ethics test - quick- don't answer!

We're living in a state whose governor just got thrown in jail for allegedly selling Obama's senate seat. Twenty steps down or so, the president of the university is still defending himself against plagiarism charges, and then there's yokels like myself, holed up at my desk, reading reams and reams of final exams, all with bad grammar, by people with ready access to all kinds of technology.

Now actually plagiarism at my level is a pretty small-time thing. Because their grammar is so bad, I can tell within minutes that something is plagiarized, just because of its flawless grammar and its academic attitude. So lately I've gotten pretty good at finding it and rooting it out at its source, very early. But at a price: I have to accept their bad grammar, at whatever level they are. If I tell them their grammar is simply too low, I up the pressure; I make it so they have to cheat in order to pass. And then I have to catch them in order to prevent it.

That's no fun. So, I accept their grammar. I work with them on it. I do as much as I can about it in one term. But, I don't see any more plagiarism. Amazingly enough, they figure it out: they're here to learn to write, not to copy.

Eventually they'll all be in positions of power. Then watch out.

more on siuc

Let me see if I can document the events of the last few weeks. When one is as busy as I am, one gets the impression that they do this in the last week of class because it will fade away more quickly, in the rising dust of the ending semester. But in reality everything comes to a climax when there is just a week to go. So, here's the trail of stuff I found:

1. Poshard and Plagiarism again, Carbondale Bytelife, calls it "the gift that keeps on giving" but gives links to the following:

2. DE article in which Nelms discusses plagiarism policy, just drafted

3. Nelms' own defense; he's under the gun both for having cleared Poshard of wrongdoing earlier, and approving this policy; his is the second comment

4. Lawrence Ebert's comment, same page, probably the harshest words against Poshard