Monday, September 04, 2006

A herald of the season, like unto the first robin of spring

Today's Labor Day, but if I had any doubts that the semester was already well underway, those doubts have now been dispelled.

I have a plagiarist.

Yes, ALREADY: one of my students turned in a reading response that she'd lifted almost entirely from SparkNotes (it's all paraphrase, but it's a very close paraphrase).

And so it begins again.

10 comments:

kfluff said...

That, Ms. F., just totally, totally sucks. I hope this doesn't put a damper on your otherwise excellent beginning-of-semester buzz.

Hilaire said...

Ouch. A reading response, for god's sake! Sigh. I'm sorry.

Terminal Degree said...

Oh, crap, I hate that.

Last week I got one, too. The funny part? He plagiarized ME. Lifted my syllabus, word for word. I think in my student's case it was cluelessness, but sheesh.

RageyOne said...

Already!?!? I guess it doesn't take long for someone to test the waters.

kermitthefrog said...

She's already too busy hazing freshmen or whatnot to write a reading response? Sucks.

~profgrrrrl~ said...

Urgh. How awful.

We should start having contests to see who will get the first one each semester, etc.

phd me said...

Now THAT is a student committed to slacking off. Wow. Very sorry for you, though.

I'm curious (since I'm sure I won't escape the curse this semester): how do you handle plagiarism? I'd love a post on that. :)

Bardiac said...

Drawing and quartering seems too lax, somehow.

I hope you can bring her around, teach her to care about what she's doing.

Good luck.

Anonymous said...

2 baseball players copied each other's homework word for word, on the very first assignment. I told them to knock it off and I think they got the message. BONUS: if I tell the coach, he makes them run laps! I haven't gotten to that point ... yet ... but it's a nice backup plan. What do these students think, anyway.

Another Damned Medievalist said...

I hope you gave her a zero!