If I graded straight, 50% of my freshmen in one section would flunk. But I've been told by my mentor that it would trigger a shitstorm. So I bump grades up? Now I'm the problem.
I have an international student who just turned in a research paper, all bright, shiny, full of sophisticated statistics and written in the Queen's English. Drafts I received a mere two weeks prior were ragged, incomprehensible, and in places just wrong. The Turnitin software detected nothing. I **know** something's amiss but I don't have concrete evidence to back me up. As it stands, the paper is "A" quality. I just don't think the student wrote it. Help!
Ugh. You can ask for a meeting with them and ask them to explain the thesis of the paper, how they conducted research, etc, and hope they crack. Did they conduct the statistical analyses themself? You could ask them to explain how.
In grad school, I had colleagues question whether a peer of ours was doing his own work--his spoken English could be difficult to understand, but his written English was perfect. That struck me as racist; it's not unusual for skills at writing and speaking to be different, even in one's native language (viz. many of our students) and this guy was smart and incredibly hardworking; I'm sure he just proofread like a mofo. But your having seen the drafts supports your theory, I'd say. Do the drafts and the final even have the same thesis, use the same research?
All good suggestions. Had a face-to-face with him/her yesterday. After asking for a brief explanation of some of the data analysis, there was a small admission of having gotten "help" with the techy part from a grad student, followed quickly by an adamant (and loud, and lengthy) monologue about how every other word of the paper was his/hers.
I suppose students can have miraculous turnarounds ('tis the season and all that), but I do hate to give an A only because I don't have enough concrete evidence that it should get an F. And, unfortunately, the whole grade in this seminar is based on this paper. Sigh.
I fear this will be a growing issue, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. On the one hand, there are the issues of the integrity of the degree and being fair to students who did their own work (with mixed success, but at least they tried, and presumably learned something in the process). On the other hand, there's the danger of spending too much time participating in an escalating cheating arms race, when that time could have been spent with the students who are actually trying. And there's the whole "don't care more about their educations than they do" thing, which also points to not being drawn into the arms race to the detriment not only of focus on more diligent students, but also of focus on the rest of life.
Have you tried copying the whole thing into a text document to kill off any code that may be embedded into the document you have? I read an article about how they can embed things into a document now that keep TURNITIN or google from finding a match. Little codes and things you can't see, but the computer can. Saving it as just text and then sending it to TURNITIN apparently fixes the problem. It's worth trying!
At my place, the virus that formerly killed many grandparents about this time of the semester seems to have mutated to a form that infects computers and causes them to eat students' papers. So I'm counting this as good fortune for grandparents.
There's apparently another mutation that leads thieves to smash car windows and steal devices that are not backed up anywhere else (or maybe it leads otherwise-sensible people to leave devices in plain sight in cars parked in major metropolitan areas, and/or not to read the syllabus warning about backing up files -- well, I guess that last one was already endemic).
A student of mine from 10 years ago died this week. A nice person who worked hard, laughed with gusto, loved animals, and died in hir early thirties. It's funny how tired it makes me feel.
I went through this many years ago and I send you my condolences. It felt odd to me at the time, my own sadness, which didn't feel earned to me somehow. But of course it was. These are human beings who cross our paths, and the impermanence of all this life slams us across the face sometimes.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours.
[John Donne, of course. I hadn't remembered that the line after the famous one is about misery, but that seems apropos. The passages that follow are probably less universally inspiring/applicable, since Donne's reason for seeing misery as a "treasure" is that he believes it leads us to consider our own ultimate ends, and to turn to God. Still, the idea that it is salutary rather than strange to feel disturbed by the death of someone not close to us in the usually-recognize ways is there]
I don't think there's enough room on the internet to list all the misery.
ReplyDeleteIf I graded straight, 50% of my freshmen in one section would flunk. But I've been told by my mentor that it would trigger a shitstorm. So I bump grades up? Now I'm the problem.
ReplyDeleteGrade straight and put on a slicker. Brace for the shitstorm.
DeleteI'm about to start calculating final grades for my remedial writing classes. I'm not sure I have the energy for this.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe I'm saying this, but I love the new font treatments, the color, the Courier. Wow, the new RGM is putting a stylistic stamp on things!
ReplyDeleteI have an international student who just turned in a research paper, all bright, shiny, full of sophisticated statistics and written in the Queen's English. Drafts I received a mere two weeks prior were ragged, incomprehensible, and in places just wrong. The Turnitin software detected nothing. I **know** something's amiss but I don't have concrete evidence to back me up. As it stands, the paper is "A" quality. I just don't think the student wrote it. Help!
ReplyDeleteUgh. You can ask for a meeting with them and ask them to explain the thesis of the paper, how they conducted research, etc, and hope they crack. Did they conduct the statistical analyses themself? You could ask them to explain how.
DeleteIn grad school, I had colleagues question whether a peer of ours was doing his own work--his spoken English could be difficult to understand, but his written English was perfect. That struck me as racist; it's not unusual for skills at writing and speaking to be different, even in one's native language (viz. many of our students) and this guy was smart and incredibly hardworking; I'm sure he just proofread like a mofo. But your having seen the drafts supports your theory, I'd say. Do the drafts and the final even have the same thesis, use the same research?
Try some standard Googling of impressive lines. Maybe Turnitin is missing something?
DeleteAll good suggestions. Had a face-to-face with him/her yesterday. After asking for a brief explanation of some of the data analysis, there was a small admission of having gotten "help" with the techy part from a grad student, followed quickly by an adamant (and loud, and lengthy) monologue about how every other word of the paper was his/hers.
DeleteI suppose students can have miraculous turnarounds ('tis the season and all that), but I do hate to give an A only because I don't have enough concrete evidence that it should get an F. And, unfortunately, the whole grade in this seminar is based on this paper. Sigh.
I fear this will be a growing issue, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. On the one hand, there are the issues of the integrity of the degree and being fair to students who did their own work (with mixed success, but at least they tried, and presumably learned something in the process). On the other hand, there's the danger of spending too much time participating in an escalating cheating arms race, when that time could have been spent with the students who are actually trying. And there's the whole "don't care more about their educations than they do" thing, which also points to not being drawn into the arms race to the detriment not only of focus on more diligent students, but also of focus on the rest of life.
DeleteHave you tried copying the whole thing into a text document to kill off any code that may be embedded into the document you have? I read an article about how they can embed things into a document now that keep TURNITIN or google from finding a match. Little codes and things you can't see, but the computer can. Saving it as just text and then sending it to TURNITIN apparently fixes the problem. It's worth trying!
DeleteAt my place, the virus that formerly killed many grandparents about this time of the semester seems to have mutated to a form that infects computers and causes them to eat students' papers. So I'm counting this as good fortune for grandparents.
ReplyDeleteThere's apparently another mutation that leads thieves to smash car windows and steal devices that are not backed up anywhere else (or maybe it leads otherwise-sensible people to leave devices in plain sight in cars parked in major metropolitan areas, and/or not to read the syllabus warning about backing up files -- well, I guess that last one was already endemic).
DeleteA student of mine from 10 years ago died this week. A nice person who worked hard, laughed with gusto, loved animals, and died in hir early thirties.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how tired it makes me feel.
I went through this many years ago and I send you my condolences. It felt odd to me at the time, my own sadness, which didn't feel earned to me somehow. But of course it was. These are human beings who cross our paths, and the impermanence of all this life slams us across the face sometimes.
DeleteNeither father nor lover.
DeleteRoethke's "Elegy for Jane." Lovely reference.
DeleteNo man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours.
Delete[John Donne, of course. I hadn't remembered that the line after the famous one is about misery, but that seems apropos. The passages that follow are probably less universally inspiring/applicable, since Donne's reason for seeing misery as a "treasure" is that he believes it leads us to consider our own ultimate ends, and to turn to God. Still, the idea that it is salutary rather than strange to feel disturbed by the death of someone not close to us in the usually-recognize ways is there]