The P word.

Plagarism: a word that strikes fear into the heart of even the most conscientious college student. Two of my classes had a written assignment to write a one to two paragraph biography. I stressed several times that these biographies needed to be written IN THEIR OWN WORDS (meaning that to directly copy something printed off the internet was not acceptable).

Imagine my astonishment when at least a third of each class not only directly copied information, but didn't even bother to disguise it. They merely printed a biography from wonderful, reliable sources like Wikipedia and company, with the website source still on the page. At least other students copied biographies in their own handwriting!

I was tempted to give everyone who copied a zero on the assignment, but decided to give them another chance. They have until Friday to turn in something legitimate. I lectured both classes about plagarism today, trying to explain that it is a serious offense to pass someone else's work off as your own. I also told them that in universities in America, the plagarising (is that a word?) student would fail the course, maybe worse. They seemed genuinely surprised. I got the feeling that they had no idea that such a thing was wrong.

What really astounds me is the position of CMU on plagarism. In the grading criteria I was given, I was instructed to take no more than 1 full point away if the assignment was not written in the student's own words. Plagarism is tolerated; it is assumed and accepted that the students will copy.

No matter what the position of CMU, I explained to my students that making mistakes in their writing is natural and improvement will follow. I don't expect them to be perfect; I just want them to try.