A Campus Fad That's Being Copied: Internet Plagiarism. Thirty-eight percent of the undergraduate students surveyed said that they had engaged in one or more instances of "cut-and-paste" plagiarism. By Sara Rimer. [New York Times: Education]
This is not surprising. I see many students turn in everything from literature papers to science projects that are entirely cut-and-pasted off the internet, and it is obvious. Some don't even do it very well, and the information makes no sense or is not relevant to their topic. The more disturbing thing, however, is that I see teachers simply turn the other way, and give students the grade. Some of the winners of the school science fair or social studies fair are projects that were clearly plagiarized. So are we surprised that this carries over into college? Students are being taught that there are no ethical principles in regards to copying another's work. They are also being robbed of the opportunity to learn to think creatively and reason for themselves.
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