This reminds me that there was a Newsweek cover story on student cheating,
I believe in this week's edition. Steve Davis was among those quoted.
I found the most interesting part to be the story of a law school student
who was caught plagiarizing, went on to graduate, discovered that her
"record" hindered her employability (who'd-a thought that would cause
problems for a lawyer?), and sued the professor. Apparently the case is in
the courts now, and the student's defense is the old "I accidentally turned
in an early draft", which is cheating nonetheless in my book.
My students got a real kick out of her trying that line, as I've told them
repeatedly that they have to put the appropriate quote format and citations
in their papers the moment they type the words into their word processors.
The old "I'll add the quotation marks later" notion is unforgivably stupid.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
