literature. College Misery 64:5.
Now I want a drink (everyone ever, from time immemorial, p. whatever you want, pick one, it will be there).
ReplyDeleteoops. My APA is showing.
It's OK. I won't tell HR.
Delete