Thanks Miguel! An interesting issue here is that I suspect some students have problems with reading comprehension, and this presents even further challenges for them when attempting to summarize or rephrase points or ideas in a paragraph they have read. Many students tell me they read the text or chapter but do not understand anything. No wonder they miss my subtle wit! Again, given the lack of reading experience in new students, this lack of comprehension makes it very inviting to merely copy everything and stay at a superficial level in their writing. I think it would be a useful class exercise to give students--as you did here--some paragraphs and explore what the author was saying, what the major point was, and what other ideas, assumptions, suggestions might be found in that paragraph. Then, when it comes to summarizing it or paraphrasing, students should have a better sense of how the points covered can be described differently while retaining and giving credit to the key ideas the author presented. At the same time, such exercises, in groups or as class activities, might help with problems of reading comprehension. Gary
Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D. Professor, Psychology Saginaw Valley State University University Center, MI 48710 989-964-4491 peter...@svsu.edu >>> <roig-rear...@comcast.net> 5/10/2009 9:05 pm >>> I agree that the Indiana site is one of the best ones to send undergraduates to, especially because of that certificate of completion that can be mailed directly to you. And for a little shameless self-promotion, in the future you should consider having your students read my short piece in Eye on Psi Chi titled "Avoiding those little inadvertent lies when writing papers": http://www.psichi.org/Pubs/Articles/Article_666.aspx : Miguel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul C Bernhardt" <pcbernha...@frostburg.edu> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@acsun.frostburg.edu> Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2009 8:32:11 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: RE: [tips] Reality check I am finding the same patterns increasingly. I do not think I have become better at spotting the pattern. I think that there is an increasing level of acceptance of these kinds of plagiarism, possibly due to an attitude of "I got it off a web page, there is no ownership on the internet, therefore, I can't be stealing." I, too, will have my students complete the Indiana University School of Education (Bloomington) tutorial, requiring each supply me with their certificate of completion by the end of the first week of the course. Here's the link: http://www.indiana.edu/~istd/ Paul C. Bernhardt Department of Psychology Frostburg State University Frostburg, Maryland -----Original Message----- From: DeVolder Carol L [mailto:devoldercar...@sau.edu] Sent: Sun 5/10/2009 5:00 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] Reality check Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I have been grading papers nonstop for several days now (with a brief recess for graduation). Generally, what I am finding is that my C and D students are the ones who are stringing together sentences that are not their own. I start reading a paper that is grammatically poor, maybe started with the phrase "In this paper I am going to talk about..." and then suddenly shifts to a beautiful, fully-formed sentence or set of sentences. Of course I Google it immediately and sometimes have some luck, other times it doesn't come up. If I am still suspicious, I go to the database and look up the original article. Students sometimes reference the article, although there have been some who have omitted references. Sometimes I find entire paragraphs taken verbatim, other times I find phrases here and there, interspersed with other phrases lifted from other articles. I believe the student could not figure out a way to rephrase what the article said, and took the lazy (and deceitful) way out. I would rather have a poorly written paper(poor from a grammatical standpoint) than one in which the student made no attempt to understand the material. One the other hand, I had one student who wrote her paper on stroke because both her sister and father had strokes and she wanted to understand what happened in each case. She told me that one of her articles was too difficult and she was going to find an article that she could understand. I respect that. I believe if I repeat this assignment, I am going to have all students complete a plagiarism tutorial before handing in their papers, and as Tim mentioned, I'm not going to wait until the end of the semester to collect the papers. I can't remember which school has the excellent plagiarism tutorial--one of the Indiana Schools? Thanks again, I appreciate your collective insight. If nothing else, I'm learning a great deal (though becoming somewhat more cynical as I do). Carol Carol L. DeVolder, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Chair, Department of Psychology St. Ambrose University 518 West Locust Street Davenport, Iowa 52803 Phone: 563-333-6482 e-mail: devoldercar...@sau.edu web: http://web.sau.edu/psychology/psychfaculty/cdevolder.htm The contents of this message are confidential and may not be shared with anyone without permission of the sender. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
