What a terrific idea, Chris. I've been struggling with the "how can I spot it" problems, settling on only two things: 1) If the quality of the writing in the paper is significantly better than earlier writings, as seen in essay questions, etc., that's a red flag. 2) getting into the sites themselves, as Bob Clarke did, and getting the information about requests.
Obviously, these solutions are fraught with problems. So I applaud Chris' suggestion. The only problem I can see is for online classes, where a student would be able to sit down and maybe, for the first time, actually read the paper he/she submitted and thus answer the questions. Page 2? The panel is searching for any appropriate suggestions. Beth Benoit Granite State College Plymouth State University New Hampshire On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 10:22 AM, Christopher D. Green <[email protected]>wrote: > > > 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]> <[email protected]> > To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" > <[email protected]> <[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]> 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]. >> >> 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=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 >> > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe click here: > 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 > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe click here: > 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 > > > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aaf72&n=T&l=tips&o=3162 > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-3162-13105.b9b37cdd198e940b73969ea6ba7aa...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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