About 10 years ago, I TA'ed for an English class at a community college.

One of the students turned in a paper that was a bit too obvious on the cut-n-paste: they copied the "Next Page / Previous Page" navigation from the source website.

DarthBrooks: they copied the "Next Page / Previous Page" navigation from the source website.

I always liked it when the prof would tell you the first day of class that they knew how to use google for the term paper title and they'd still inevitably nail some dumbass.

Andromeda: I was a TA for intro physics for premeds this year, and that was a riot. We are the only dept on our campus to repeatedly check for plagiarism (made them submit their labs to turnitin.com) so kids who had been getting away with cheating for two or three years would finally have it catch up with them. I don't know which was my favorite, the girl who complained she wasn't plagiarizing because she mentioned whose lab she copied in the acknowledgments section or the guy who just submitted someone's lab from the previous year verbatim, even though he knew it would be checked.

In short, the best thing I learned from lab was how if some of these people are in any doctor's office I visit in a few years, I'm going to another one.

God knows I care that my doctor knows intro physics

Blues_X: Shilldog: God knows I care that my doctor knows intro physics


Yeah... it's not like the thermodynamics of metabolic processes affect any medical decisions, or knowledge of nuclear medicine being involved with cancer treatment.

So, do you demand anyone who works on your computer be an electrical engineer?

CraicBaby: Please tell me that student failed the class.

Dropped to avoid failing.

Not that it would help any in other classes. I'm sure she was trying to skate the entire 13th grade at CoCo.

Blues_X: Shilldog: God knows I care that my doctor knows intro physics


Yeah... it's not like the thermodynamics of metabolic processes affect any medical decisions, or knowledge of nuclear medicine being involved with cancer treatment.

Allow me to temper my reaction by this: If I had cancer, or needed a face transplant, I'm sure I'd want the best of the best.

But when the last three times I've been to the doctor has been pink eye, moles removed, and a physical, none of those require much expertese by the GP. Sure they poke and prod, but I'd be suprised if much goes into the math.

busy chillin': I was a TA for intro physics for premeds this year, and that was a riot. We are the only dept on our campus to repeatedly check for plagiarism (made them submit their labs to turnitin.com) so kids who had been getting away with cheating for two or three years would finally have it catch up with them. I don't know which was my favorite, the girl who complained she wasn't plagiarizing because she mentioned whose lab she copied in the acknowledgments section or the guy who just submitted someone's lab from the previous year verbatim, even though he knew it would be checked.

In short, the best thing I learned from lab was how if some of these people are in any doctor's office I visit in a few years, I'm going to another one.

What you did there, I see it, you plagiarizing bastard.

busy chillin': I was a TA for intro physics for premeds this year, and that was a riot. We are the only dept on our campus to repeatedly check for plagiarism (made them submit their labs to turnitin.com) so kids who had been getting away with cheating for two or three years would finally have it catch up with them. I don't know which was my favorite, the girl who complained she wasn't plagiarizing because she mentioned whose lab she copied in the acknowledgments section or the guy who just submitted someone's lab from the previous year verbatim, even though he knew it would be checked.

In short, the best thing I learned from lab was how if some of these people are in any doctor's office I visit in a few years, I'm going to another one.

SEE ME AFTER CLASS

Shilldog: Andromeda: I was a TA for intro physics for premeds this year, and that was a riot. We are the only dept on our campus to repeatedly check for plagiarism (made them submit their labs to turnitin.com) so kids who had been getting away with cheating for two or three years would finally have it catch up with them. I don't know which was my favorite, the girl who complained she wasn't plagiarizing because she mentioned whose lab she copied in the acknowledgments section or the guy who just submitted someone's lab from the previous year verbatim, even though he knew it would be checked.

In short, the best thing I learned from lab was how if some of these people are in any doctor's office I visit in a few years, I'm going to another one.

God knows I care that my doctor knows intro physics

Yes, because God knows these kinds of students ONLY cheat in classes they will never, ever need in their chosen profession.

In my day we had to cheat by hand. Pansies.

In this upper year pure math course I took, a student was fishing out assignments from the drop box, copying the answers and throwing out the original papers. When 4 of the 15 students in the class didn't hand it in, the teacher sent out an email making sure students knew about the drop box and deadlines thinking it was a misunderstanding. One of the students who had typeset the assignment immediately sent her copy saying that they did hand it in. The cheater was quickly caught, and was kicked out of the school. The justice of it was that this person had at most two semesters left to get their degree.

DarthBrooks: About 10 years ago, I TA'ed for an English class at a community college.

One of the students turned in a paper that was a bit too obvious on the cut-n-paste: they copied the "Next Page / Previous Page" navigation from the source website.

I had this same scenario a few years ago. (I'm the Chair of a large department in Texas.) When the student was pressed, he kept saying "I didn't copy the paper." Finally, when he was presented with the overwhelming evidence, he says "I didn't copy it, but my friend did. He was helping me."

We got both students on that one.

This year, it's been the "I left my account open and some else submitted a plagiarized essay for me."

FTA: "She gave the cheater an F8 for the class"

So she gave them a safe mode?

Plagarists should receive the death sentence.


/farking hate cheaters.

Blues_X: Research shows students are more likely to cheat when they are going through major stresses outside school, such as divorce or a death in the family.


Attention students: if you are going through some type of traumatic stressful event that may impact your academic performance, TALK TO YOUR PROFESSORS! They will, quite often, do what they can to help you out during a tough time (some will be dicks, but that's life).

If you wait until after you've bombed the course, there's absolutely nothing they can do retroactively to help you.

Tell me about it.

It's ridiculous. I get students telling me 2 weeks AFTER the semester is over and final grades have been submitted that they might lose their scholarship/financial aid and could they please have a C- instead of a D. I got about four of those this semester. What idiots.

Andromeda: I was a TA for intro physics for premeds this year,

TBH the worst cheating I ever heard about in one of my depts went on in our 'Roots of Medical Terms' that premed and pharmacy students took. At least one student broke in to the graduate student office and changed grades. In one class they had to send out emails defining cheating because students complained that they hadn't been informed that writing the answers on their hand for a quiz was cheating. Nobody wanted to TA that class because the whole job was watching the students take weekly quizzes and stop all the cheating that went on.

I've had students cry and tell me they didn't realize they were copying. One girl went through about 3 different explanations until she landed on 'but I thought you didn't want us to cite anything in this paper!' Which was true, but because we wanted the paper to contain only their own observations, not because we wanted them to plagiarize.

I always think that if students would put half the effort into their assignments that they put into cheating, they'd do just fine.

Shilldog: God knows I care that my doctor knows intro physics

Yeah. Who cares if they couldn't be bothered to do their background work and are willing to take dishonest shortcuts. I wonder what their standard of care will be like? Probably GREAT. I bet they would NEVER take that approach to the classes they think are important. And I'm sure it's just a stupid requirement that some administrator pulled out of his or her ass; it couldn't be required because future medical classes will build on it.

Blues_X: Attention students: if you are going through some type of traumatic stressful event that may impact your academic performance, TALK TO YOUR PROFESSORS! They will, quite often, do what they can to help you out during a tough time (some will be dicks, but that's life).

THIS, THIS, THIS!!

Most profs are understanding, but talk to them beforehand. Universities have provisions for life-shattering events or to help struggling students. But if you don't say anything, no one can help.

osdrcomputers: FTA: "She gave the cheater an F8 for the class"

So she gave them a safe mode?

That would be silly. Clearly she gave him a Navy fighter jet.

Shilldog: Andromeda: I was a TA for intro physics for premeds this year, and that was a riot. We are the only dept on our campus to repeatedly check for plagiarism (made them submit their labs to turnitin.com) so kids who had been getting away with cheating for two or three years would finally have it catch up with them. I don't know which was my favorite, the girl who complained she wasn't plagiarizing because she mentioned whose lab she copied in the acknowledgments section or the guy who just submitted someone's lab from the previous year verbatim, even though he knew it would be checked.

In short, the best thing I learned from lab was how if some of these people are in any doctor's office I visit in a few years, I'm going to another one.

God knows I care that my doctor knows intro physics

If they have to cheat to get through an easy class as an undergrad, I'd be wondering what they are going to do when they get to the tough parts of med school.

jjorsett: osdrcomputers: FTA: "She gave the cheater an F8 for the class"

So she gave them a safe mode?

That would be silly. Clearly she gave him a Navy fighter jet.

I thought she was allowing karma to work its magic by leaving the whole thing up to Fate.

Cheating shows initiative. It shows I am willing to do what it takes short of learning the material to get the job done. It also shows that I care and have a desire to continually make things better. It's just me working smarter not harder.

SweetSilverBlues: Shilldog: Andromeda: I was a TA for intro physics for premeds this year, and that was a riot. We are the only dept on our campus to repeatedly check for plagiarism (made them submit their labs to turnitin.com) so kids who had been getting away with cheating for two or three years would finally have it catch up with them. I don't know which was my favorite, the girl who complained she wasn't plagiarizing because she mentioned whose lab she copied in the acknowledgments section or the guy who just submitted someone's lab from the previous year verbatim, even though he knew it would be checked.

In short, the best thing I learned from lab was how if some of these people are in any doctor's office I visit in a few years, I'm going to another one.

God knows I care that my doctor knows intro physics

Yes, because God knows these kinds of students ONLY cheat in classes they will never, ever need in their chosen profession.


This I agree with the sentiments from the above users post. If they're cheating in one class, then they're sure as shiat cheating in another. And frankly if a med student can't pass an intro to physics class then no. I don't want them as my doctor.

And Shilldog Computer engineering isn't electrical engineering. Separate majors but I'd like the person to fix my computer to have some computer engineering expertise, yes. My hair is a bird, Your argument is invalid.

Freshman year of college we had this "lab" class that counted for one credit that went with our MIS 3 credit class. We would have lame assignments due for every class using say, Excel, for example. I forgot to do it one day and my roommate sat right next to me. I just copied it real quick. Teacher comes around to check them, and as I scroll down to show him the work, there was my roommate's name at the bottom. Yea, I should have done it, but it wasn't my friggin thesis or something important. Guy threatened to turn me in, but said he would "let that one slide". Next day in the actual MIS class, the prof announces that some "joker" tried to copy off another student and that it wouldn't be tolerated.

/cool story bro
//who puts their name at the end of an Excel spreadsheet?

busy chillin': I should have waited a few minutes and done this one:

Plagarists should receive the death sentence.


/farking hate cheaters.

I was actually accused of plagarism my freshman year, luckily for me I had all my rough drafts going all the way back to my brainstorming ideas in my spiral notebook to prove everything I wrote was all original.

/the teacher said a Freshman in English 101 should not be able to write as well as I did. When i showed my proof I did get an A on the paper.

DarthBrooks: jjorsett: osdrcomputers: FTA: "She gave the cheater an F8 for the class"

So she gave them a safe mode?

That would be silly. Clearly she gave him a Navy fighter jet.

I thought she was allowing karma to work its magic by leaving the whole thing up to Fate.

*golf clap*

Jakevol2: Plagarists should receive the death sentence.


/farking hate cheaters.

I TA for the intro political science course at a big state school. Going through the process of nailing a student for plagiarism through the university's system is a big hassle, with paperwork and appearing in front of a jury-style thing if the kid contests it. Most professors hate teaching the class anyway (it's 200 students who are mostly there filling a requirement), so a lot of kids don't get as strong of a punishment as they should.

/baffled at kids who copy-paste Wikipedia, submit their papers to turnitin.com, and expect to get away with it

We see it all. Plagiarism is easier than ever these days. Students will purchase papers, cut and paste from online sources without attribution and when that fails they will beg, lie, and occasionally threaten or attempt a bribe a teacher. I have had parents make some ominous comments in my office. Nothing blatant ... just vaguely threatening comments about their influence with the Regents. Nothing has ever come of it though.

If a student is having a difficult time I always make the effort to determine if there is a legitimate reason such as money problems, working long hours to pay for tuition or problems at home. Generally, at least with undergraduates, it is lack of focus and poor study habits.

My first year of college, I had a zoology lab class. One classmate spent the weekend before the Monday morning lab exam at a concert several hours away from the school and only showed up a few minutes before the exam (a scantron test) began.

When he got the test back, he asked to see the exam sheet of the guy sitting next to him. He proceeded to lightly erase wrong answers, bubble in the correct ones, and then handed the test back in to the prof. He got his grade upped to a C from an F.

Several of us were pissed off, and more than one reported him, but there was nothing the prof could do at that point. On the next exam, he photocopied this guys test before handing it back. The idiot did exactly the same thing. He was forced out of the class, and his transfer from the School of Arts to the School of Science and Math was canceled.

Radak: I was a TA for intro physics for premeds this year, copying the answers and throwing out the original papers. But when the last three times I've been to the doctor has been pink eye, moles removed, and a physical, none of those require much expertese by the GP. Sure they poke and prod, but I'd be suprised if much goes into the math.

One of the students turned in a paper that was a bit too obvious on the cut-n-paste: they copied the "Next Page / Previous Page" navigation from the source website.

I was going through some rough medical stuff in college, and I didn't really want to talk about it because that wasn't my thing... I thought it would come across as being lazy and looking for an excuse.

Original material, I swear.

Another *golf clap*

My crowning glory in plagiarism: A student once submitted a paper wherein he claimed to be a she. Seriously.

The paper talked all about how [student] had been a foreign exchange student in India for a year. "Huh," I thought, "I didn't realize that; that's kind of cool."

The paper went on about how different things were, how [student] couldn't believe how little India and America were alike.

Then she got her first period, and her Indian host mother explained how this all worked. She was stressed, and flustered, but host mom showed her how to use a tampon, and explained that this happened to all women, and that it was a normal part of growing up. Suddenly, the differences didn't seem so big, and she learned a valuable lesson about how close we all are.

Except it was a boy who turned this in, and he obviously couldn't be bothered to even read all the way through his plagiarized paper. So I read it to the whole class, instead. They loved it.

My favourite up until this year was the one who submitted the paper, using a colour ink-jet, with all of these blue, underlined words in it.

This year I had someone plagiarize The Onion and not realize it was satire.

Mr. Vice President, is that you?

ProfessorPedal: The Onion and not realize it was satire.

Damn The Onion! Sometimes while doing legitimate research I will read an abstract that is perfect, when I go to read the whole article it turns out to be an Onion Article. Do you have any idea how much that stings???

High school, not university, but it's amusing. One kid copied another kid's paper from the previous year. Verbatim.

Including the part about how Magellan circumcised the world in a 35 foot clipper.