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Q: do you check your students work for plagiarism?
or am i the only one dumb enough to spend my time doing this?
12 years 17 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
Would anyone really care? Any of the Chinese staff I mean. Aparently they did a survey and found that a good deal of what was published in Chinese university presses was either direct plagiarism, or translations passed off as original work.
Anyway, I cought a student plagiarizing once, but he plagiarized off a Chinese website filled with Chinglish. When I corrected his numerous mistakes, he kept screaming, "NO IS RIGHT." and pretty much gave himself away through his own absolute confidence in his essay, so I did a baidu search and there we go. The head of the department's reply was a flat "whatever" pretty much.
crimochina:
i figure that working for a university we are supposed to teach them not to do this and at the very least you should be able to write a 3 min (1 and a half page) speech yourself. or am i just naive.
The whole country from the foundations up is built on it.
Had a student plagiarize a soliloquy from "Sweeney Todd." He denied it but I went to the a/v room and got a copy of the movie and played it for him. Massive face loss ensued.
mattaya:
As long as you didn't do it in front of the class. I knew a teacher that deliberately embarrassed a kid for plagiarizing. He had the kid read what he wrote in front of the class as the teacher turned on the overhead projector to let the rest of the kids see that, that particular student plagiarized. After this the kid was kicked out of the school and it's hard to get into any college after you get kicked out for doing something like that. It messed up his reputation and his chances to ever getting a college degree.
rich45:
you know. if you are if you are caught plagiarizing in a uni in the states you get kickd out. expelled. so that guy got what he deserved. but most cases nothing happens, since the whole country is based on shamelessly copying eveything.
kchur:
Just another sign you're Chinese, Mattaya. In North America and Europe, plagiarism is considered pretty much the worst thing you can do in university, and no one who has suffered through a proper western education would have any respect or pity for someone who cheated their way through. Why should the rest of us go through four to eight years of hell for the same degree some idiot gets with copy and paste?
GuilinRaf:
He got kicked out? GOOD! I wish more schools did this! I busted my tail for 7 years to get a B.A. and a J.D. so pardon me if I feel that academic dishonesty should mean academic exile. Bravo!!!
crimochina:
matayayaya last year i did embarrass a student in front of the whole class. after catching about 20 /60 students who cheated. one girl went to her father who was a big shot at the school . he told my boss to talk to me and ask me "to forgive her". i told my boss i will give my answer to her directly. i told the entire class about what she did and i let the entire class know i dont care who your mommy or daddy is i treat all my students fairly and equally i dont care if your parents are peasant farmers or the damn president. you should have seen all the bright smiles. i may be a lot of things but i'm not dishonest
You are not the only one who wastes his time on this, Crimochina. I run into it constantly, and sometimes debate with myself about giving out essay assignments because I know what I am going to get in return.
For my finals one semester, I had two classes watch a movie and then they had to write an essay on identifing the major (universal) themes in the movie and how the characters responded to those situations." There were three conditions. 1). 300 words or more, 2). No copying off the internet, and 3). Do not tell me what the movie was about.
I think I got roughly 40% plagerized, 30% movie reviews (again, mostly plagerized, and 25% actual work, and 5% who wrote something totally off topic (which was plagerized). When I check assignments, I search Baidu, Google, and Altavista, which pretty much catches everything with key phrases and words. I wrote the URL on the paper and told those students to "do it over" or accept a failing grade. The other western English teacher has the same problem in his class.
But hey, the students are surrounded on a daily existence with fake everything, and it seems that nobody cares. There is an excellent book called China, Inc., by Ted C. Fishman (2006 by Scribner Press). In it, he has a chapter called "Pirate Nation," where he spends considerable time documenting case senarios and reasons people give for producing counterfeit goods. Quoting from the book:
"The larger truth is that the Chinese economy has staked a great deal on its counterfeiters. They provide the people with affordable goods. The counterfeiters give China's growing number of globally competitive companies the means to compete with powerful foriegn rivals who are forced to pay full fare for proprietary technologies."
How this fits into your question is, with that kind of environment, students see nothing wrong with eating from the same pie, until they discover (too late) that when compared through a global perspective, a degree from many Chinese universities is not worth the paper it is printed on.
Hey Crimo!
Dont worry, you are not the only one. I had a class that was unable to string even the most simple sentences together. They were required to write an essay for a program to study in England. Well, imagine my surprise when suddenly they are using FANSTASTIC english. I did a google search and was able to find the articles that they plagiarized.
Anyway, I prited the article and clipped it to theirs, after failin38 out of 42 students. My boss was livid... AT ME! She said that I could NOT fail so many students! I did anyway. Well, the next year they just "retested" with another teacher and passed the class.
There is an epilogue. One of the students who managed to get himself accepted in England was caught for plagiarizing and kicked out of the school. Everyone was shocked and outraged and for one of the few times in my life I engaged in "I told you so".
I still fight this, as academic dishonesty is repugnant to me, but let us face it, we are plowing the sea.
Hang in tight, you are not alone!
it's actually comforting to know that i'm not alone sometimes being here makes you feel like you are in the wrong for trying to adhere to some principles in the classroom.
every semester i do a lesson on cheating i let them know the only students to ever fail my class did so becoz they cheated . i let them know that i will check their assignments. but i am at a loss for trying to deter this behavior
GuilinRaf:
I am in my fifth year, and I have no idea how to deter this. I have even had assingments done in class, but they use their i-phones to surf the net. So basically my modus operandi is that if I catch you, I flunk you. The other foreign teachers got together and if we need to retest someone, we ask the previous teacher why he failed. More often then not, it is that he never went to class, cheated, etc. We retest them but dont pass them. The school however...
kchur:
In spite of all the dislike I have towards you, Crimo, I admire you for sticking to your guns in a country like this.
unfortunately, it doesnt stop in a class of young people. I had an adult student, who is a nurse, tell me that she researched and wrote an article for her boss, to be publish under her bosses name. She did it because it was for the head nurse, and had to. I dont know what would have happened if she didnt, but just the thought of it being common practice is abhorrent
At the beginning of each semester I give each class an entire lesson on plagiarism, Intellectual Property and Face.
For the 'Face' part I download many different comments from international sites that relate to Chinese students/educators and this subject (obviously, not those that are just plain derogatory) and get a public debate going about how to-day's students are the guardians of tomorrows China and its reputation.
I always make sure that students going overseas know that they can get pregnant, get drunk, stay out all night...but if they ever get caught plagiarising they will be out on their respective ears and bring shame to their family, their country and will break their parent's hearts. Schmaltsy, but it seems to work.
Since my 1st Semester in China, 7 years ago, I have never had an issue with plagiarism.
crimochina:
do you search online to see if they pulled it from the net?
Perhaps if they were able to understand and be more confident about what they're being taught they wouldn't feel the need to cheat?
giadrosich:
So, in effect, you're blaming the instructor and giving an excuse to this behavior?
robinhood:
I'm not blaming anyone or anything, but surely logic would suggest that properly educated students would have no need to cheat, especially in such large numbers.
There is no excuse at all for such behaviour, but it does seem logical to ask why and not just blame the students.giadrosich:
I do agree with you Robin, but the reason that most of them cheat is because it is perfectly acceptable to do so. Everyone says it isn't, but everyone does it, and it is no big deal, which is why a degree from many Chinese universities is looked upon as been sub-standard internationally.
In their culture, they are surrounded by fake everything; movies, books, products, food, etc., so they figure, what is the big deal with signing your name to words written by someone else? The reasoning is, it's easy, it's harmless, and it gets the job done.
Heck, if I could have plagiarized and gotten away with it instead of studying, I might have done it myself! 
Stopping it involves a long process of trying to make them see the value of intellectual property (and how plagiarism really is stealing), coupled with teaching them how to be creative and as you said, logical. I've found it is not so much a problem of education, but a problem with thinking.
