I have a thought for those of you facing the problem of student buying essays.
Typically students who buy essays don't even read them, certainly don't study them, and probably wouldn't fully understand them (which is why they are buying them instead of writing them). When faced with a single student suspected of cheating in this way, a typical strategy is to get them to (try to) answer a couple of questions about the content of the essay itself. Since the problem here is that you don't even know who to suspect, what if you generalized that process to the whole class? You may not be able to meet privately with every student, but what if, while marking, you simply jotted down a couple of questions for each essay that only the writer of the essay would be likely to know the answers to. Then, hold a "pop" quiz in class in which each student gets a "customized" (very small) set of questions. Everyone who gets both questions correct gets their marked essay back. Everyone who misses one or both questions gets a private meeting with the teacher before getting his/her essay back. Regards, Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== [email protected] wrote: > > > > > Indeed, contract plagiarism is extremely difficult to detect. One tool > that could be helpful with these cases is using The Cloze test (take > the paper, white out key terms, and give it to the student to fill in > the blanks). However, you would have to have been suspicious to begin > that the papers were not legitimate. Moreover, there is no agreement > as to what scores would indicate plagiarism. I have used it a couple > of times and in one of those instances I got voluntary confession > because the student could not fill in a single blank space correctly. > > > > Miguel > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Beth Benoit" <[email protected]> > To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" > <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 12:04:31 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern > Subject: Re: [tips] Contract cheating > > > > Robert Clarke sent me information he found and the results were quite > startling. I think he's "on" these sites, looking for this kind of > thing. Absolutely without question, as the student entered the title > of the paper she needed as well as the feedback I'd given /only to > her/ about how to proceed with her paper. > > That's the biggest problem...it seems that the only way we might be > able to catch these students is to be moles in their systems.... > > Beth Benoit > > On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Paul Bernhardt > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > 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] <mailto:[email protected]>. > > To unsubscribe click here: > > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263003&n=T&l=tips&o=3149 > > <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 > > <mailto:leave-3149-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> > > > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > > To unsubscribe click here: > > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aaf72&n=T&l=tips&o=3152 > > <http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aaf72&n=T&l=tips&o=3152> > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is > broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-3152-13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aa...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > > <mailto:leave-3152-13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aa...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> > > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13482.917fac06d4daae681dabfe964ca8c74e&n=T&l=tips&o=3154 > > <http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13482.917fac06d4daae681dabfe964ca8c74e&n=T&l=tips&o=3154> > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-3154-13482.917fac06d4daae681dabfe964ca8c...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > <mailto:leave-3154-13482.917fac06d4daae681dabfe964ca8c...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> > > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd0da&n=T&l=tips&o=3155 > > <http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd0da&n=T&l=tips&o=3155> > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-3155-13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > <mailto:leave-3155-13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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