Before the election break, I gave my 3rd and 4th year classes a writing assignment that was to be due the week that we returned to school. They were instructed to choose a famous person from Africa and write a 2-page biography, using at least 2 sources.The students' access to the Internet is limited and printed materials are scarce - how the only public university does not have a library is beyond me (but that's another story). Knowing this, I offered to help them with their research by printing articles for them at my office. I also knew that plagiarism is a huge problem here, and throughout Africa in general. I warned both classes that if they copied their paper from the Internet, I would know immediately and that they would receive a zerp. My exact words were, "I would rather you give me a paper with 100 mistakes, but you wrote it, than a perfect paper that was copied. Believe me. I will know."
I had previously avoided giving out-of-class assignments precisely for this reason, but I had given them several in-class writing exercises so I knew they were capable of producing a simple essay....Or so I thought.
The first week that classes resumed, I sat at my desk and began reading. And what did I see? You guessed it. Blatant plagiarism staring me in the face, page after page. About half of the them had literally copied and pasted the Wikipedia page for their chosen subject. I am talking subheadings the same, and some of them didn't even remove the hyperlinks, so at least one word in each paragraph was underlined. I just sat there - completely flabbergasted, which quickly turned to anger. With each big red zero and the word "Re-write" that I scribbled on the title pages, the rage grew. I must have read the Wikipedia page for Nelson Mandela 8 times before I finally put my head on my desk so that I wouldn't have to look at the stack of papers next to me. Seriously, guys? You did exactly what I told you NOT to do.
To be fair, half of the students did compose an original piece of writing, and yes there were grammatical and structural errors, but that is to be expected. That is part of the learning process. What does anyone learn from copying and pasting? So then I had to figure out how to address this problem to the students. Maybe the assignment was too difficult. Maybe they are lazy. Maybe they think I'm stupid and I wouldn't notice.
After taking a step back from the situation, I started thinking about this incident and how it fits into the big picture. What does it say about the education system here that a student who is majoring in English can't write a 2-page paper in his final year of college? I have been teaching them how to write for 7 months. Have they learned nothing? What am I doing wrong?
The next day, the students began filing into the classroom. I decided to attack the issue head on. "So I started reading your papers and I see a lot of plagiarism." They stared back at me with a mixture of guilt and fear. "I'm not mad at you guys, I'm just disappointed. You need to tell me why you did this. Was the assignment too difficult?" They shook their heads "no."
"OK. So what is it?"
"Teacher, we don't have materials."
"Well that is not an excuse. I told you I would help you find resources, but only a couple of you made appointments with me to do that."
"You told us we needed to use sources."
"Yes, but you have to get information from the sources, not copy them."
"I was absent so I just heard about the assignment yesterday. I didn't have enough time."
"OK well that is your responsibility so I can't help you there. Next?"
After a slew of completely irrational excuses, someone said, "The professors tell us what to do but they don't tell us how to do it." And there it is. It's all about the product and not the process. They explained to me that they always copy their work and their teachers have never said anything. They think it's good because there are no mistakes.
I feel like the students understand that this is a flawed system, but they are so entrenched in it that they don't know how to function any other way.
"Alright, so we'll go through the writing process step-by-step. I'll show you how to do research without copying," I told them. "Yes, that's what we need," they replied.
I left the class with a better understanding of why they did what they did. I'm not giving them a free pass, but I now realize that it's not entirely their fault. We better get to work.
I had previously avoided giving out-of-class assignments precisely for this reason, but I had given them several in-class writing exercises so I knew they were capable of producing a simple essay....Or so I thought.
The first week that classes resumed, I sat at my desk and began reading. And what did I see? You guessed it. Blatant plagiarism staring me in the face, page after page. About half of the them had literally copied and pasted the Wikipedia page for their chosen subject. I am talking subheadings the same, and some of them didn't even remove the hyperlinks, so at least one word in each paragraph was underlined. I just sat there - completely flabbergasted, which quickly turned to anger. With each big red zero and the word "Re-write" that I scribbled on the title pages, the rage grew. I must have read the Wikipedia page for Nelson Mandela 8 times before I finally put my head on my desk so that I wouldn't have to look at the stack of papers next to me. Seriously, guys? You did exactly what I told you NOT to do.
To be fair, half of the students did compose an original piece of writing, and yes there were grammatical and structural errors, but that is to be expected. That is part of the learning process. What does anyone learn from copying and pasting? So then I had to figure out how to address this problem to the students. Maybe the assignment was too difficult. Maybe they are lazy. Maybe they think I'm stupid and I wouldn't notice.
After taking a step back from the situation, I started thinking about this incident and how it fits into the big picture. What does it say about the education system here that a student who is majoring in English can't write a 2-page paper in his final year of college? I have been teaching them how to write for 7 months. Have they learned nothing? What am I doing wrong?
The next day, the students began filing into the classroom. I decided to attack the issue head on. "So I started reading your papers and I see a lot of plagiarism." They stared back at me with a mixture of guilt and fear. "I'm not mad at you guys, I'm just disappointed. You need to tell me why you did this. Was the assignment too difficult?" They shook their heads "no."
"OK. So what is it?"
"Teacher, we don't have materials."
"Well that is not an excuse. I told you I would help you find resources, but only a couple of you made appointments with me to do that."
"You told us we needed to use sources."
"Yes, but you have to get information from the sources, not copy them."
"I was absent so I just heard about the assignment yesterday. I didn't have enough time."
"OK well that is your responsibility so I can't help you there. Next?"
After a slew of completely irrational excuses, someone said, "The professors tell us what to do but they don't tell us how to do it." And there it is. It's all about the product and not the process. They explained to me that they always copy their work and their teachers have never said anything. They think it's good because there are no mistakes.
I feel like the students understand that this is a flawed system, but they are so entrenched in it that they don't know how to function any other way.
"Alright, so we'll go through the writing process step-by-step. I'll show you how to do research without copying," I told them. "Yes, that's what we need," they replied.
I left the class with a better understanding of why they did what they did. I'm not giving them a free pass, but I now realize that it's not entirely their fault. We better get to work.
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