Does today's youth really think we're that stupid?????

clavery · #1 10/27/2007, 08:50 AM

My husband is a college english professor. He just showed me a paper that was submitted by a student. I took one look at it and realized the kid had plagerized the whole paper. Not only were the fonts totally inconsistent throughout the whole paper (a clear sign of "cut and paste) but the student had actually copied text off the computer with the URL links still blue and underlined!!!!! Of course, just to be sure, hubby googled some of the text, and it popped right up. So now he's gotta fail this kid and report him to the school, as per school policy on plagerism, and the kid might get kicked out of school.

Did the kid really think hubby wouldn't notice? That perhaps the language in the paper was far more sophisticated than the kid's ability? That google is a teacher's best friend?

Stoopid kid

!

BigSkyBart · #2 10/27/2007, 08:55 AM

dem dum chilluns is r future

sad but true

crp · #3 10/27/2007, 08:57 AM

Yes, the youth of today are really that stupid.

kfisc · #4 10/27/2007, 09:00 AM

One way of looking at it is passive aggression: A lot of kids have no desire whatsoever to be in college; they've felt pressured and pushed their whole lives to meet parental expectations, and have never successfully stood up to it to pursue their own dreams/ambitions, such that the only way they have to protest is through self sabotage, without even fully realizing they're actually trying to rebel by being so obvious with something like stealing somebody's work.

Or they're just stupid.

clavery · #5 10/27/2007, 09:08 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by kfisc
One way of looking at it is passive aggression: A lot of kids have no desire whatsoever to be in college; they've felt pressured and pushed their whole lives to meet parental expectations, and have never successfully stood up to it to pursue their own dreams/ambitions, such that the only way they have to protest is through self sabotage, without even fully realizing they're actually trying to rebel by being so obvious with something like stealing somebody's work.

Or they're just stupid.

I would tend to agree with you, but the school he teaches at is a City University and the students are mostly low income, minority students who really have to work their butts off to afford college - most hold down full-time jobs and go to school. So you'd think they'd value their education that much more!

BigSkyBart · #6 10/27/2007, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by clavery
I would tend to agree with you, but the school he teaches at is a City University and the students are mostly low income, minority students who really have to work their butts off to afford college - most hold down full-time jobs and go to school. So you'd think they'd value their education that much more!

^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hmmmm....another urban legend shot to hell

face it, the world is full of morons & they will take over in due time

fortunately for us, we're all gonna die anyway, I'd hate to see the degredation of society & social standards in a hundred years

kfisc · #7 10/27/2007, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by clavery
I would tend to agree with you, but the school he teaches at is a City University and the students are mostly low income, minority students who really have to work their butts off to afford college - most hold down full-time jobs and go to school. So you'd think they'd value their education that much more!

There might be something to the other end of the spectrum, i.e. way too much pressure to hold it all together economically AND make grades in college? No excuse for cheating, either way. I bet your husband sighs a lot!

dc · #8 10/27/2007, 09:31 AM

Probably waited till the last minute to do it, didn't have time to actually do it right.

crp · #9 10/27/2007, 09:33 AM

He's going to see more and more of this. The kids today are just plain lazy and don't want to put any effort into anything. I see it all the time. They want everything handed to them without it interfering with their social lives.

BigSkyBart · #10 10/27/2007, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BigSkyBart
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hmmmm....another urban legend shot to hell

face it, the world is full of morons & they will take over in due time

fortunately for us, we're all gonna die anyway, I'd hate to see the degredation of society & social standards in a hundred years

maybe I should have my second cup of coffee before I make societal commentary

I sound like a curmudgeon

perhaps I really am one

clavery · #11 10/27/2007, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by crp
He's going to see more and more of this. The kids today are just plain lazy and don't want to put any effort into anything. I see it all the time. They want everything handed to them without it interfering with their social lives.

Unfortunately, Carrie, I have to agree with you. I love my son and he has many good qualities, but he's one of the laziest kids I've ever met. Both hubby and I work hard and have tried to instill a good work ethic in our kids, but the boy is just plain lazy. But he knows we'll beat the crap out of him and pull him out of college if he ever tried a stunt like that. I ain't paying $45 Gs a year for him to be a cheat!!!

Sk8r · #12 10/27/2007, 09:41 AM

When I was teaching, once upon a dino age ago, I was appalled to find a similar situation, though the students in question had gone to the trouble to hand-write it...and I lit into the class in the usual 'how could you?' oration. You can read a class's faces like a book---maybe not one student, but a whole body of them are fully legible, and what I read stopped me in mid-oration.
Huh? Wow. What hit us? What'd we do?
I said, then, in some wonderment, "You didn't know you did anything wrong, did you?"
Blink-blink. Confused looks.
I gently explained that the info is supposed to pass through your brain before being written down, so there's some chance of absorption.
And then I realized my answer to so much innocence. I was teaching Ancient History. My students had learned their prior history from the school coaching staff, not somebody IN the field.
I questioned them about their prior assignments, and whether they'd 'filled out notebooks.' Yep. History, to them, involved a sheet of questions, which you looked up in library, and wrote down what you found, turned it in and got an A.
I then patiently explained the performance I wanted out of them, and what they were really supposed to do, and told them to come and ask me if they didn't know how to figure it, and the next assignment, while not so elegantly worded, was heartfelt and certainly individually researched.
They turned into a good class. It took some hand-holding and explanation of what I wanted, but once they got the notion that somebody would actually READ their papers [the coach-culture in that school notoriously didn't] they took some pride in them, and really tried.

dinoman · #13 10/27/2007, 10:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by crp
He's going to see more and more of this. The kids today are just plain lazy and don't want to put any effort into anything. I see it all the time. They want everything handed to them without it interfering with their social lives.

You have to keep in mind the older generation ALWAYS thinks that of the younger generation.

I can almost guarantee you your parents generation thought that of your generation, and their parents thought that of their generation!

crp · #14 10/27/2007, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by dinoman
You have to keep in mind the older generation ALWAYS thinks that of the younger generation. I can almost guarantee you your parents generation thought that of your generation, and their parents thought that of their generation!

You'd be wrong

Hubby and I both have a great work ethic. You do what you have to do to get the job done and done right.

dwd5813 · #15 10/27/2007, 10:25 AM

I have to submit all of my english papers through a program called mydropbox. The program scans through the paper searching for plagiarism and prepares a report for the professor. Perhaps your husband could speak to someone about using this type of system for those papers which are not so obvious as this one.

snulma1 · #16 10/27/2007, 10:50 AM

I actually take classes now at a CUNY school (Hunter college to be exact), and over the summer I was in a math class and found the same to be true, that most of these kids, really don't want to be there. I had to be the rude older student who kept telling the younger ones to shut up so I could learn! But its a shame that they spend so much time trying to avoid doing the work, that if they spent that time doing the work, it would have been done already!

dinoman · #17 10/27/2007, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by crp
Hubby and I both have a great work ethic. You do what you have to do to get the job done and done right.

NOW you do

, but I'm pretty sure way back when (I know its been quite some time for you

) your parents thought the EXACT same thing. "Kids are so lazy these days!"

Its kinda like the walking to school in 3 feet of snow with newspaper wrapped around your feet.

Its a sign you're getting old and turning into your parents!

BigSkyBart · #18 10/27/2007, 12:22 PM

uphill both ways in the blizzard on the hottest day of the year

clavery · #19 10/27/2007, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BigSkyBart
uphill both ways in the blizzard on the hottest day of the year

My husband lived in Guatemala when he was very young and he DID have to walk two miles to school and back in the heat, sun, or rain...he CONSTANTLY uses that one against the kids!

uscgbeachbum · #20 10/27/2007, 01:25 PM

I graduated college just just over 2 years ago. Before college begins you are usually required to take a week long class a week before college starts so that the transition is as smooth as possible (or at least my college did). You are thoroughly briefed on what plagiarism is and that if caught you will be kicked out of school and likely never be able to enter into another college. While I never personally knew anyone who plagiarized I've heard stories of people who did. The easiest way is to use the online term papers websites. Who wants to spend weeks writing a paper when you can spend $50 and get one in 5 minutes?

Of course I must admit that during some term papers I did get a little help on a topic that I'm trying to make arguments about, but I didn't copy/paste someone's work.

The Grim Reefer · #21 10/27/2007, 01:37 PM

I didn't think my own High School education was much until I saw what my kid was able to graduate with.

I think there is just such a lack of personal responsibility any more. If you are older than 40 think back to what would have happened if you talked smack to an adult, let alone a teacher. Now kids will do it while flipping them the bird.

It seems like a lot of parents response to learning their kid had cheated would be to say "But he had to do the work to find the article he copied, whats the big deal?" Too many years of trying to come up with excuses for why little Johhny or Janey is a screwup instead of dealing with the fact they are a screw up.

VoidRaven · #22 10/27/2007, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by dwd5813
I have to submit all of my english papers through a program called mydropbox. The program scans through the paper searching for plagiarism and prepares a report for the professor.

I had to use this service for my MBA (scary, huh? That even in grad school they have to really crack down on this) and I have to say it is not really a stop-gap. The professor still has to READ the report and many don't...they just see what the website kicks back and if it's over a certain percent they say it's plagerized.

I had one paper I wrote that came back like 60% percent plagerized. Confused, as I wrote the whole thing myself, I read the mydropbox.com report that it generated and NONE of the so called plagerized passages came from anything even remotely close to my class. It said my references page was plagerized, that sentences that the program had pulled from some marine biology paper (and I was doing a paper for a management information systems class) was plagerized....none of it was well founded. When I inquired with my prof about it she said not to worry and that my paper was fine.

In short, these programs are NOT fool proof. They might help to deter would-be plagarizers but the faculty still has to do their end too.....and some aren't anymore thanks to sites like this. Almost as bad as the students!

cwegescheide · #23 10/27/2007, 01:51 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong but as long as you site your sources its not plagerism...

A lot of papers I wrote in college were pretty much excerpts from many articles but I always cited my sources.