How did you discover the paper was from a contract site? Thanks!
Paul Bernhardt Dept of Psychology Frostburg State University pcbernhardt _at_ frostburg _dot_ edu On Jun 17, 2010, at 11:22 AM, Beth Benoit wrote: > > I've recently been involved in a case of "contract cheating," where a student > bought her research paper for my class from a term paper-writing site and was > discovered. (She actually contracted for three different papers from three > different courses - that we know of.) I think it's much more common than > we'd like to believe. > > This has gotten me very interested in the issue of contract cheating and how > it can be detected. (Short answer: Not easily.) For obvious reasons, the > plagiarizing sites won't work for this. They compare a student's work to > other published works, and since these paper-writing sites typically sell > made-to-order papers, there's a different kind of deception involved, because > the student is handing in an original paper. It just wasn't written by > him/her. Of course, sometimes the purchased paper is plagiarized from an > original work, but that's probably from the cheaper companies, not from the > more upstanding (tongue-in-cheek) organizations like > http://www.non-plagiarized-termpapers.com/! > > One of the experts on this is Robert Clarke, from Birmingham City University, > England. He's actually the one who alerted me to my student's deception. > (Here's information about contract cheating and Clarke and his colleague, > Thomas Lancaster are described: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheating. ) > > Here's a summary of their findings: > http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/assessment/plagiarism/cheat_plagiarism.html > > And here are slides presented at a workshop: > http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/events/presentations/682_Private%20Life%20Annotated.pdf > > I think we all need to be aware that this is fast becoming a huge problem. > If a student graduates from one of our institutions but clearly doesn't "know > his/her stuff," it reflects poorly on the institution. > > And it makes me furious. Especially when I see the individualized feedback - > which I gave to a student on her proposal - posted on the paper-writing site > to give extra help to the person who's going to write her paper for her. > > Beth Benoit > Granite State College > Plymouth State University > New Hampshire > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263003&n=T&l=tips&o=3149 > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-3149-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=3152 or send a blank email to leave-3152-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
