Damn you, Internet! For years, you made it so easy to plagiarize with your Wikipedia pages and your blogs written by smart people. Now you make it just as easy to get caught! Students who pillage online sources because they are too lazy or incompetent to write their own essays now must contend with sites such as TurnItIn.com, which let teachers compare their pupils’ work (in digital form, submitted along with a hard copy) with much of what’s posted on the Internet. So even if you borrow one tiny phrase that perfectly expresses The Scarlet Letter’s disdain for the rest of the alphabet, there’s a good chance you’ll get busted. And don’t be surprised if your English teacher Mrs. Chillingworth (no relation) makes you wear a red "P" for the rest of the semester.
Some teachers are up front about these tactics, in hopes that the warning will encourage originality (or at least discourage cheating). Other educators quietly employ plagiarism detectors and only raise the subject with a student if a problem arises. Then there’s the surprise attack: Imagine you’re about to turn in an essay when your teacher announces that all papers will be cross-checked on a plagiarism site—“I’m sure no one will mind, right?” Riiight.
But even if plagiarism detectors render the Internet off limits, students won’t stop lifting material—they’ll just be more creative about their sources. That’s why we at SparkNotes are going to get totally rich by inventing technologies that detect material stolen from less obvious places:
Bumper stickers.
It’s pretty hard to write a decent academic paper using cheeseball expressions such as “Hand Over the Chocolate and Nobody Gets Hurt” and “Visualize Whirled Peas,” but that doesn’t mean someone won’t try. Our detection software will also recognize when a bumper sticker has been applied to a piece of computer paper in lieu of actual writing.
Twitter messages.
Our proprietary plagiarism software will throw up a red flag if, in your paper, Captain Ahab uses his BoatBerry to tweet @WhiteWhale “Arrr, I’m gonna get you” and WhiteWhale tweets back “Uh, I don’t think so, peg.”
Sitcom catchphrases.
In a nod to Seinfeld’s plotlessness, more than a few students likely have attempted to write “a paper about nothing.” But try using “yada yada yada” in place of your thesis paragraph and our highly sensitive detection machine will start shaking, whistling, and flashing. (We plan to construct it from a tea kettle and a strobe light.)
Pamphlets from the doctor’s office.
It’s a no-brainer to weave facts from “Understanding Your Bowels” into an essay on Henry Miller’s scatological novel, Tropic of Cancer. That’s why we're inventing the PoopScanner.
Books.
SparkNotes is owned by Barnes & Noble. This means we have access to a lot of books. We also have access to a lot of robots. Our robots will read all the books, then read your paper, and if there’s something fishy going on, the robots will come get you. In your sleep.
Do you think technology makes plagiarism easier or harder? Let us know by cutting and pasting someone else’s opinion into the comments below.
By: Chris_Diken
Topics: School
Tags: teachers, plagiarism
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