Favorite student emails

[Thursday's_Child]

Well, after all, it got them through high school didn't it?

*sigh*

Yep.  They probably weren't allowed to fail in high school, which is why we see a whole host of poor behaviors & attitudes - & if we don't ensure that they are successful then we are actively against them, don't care about them, and want them to fail!

[kaysixteen]

You are more or less right about high school, but the blame really falls on parents and administrators.

[onehappyunicorn]

Indeed. We have a major issue with students who plagiarize expecting to get second chances to redo their papers. Some students appear thoroughly shocked that they just can't redo a paper for a full grade after they were caught lifting entire sections without citation.

We also have at least two students a semester who think that they can submit a paper that is mostly verbatim from sources as long as they use proper citations.

All of our lecture courses have plenty of information about how to correctly write papers along with warnings about consequences, we even have a required quiz on plagiarism in every course.

I think the change over the last couple of years has been in the expectation that they be given a full second chance after they were caught. I had one student last year accuse us of stealing money from them because they failed the class due to plagiarism, now they were going to have to pay for the class again.

[marshwiggle]

We also have at least two students a semester who think that they can submit a paper that is mostly verbatim from sources as long as they use proper citations.

If this can satisfy the requirements for the paper, then that seems like more of a problem with the requirements than with the student.

[onehappyunicorn]

We also have at least two students a semester who think that they can submit a paper that is mostly verbatim from sources as long as they use proper citations.

If this can satisfy the requirements for the paper, then that seems like more of a problem with the requirements than with the student.

It doesn't. Students just whiz on past the "no more than 20-30% of your paper will be comprised of material from other sources" requirement.

[marshwiggle]

We also have at least two students a semester who think that they can submit a paper that is mostly verbatim from sources as long as they use proper citations.

If this can satisfy the requirements for the paper, then that seems like more of a problem with the requirements than with the student.

It doesn't. Students just whiz on past the "no more than 20-30% of your paper will be comprised of material from other sources" requirement.

So it's better than a plagiarism case, since it doesn't involve any academic integrity problems, just a simple failure to meet requirements.

[Langue_doc]

Stu who missed a major assignment last week because of a power outage at home emailed me at 7:28 PM on Friday to let me know that hu is still having power outage problems at home, but had uploaded current assignment at 5:45 PM. Did Stu upload the assignment? No. Can Stu see that the assignment hasn't been uploaded? Yes.

Now (Monday morning) Stu wants to know why I didn't assign a peer review partner. Stu knows from experience that I assign peer review partners immediately after the 5 PM deadline and that assignments have to be uploaded in order to be assigned a peer review partner. Stu also knows that emails sent after 5 PM on Friday don't get a response until some time on Monday.

[the_geneticist]

Stu who missed a major assignment last week because of a power outage at home emailed me at 7:28 PM on Friday to let me know that hu is still having power outage problems at home, but had uploaded current assignment at 5:45 PM. Did Stu upload the assignment? No. Can Stu see that the assignment hasn't been uploaded? Yes.

Now (Monday morning) Stu wants to know why I didn't assign a peer review partner. Stu knows from experience that I assign peer review partners immediately after the 5 PM deadline and that assignments have to be uploaded in order to be assigned a peer review partner. Stu also knows that emails sent after 5 PM on Friday don't get a response until some time on Monday.

But Stu is special! 

[RatGuy]

Student sends me a picture of a quiz. She scores a 90 on it. She says, "you didn't mark anything wrong on this quiz but you gave me a 90? There must be some mistake. Could you correct it in your gradebook please?"

I told her to look on the other side of the quiz — the last 3 questions are there. She must've missed one of those. But I like how she's trying to slip that one by me, hoping I wouldn't remember a quiz from last month. Wanting to change her grade just on her word? Why yes, she is pre-med.

[Caracal]

We also have at least two students a semester who think that they can submit a paper that is mostly verbatim from sources as long as they use proper citations.

If this can satisfy the requirements for the paper, then that seems like more of a problem with the requirements than with the student.

It doesn't. Students just whiz on past the "no more than 20-30% of your paper will be comprised of material from other sources" requirement.

So it's better than a plagiarism case, since it doesn't involve any academic integrity problems, just a simple failure to meet requirements.

Yes, definitely. I sometimes tell students "you shouldn't be using material from sites like history.com, because they are reference sources. However, the most important thing is to cite all the sources." Doing the assignment wrong is obviously not great, but it isn't academic dishonesty.

That said, in my discipline and courses, I wouldn't try to have a rule for what percentage of the paper could be citations. What matters is not how much of the paper is quotes, but how the writer is using those quotes. If the quotes are being carefully used to support the author's own arguments, that's fine. If the student is basically just using quotes to avoid making their own argument, that's bad. How bad depends on the degree. If the entire paper is just block quotes with a few asides from the writer, that isn't really completing the assignment.

[marshwiggle]

That said, in my discipline and courses, I wouldn't try to have a rule for what percentage of the paper could be citations. What matters is not how much of the paper is quotes, but how the writer is using those quotes. If the quotes are being carefully used to support the author's own arguments, that's fine. If the student is basically just using quotes to avoid making their own argument, that's bad. How bad depends on the degree. If the entire paper is just block quotes with a few asides from the writer, that isn't really completing the assignment.

I think our culture lets students down in this regard. They're used to expressing their feelings or opinions on issues, and they're used to expressing what some authority says about something, but the idea of coming up with their own rational analysis is totally foreign.  (Feelings are unassailable, as is the statement of some authority. The idea that they should be able to come up with something defensible on their own doesn't compute.)

[onehappyunicorn]

We also have at least two students a semester who think that they can submit a paper that is mostly verbatim from sources as long as they use proper citations.

If this can satisfy the requirements for the paper, then that seems like more of a problem with the requirements than with the student.

It doesn't. Students just whiz on past the "no more than 20-30% of your paper will be comprised of material from other sources" requirement.

So it's better than a plagiarism case, since it doesn't involve any academic integrity problems, just a simple failure to meet requirements.

Yes, definitely. I sometimes tell students "you shouldn't be using material from sites like history.com, because they are reference sources. However, the most important thing is to cite all the sources." Doing the assignment wrong is obviously not great, but it isn't academic dishonesty.

That said, in my discipline and courses, I wouldn't try to have a rule for what percentage of the paper could be citations. What matters is not how much of the paper is quotes, but how the writer is using those quotes. If the quotes are being carefully used to support the author's own arguments, that's fine. If the student is basically just using quotes to avoid making their own argument, that's bad. How bad depends on the degree. If the entire paper is just block quotes with a few asides from the writer, that isn't really completing the assignment.

Yeah, our issue is the students using block quotes for most of the paper. As a two-year all of our lecture courses are basic gen-eds so our focus tends to be on the fundamentals. There are a lot of students coming out of high school from this area who have never written an actual research paper. I seem to recall a discussion on this forum before about students being taught to "find their voice" rather than learn how to write appropriately and there is definitely an element of that here as well.

It has gotten bad enough that we are seriously contemplating requiring all students to pass a test on plagiarism and how to properly cite before they can access course content. Some of our instructors already have something like that in place but we may standardize it. Students learn about plagiarism and citing in the first english class they are required to take here but our art, music, and drama gen ed courses don't have prerequisites. In consequence a sizeable portion of students end up in our classes with only what they learned in high school.

[Caracal]

That said, in my discipline and courses, I wouldn't try to have a rule for what percentage of the paper could be citations. What matters is not how much of the paper is quotes, but how the writer is using those quotes. If the quotes are being carefully used to support the author's own arguments, that's fine. If the student is basically just using quotes to avoid making their own argument, that's bad. How bad depends on the degree. If the entire paper is just block quotes with a few asides from the writer, that isn't really completing the assignment.

I think our culture lets students down in this regard. They're used to expressing their feelings or opinions on issues, and they're used to expressing what some authority says about something, but the idea of coming up with their own rational analysis is totally foreign.  (Feelings are unassailable, as is the statement of some authority. The idea that they should be able to come up with something defensible on their own doesn't compute.)

It can be hard for us to remember that making an argument is hard because it is so baked into academic discourse. If you go to a grad program what you learn to do is analyze and critique other people's arguments and make your own.

"X thinks this, but really they are using the wrong evidence/protocol/procedure and their study doesn't mean what they say it does."
"Y argues this, and they are partially right, but they ignore important thing that would change what it means for other thing."
"Z makes this case, and they are correct, but you could actually apply to some different thing entirely and it would change something."

We all learn to do this in our professional training, because that's how you situate your work and give it meaning in academia. However, it really is something students have to be taught. Ideally, that's what a first year writing course does...

[apl68]

We also have at least two students a semester who think that they can submit a paper that is mostly verbatim from sources as long as they use proper citations.

If this can satisfy the requirements for the paper, then that seems like more of a problem with the requirements than with the student.

It doesn't. Students just whiz on past the "no more than 20-30% of your paper will be comprised of material from other sources" requirement.

So it's better than a plagiarism case, since it doesn't involve any academic integrity problems, just a simple failure to meet requirements.

Yes, definitely. I sometimes tell students "you shouldn't be using material from sites like history.com, because they are reference sources. However, the most important thing is to cite all the sources." Doing the assignment wrong is obviously not great, but it isn't academic dishonesty.

That said, in my discipline and courses, I wouldn't try to have a rule for what percentage of the paper could be citations. What matters is not how much of the paper is quotes, but how the writer is using those quotes. If the quotes are being carefully used to support the author's own arguments, that's fine. If the student is basically just using quotes to avoid making their own argument, that's bad. How bad depends on the degree. If the entire paper is just block quotes with a few asides from the writer, that isn't really completing the assignment.

Yeah, our issue is the students using block quotes for most of the paper. As a two-year all of our lecture courses are basic gen-eds so our focus tends to be on the fundamentals. There are a lot of students coming out of high school from this area who have never written an actual research paper. I seem to recall a discussion on this forum before about students being taught to "find their voice" rather than learn how to write appropriately and there is definitely an element of that here as well.

Are you still finding a lot of students who can only write stereotyped five-paragraph essays?  I remember a lot of complaints about that at the Fora some years back.

[fosca]

It has gotten bad enough that we are seriously contemplating requiring all students to pass a test on plagiarism and how to properly cite before they can access course content. Some of our instructors already have something like that in place but we may standardize it. Students learn about plagiarism and citing in the first english class they are required to take here but our art, music, and drama gen ed courses don't have prerequisites. In consequence a sizeable portion of students end up in our classes with only what they learned in high school.

I did that this semester and it didn't make a damn bit of difference.  Everyone watched the video, wrote up their answers and the paragraph summarizing what they learned, and then at least 50% of the students in each of three different sections plagiarized the second assignment (mostly by copying definitions from the text without quotation marks/citations/references, even though the instructions reminded them to quote/cite/reference direct quotes).