June 04, 2004

• Twitdom. I don't think one can escape knowing that plagerism is not acceptable. Also, using someone else's work if reatlly ubertwit.
• Absolute twit. Good grief, he's in university and he can say he didn't know plagiarim is unacceptable behaviour? I am flubberghasted.
• Absolute TWIT. AND! if he comes to the States, we can make him a CEO since he'll blend right in with that behavior.
• Twit. How in the world is "they didn't catch me until now, so I should be able to get away with it" an excuse?
• Sheesh what a twit. AND! if he comes to the States, we can make him a CEO since he'll blend right in with that behavior. He can marry that Blair Hornstine person. They're a perfect match.
• Absolute twit. I don't think one can escape knowing that plagerism is not acceptable. If he comes to Alberta, we can make him Premier since he'll blend right in with that behavior. How in the world is "they didn't catch me until now, so I should be able to get away with it" an excuse? Sorry!
• in this case it's whinging twitdom ;-)
• Twit, which by itself is not CEO material. The lawsuit is what makes him CEO material. Completely wrong, yet willing to take everyone to the mat about it anyway. Total corporate leadership material. Now I remember why I left the investment bank...
• I vote twit. Is there something in the water? Perhaps some sort of stupidity gas being released in the subways? All I know is that I have been walking around for the last few years muttering "What's WRONG with people?" and contemplating hermitude (hermitdom? hermitness?).
• Hermitage, eremiticism, reclusion, self-exile....
• ... plagiarism ...
• "All I know is that I have been walking around for the last few years muttering 'What's WRONG with people?' and contemplating [reclusion]" Me too. But if we both do it then we're not hermits.
• Any university teacher will tell you that plagiarism is on the increase. And one of the most disturbing aspects of the whole situation is the number of students who, when caught plagiarising, say indignantly: "no one ever told me it was wrong!" Over at the History News Network, Ralph Luker has an interesting comment on this story: I'd have to say that Gunn and his father have a point. Ultimately the responsibility is the student's, but it doesn't reflect well on his teachers if at the end of a long period of study the student doesn't understand that quite thoroughly. And how well does it reflect on an institution if it happily receives a student's money and only enforces its rules at the very last minute? I would hope that the University of Kent does make its policy on plagiarism clear to its students. However, the policy as stated on the University's website strikes me as very weak. First it says, lamely, that plagiarism is "hard to define". Then it suggests that many cases of plagiarism are "accidental rather than deliberate". And then it comes close to suggesting that plagiarism is just a normal part of academic life: Where does plagiarism stop? It could be argued that the incidence of really new ideas is relatively rare, and that most people's ideas are a product of things they have heard, read, and seen, often without even remembering where they first saw them, or whose ideas they were supposed to be in the first place. Hmm .. I hate to say this, but I think this student may have a case.
• I have a special place in my heart for plagarists after the sixth grade (That place is the spiky place with the uncomfortable furniture and torture devices). We had some sort of writing contest in the school, and the kid that beat me copied the Neverending Story. I mean, he used the names of people and places and events and wrote a quick synopsis of the film. The film was just out at the time, in the theatres. He probably saw it the night before. I, of course, was outraged, and ratted the kid out to the principal partially because I didn't want him to go through life thinking plagarism was okay, partially because I was a rat fink, and partially because I still wanted to win. The principal didn't care, and that's the sort of behavior that teaches kids that it's okay to plagarize. I mean, I knew when I was 11 that it was wrong, I fail to see why everyone else shouldn't have as well. Um...no, I'm not bitter. Why?
• While I can see slightly foxed's point I have to come down on the side of the University. Considering Gunn's subject (English) and the fact he was using the internet as a source would make it difficult to spot. What he felt he was getting out of his degree if if he was cutting and pasting his essays is something I would have liked to have seen him asked. He couldn't have gone through 3 years without being familiar with the concepts of a bibliography, footnotes and acknowledging quotations (unless English degree standards have plummeted in the last 5 years) so he must have realised he was doing something wrong by not acknowledging his sources at the very least. From the guidelines quoted by slightly foxed: It's a firm rule of academic scholarship that other people's work must be acknowledged carefully and exactly. He's a whining twit and I'm glad that he's been hurt in his wallet, as he doesn't seem to feel any guilt over the moral aspect of his actions.
• Yes, the guidelines do say that plagiarism is "a crime in academia". But what else do they say? It is often quite hard to prove whether such occurrence are accidental or intentional, so there's the chance of being found 'guilty' even if the crime happened accidentally. Oh, how helpful .. pointing out to students that intentional plagiarism is "hard to prove" so that if they claim it was an accident, they are quite likely to get away with it. (And notice the scare quotes around the word "guilty" .. not really guilty, just, you know, sort of, like, so-called guilty.) And note the conclusion: The moral is clear enough .. when your work is going to be assessed as individual work, make sure that the final version of your thoughts is rearranged into words that are definitely your own. It's that word "rearranged" that I find so disgraceful. What message is this sending to students? It's okay to steal your ideas from other people, just make sure you "rearrange" them so that you won't get found out? The more I read these weaselly guidelines, the angrier they make me. Why do they have to make excuses for plagiarism? Why do they say that it's "hard to define"? Why don't they say what they ought to say: that plagiarism is theft, that it will not be tolerated under any circumstances, and that university students are expected to think for themselves, not just copy their ideas out of other people's books? Is that so difficult to say? Grrrrr. Yes, of course this student is a whining twit. But, to judge from these guidelines, the academic culture of the University of Kent is not as hostile to plagiarism as it should be. (I hope I'm wrong.)
• Chutzpah! No, wait, I mean twit. Seriously, you don't need to be told that copying someone else's work and passing it off as your own is wrong. You know you're supposed to be doing your own work. And lack of originality has nothing to do with it. You're free to build from the ideas of others (hell, that's how we learn), but you're not allowed to copy them verbatim. What an enormous tool. I have a feeling he'll be very rich by the time he's fifty. And whoever wrote that passage for the university handbook should be kicked. Hard.
• A more detailed article can be found here including the fact that A review of Mr Gunn's work by Kent has found extensive plagiarism - often blocks of text used over several pages - in essays dating back to his second year. Several Pages!!! that's some serious cutting and pasting. Despite the problems with the university's guidelines I really can't see how he can hope to win his case, and if he does it will set an appalling precedent. How did he build up
• I'm paying more 7 thousand pounds in fees alone for a one-year course in Loughborough; I can see how easily debt can build up over three/four years, even after government subsidies. Don't forget accomodation expenses, that can put a pretty big hole in the pocket too. /apprehensive
• Forgive my facetiousness, I know student debt is no joke, I've still got 6 grand in student loans left after my BA (and it took a good two years to pay off my overdraft). Thankfully I never had a credit card at university. My point was that he didn't seem to be at university to learn, if he was he'd have been writing his own essays, but with Labour's aim of sending 50% of school leavers to university I suppose aspects of the attitude displayed by Gunn will occur more frequently and more and more near worthless degrees will be handed out. A discussion for another time perhaps. Still, as tool says I'm sure he'll do very well for himself in the future.
• I've got