This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
We continue our discussion of plagiarism. Last
week, we said colleges and universities in the United States define plagiarism
as representing another person's work as your own. It is considered a kind of
cheating.
Professors at American colleges have tried many ways to
stop student plagiarism.
Some use online detection services. They also may discuss plagiarism with their
students at the start of every term. Some
require their students to turn in early versions of term papers, research
papers and essays they are writing. This makes it more difficult for students
to buy papers from companies that some call "plagiarism mills" or "essay mills."
A
recent report in The Chronicle of Higher Education described such businesses. Many
can be found on the Internet. They sell newly written papers on many subjects.
The cost depends on the difficulty of the subject and how soon the paper is
needed. The cost could be from twenty to
forty dollars a page.
Such companies say their writers have advanced degrees,
and will target the papers to any educational level. Investigators say the
writers may be working in countries like India, Nigeria or Indonesia and are
poorly paid. Most of these companies say
their work should only be used as models and should not be turned in as a
finished work. But students do it anyway.
Some
students claim that they order such papers as a way to organize their
research. But many also say they do not
have enough time to do the work themselves and are under great pressure to do
well in school.
University
of Notre Dame anthropology professor Susan Blum wrote about this in a new book,
"My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture."
She writes that academic cheating is a result of communication failure
between students and professors. And she says international students must be
sure they know the rules of the college they are attending.
Plagiarism may also be a problem in other
countries. A recent e-mail to us from
Iran described an incident in an English class. Students were supposed to
research tourist places in Iran. But one
student copied information from a book.
The student changed "China" to "Iran" but forgot to change the names of
the places. When the teacher asked about
his research, he said: "One of the most beautiful tourist places in Iran is
Shanghai."
And
that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach.
I'm Barbara Klein.