Cheating in your class (WRITING)

Even SpongeBob struggles with starting

Why do students plagiarize? Maybe I’m naïve, but I believe it is because many times they don’t know how to use sources properly. Another common reason is they don’t know where to start. Moreover, when students don’t manage their time well and leave the entire essay for the night before, plagiarism is an easy answer.

Some teachers don't worry about their students plagiarizing because they use a plagiarism checker. However, these only punish plagiarism; they don’t prevent it. As an analogy, they’re like seat belts; they don’t prevent accidents, but they do help if an accident occurs.

Plagiarism checkers are also pretty useless against bought essays. If these are well written, they don’t show up as plagiarized. Lucky for teachers, often these aren’t well written and are sold to more than one student. Those do show up as plagiarized via plagiarism checkers.

How do we keep students honest? If a student really wants to cheat, they will find a way to cheat. However, you can scaffold your class so that in the end writing the essay is easier than cheating!

This schedule is made up of ten days, but you can combine days.

In my classes we practice grammar, literature and essay writing, so these days aren’t back to back.

Before you start, tell students they should save EVERY assignment as each assignment is due with the draft and final copy.

DAY ONE- The assignment. We go over the requirements, multiple deadlines, and write a few sample theses as a class. HOMEWORK Come up with a good thesis statement and a few prospective topic sentences. 

DAY TWO-Finding a good source.  This lesson focuses on good sources versus bad sources. We cover the basics as well as the exceptions. By now, you should have looked over their thesis statements and said whose was a good start and whose needed work. If some need work offer them the chance to change it now. Homework: Find a good source that is about your topic. It doesn’t need to completely support your opinion, but it should be a GOOD source in English. Bring in a photocopy of the cover page and a random page if it is a hardcopy or online in PDF. Print one page of the article if it is an electronic source (include the URL and author). LAST CHANCE to change theses.

DAY THREE- Citation. I take this lesson to discuss why plagiarism is bad. We look at current pop culture examples of plagiarism and the punishments. How to prevent this? Attribute your sources. Show parenthetical citation, in text citation and a Works Cited page. Homework: Have them find another source in English and make a Works Cited page with their two sources.

DAY FOUR- Quoting. Teach your students WHEN to quote and more importantly when NOT to quote. Show them how to integrate a quote into a paragraph. Advise them AGAINST translating something from another language into English and then quoting it. Homework: Find another good source in English. Find something to quote from two of the three sources. Write sample sentences integrating them into a real sentence AND using parenthetical and in text citation (one each). Add the new source to your Works Cited page.

DAY FIVE- Paraphrasing- MAKE SURE they know that paraphrasing needs to be attributed. Often they feel since the words are theirs now they don’t need to give credit. Point out It is AWESOME to use when they find something useful in their L1 (mother tongue).  Homework: Find another good source in any language and paraphrase it (make sure to use in text or parenthetical citations). Add the new source to your Works Cited page.

DAY SIX- Summarizing. Again, MAKE SURE they attribute when summarizing. It also a GREAT option to use if they find something useful in their L1. Homework: Find another good source in any language and summarize it (make sure to use in text or parenthetical citations). Add the new source to your Works Cited page.

DAY SEVEN- Outline. I like doing this in class, but you can assign it as homework. I discourage using full sentences for the main ideas and details unless it is one of the quotes, summaries or paraphrases they’ve already submitted.

DAY EIGHT- Peer Review. I also like to do these in class, but sometimes there’s no time. In that case it becomes extra credit. I put up worksheets for peer reviews that walk them through a series of questions (Is every quote integrated? Is the thesis specific? Is the Works Cited page on a separate page? Etc.) If they swap papers with a classmate and review the other person’s essay, I give then some extra credit. I find these are more effective than self-reviews.

DAY NINE- Draft. Some teachers don’t collect drafts; I do. Be sure to collect EVERYTHING with the draft. This way you can see the progression of your students’ thoughts. Run anything that looks iffy through a plagiarism checker. Otherwise be sure to pay close attention to attributions as well as essay structure and grammar.

DAY TEN- Final. I make final essays optional. If a student is happy with their grade on the draft, I transfer the draft grade to their final essay grade. This saves me the hassle of writing, “You didn’t change ANYTHING” on a final essay and getting cranky. If a student wants to fix their essay and improve their grade, they turn in a final copy (again with EVERYTHING).

Grading: How do I give a grade? I usually put everything towards the essay grade. For example: Each good source, paraphrase, summary, quote goes into “Essay Preparation”

Essay Preparation- 5%

Peer Review- 5%

Outline- 15%

Draft- 25%

Final- 50%

The scale is designed so passing is easily achieved and students have to do the work along the way if they want a great grade.

Regardless of how you break down the grade, be sure students have this on DAY 1 when you give the assignment.

Each of these topics will be covered with an in depth idea of how to teach each of these days during the month of July.

How do you prevent plagiarism on assignments?

Cheating in your class (PLAGIARISM CHECKERS)

Clearly plagiarized brochure

Facebook Status

My high school students do this great  TBL project involving tourism. The assignment varies each year, but in short students are assigned a place (city, country, planet) and they have to sell the rest of the class on going there. In lieu of an essay, they create a brochure.

Above, you can see one of the brochures. On March 6th 2012, I posted to my personal Facebook, "OK, I know everyone has probably plagiarized at least once in their life...but could my students at least do it well??? 'Apart from a feast of dreamy, palm fringed snow white beaches,' is not your own words."

Less than an hour later a friend commented with, "Was it just those words, or was the whole text about Fiji?"

Now, I never stated the text was about Fiji. My friend did what I had done and Googled the line to discover the website my students copied. (The website they used http://www.holidaypackages.com.au/fiji/ is no longer a valid site). Three of the paragraphs on this site were copy and pasted directly onto their brochure. All of the yellow highlighting in the brochure above is word for word the same (feel free to click on the picture to see it bigger).

This plagiarism was pretty easy to spot. I knew these students well enough to know that they wouldn't use the phrase, "feast of dreamy, palm fringed," so I popped it into Google and got a direct hit.

Another way that teachers prevent cheating is by using a service such as TurnItIn. If your school pays for this then I'd suggest you give it a shot (it can't hurt!), but if you are looking for some more affordable alternatives here are 10 free sites, and 2 kinda free sites that check for plagiarism.

Mostly Free

These offer most of their services for free although some offer premium paid accounts with more bells and whistles.

1. Viper is nice because it also uploads students essays. This means in addition to online texts you are searching real student submitted essays. If you plan to use it as a teacher, be sure to get permission from your students to upload their essays (or arrange for them to do it themselves)! If you do not have their permission you may be breaching their privacy and opening yourself up to legal problems. You need to have Windows and download the program so it isn't as convenient as some other web based programs. Nonetheless, this is a great option for teachers (and students). Their website is available in Chinese, French, Spanish and Hindi, though the English version of the site has more options.
2. Plagtracker  says that you can check documents up to 5,000 words via copy and paste for free (premium accounts can upload a document and have no word limits), but, when I ran my first sample essay through, it only checked the first 892 words. The first essay you check you can see the results within a few minutes. After that if you submit a text, it goes in a queue. They ask for your e-mail and e-mail you when your report is ready (they estimate about 20 minutes). Two hours later I still had no reply, but by the next day I did get one. You can only check one document at a time without a premium account, so it would take a while if you wanted to check every essay your students submitted. However, if you normally only check one or two essays, then this wouldn't be too inconvenient. If you don't like waiting, you can pay their fees ($14.99/ month). It is designed to work with English, French, Spanish, German, Romanian and Italian. Since this doesn't use the essay later you don't need your students permission to submit it. As of June 2015, if you like them on Facebook they give you 20% off!
3. Small SEO tools This free tool was designed to help bloggers with their SEO score, but it can easily be used by teachers as well. Just input the text and see how much comes up as unique. The great thing is it will link to the site it found the information so you can see the original text. This is just copy and paste, no file upload option. The site is in English though since it mainly works off of search engines it will probably work well with any language.
4. Duplichecker is a free program with a maximum of 1,500 words per search. You can upload a document or copy and paste. You can run up to three free searches a day, or register (for free) and search as much as you like. Very easy to use.
5. SeeSources is now under the domain of plagscan. You can upload or copy and paste up to 1,000 words. I like this one because it runs two searches. First it finds sources that could have been used, and then looks at the way it was written to see if it matches anything.
6. Plagiarism Detect  admits to being a site which is not as great as it used to be, but for now it is pretty good to find if text was used from a website (but not pdfs or ebooks). You can copy and paste, or upload a document. Copying and pasting has a maximum of 1,000 words and uploading is a maximum of 300kB.
7. Dustball lets you copy and paste as many searches as you want. You can also upload a document, but then you need to pay a fee of $8/ month.  
8. Plagiarismsoftware runs your sentences through search engines sentence by sentence. Useful if you don't want to manually copy and paste a student's paper sentence by sentence, but not much better than just doing a web search on your own. You can also upload a document but only .txt files. There doesn't seem to be a file size issue, but it is a bit cumbersome to sort through larger texts.
   
9. Plagiarismchecker is essentially a site which sends your information to other search engines and then takes you to them. You can search up to 32 words via google or 50 words via yahoo. Good for teachers who aren't that tech savvy and don't want to go straight to a search engine
10. Plagiarisma is a free via copy and paste or you can upload the document to the site directly. I tried to run a search of 198 words and the site kept timing out, so I can't really comment on how effective it is. Perhaps you'll have better luck? 

 Not so free

These sites offer some services for free, but predominately are used with the paid options.

1. Grammarly is getting listed first because it checks grammar too (hence the name). They have a preview you can run if you like (which is great for just the occasional check). As a student this is great because it not only finds texts you forgot to paraphrase / quote, it suggests how you could properly cite it! You can get a 7 day free trial or just sign up for a plan (between $12-$24/ month for an individual account less if you team up with some other teachers and buy it together)
2. Plagium offers five free quick searches a day in English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, or Spanish. If you create a free account, you can run a few free deep searches with the 8,000 credits they give you. 60,000 units is $1.00 and estimated to be valid for about 10 searches. This is not my favorite site, but it is fine for a fast check if you do less than 5 a day. It lets you copy and paste text or upload a file.

Before you start let me give you a few tips.

1. Let your students know that you use a program, but DO NOT tell them which program you use.

2. Use a few and find your favorite. Plagiarism Checker.net gives reviews of different programs so you can look up their opinion as well.

3. Don't let the machine take away your common sense. For example one of the essays contained, "What else does the reader need to know" and that phrase popped up as plagiarism.  In that case it is probably just a popular phrase and not something copy and pasted.  

There are other ways to deter plagiarism but using these is a great start.

Do you use the Internet to check for plagiarism? Has it gone well for you? What's your favorite site? I'd love to know more about your reactions!

Speaking With Confidence: Hot Seat

When I first started studying Spanish in Spain my friend went with me to a shop. I ordered my food and had the man ask, "What?" I immediately clammed up and turned to my friend, who repeated the order. She then gave me some of the best advice I have ever received:

"You know most of the time when they ask you to repeat yourself it isn't that you said it wrong, it is just you said it without confidence." She continued, "You spoke lower and were harder to hear. Just say it again a bit clearer and louder and you'll be fine" 

I tell a lot of my students to remember this when they are speaking to native speakers. When we speak a foreign language, we are often afraid of being wrong, or of making a fool of ourselves. Sometimes I start class by telling them about a time I was particularly foolish in my second language (Spanish).

Recently I went to the store trying to buy a light bulb, the problem was I didn't know the word.. 
 
Me: I am looking for light?
Worker: What?
Me: Light
Worker: I don't know what you want.
Me: I am looking for a ball of glass that gives light. 
Worker: Ummmm
Me: OK, do you sell lamps?
Worker: Yes
Me: Can you please take me to the lamps 
Worker: Here are lamps
Me: I want to buy the thing that goes here *point to spot a light bulb would go*
Worker: Oh! We don't have those.
Me: What are they called?
Worker: Light bulbs
Me: Thanks

This is a great example of using circumlocution when you don't know a word, and something I try to get my students to practice a lot.

Here are a few versions of the game Hot Seat, which helps your students to practice describing a word when they don't know the word and speaking loudly.

HOT SEAT

I am sure you've seen this one before. I like it a lot, but it requires some classroom management so be sure you have a good technique to settle classes down. 

The traditional version 

1. Divide classes into groups of 3-5 students

2. Put as many chairs facing away from the whiteboard as there are groups.  

3. One person from each group sits in the chair. 

4. Optional: I put blindfolds on my students to make sure no one peeks.

5. Write the vocabulary word / simple word you want students to guess.

6. Count to three and have them go at it!

7. The first team whose person in the chair says the answer so the teacher can hear it wins a point for their team. 

8. Then rotate another student in and continue.

RULES: No L1 may be used, and the word itself cannot be used. If L1 or the word are used that team is disqualified and loses a point.

Why it is awesome? Have you ever had your entire class start talking at the same time? It makes it kinda hard to hear, right? This means for the students to get the answer they have to shout their answer.

Don't Slip Up

1. Divide classes into groups of 3-5 students

2. Put as many chairs at the front of the class as there are groups.  

3. One person from each group sits in the chair. 

4. Give each group a slip of paper with a different word.

5. Count to three and have them go at it!

6. The first team whose person in the chair says the answer so the teacher can hear it wins a point for their team. 

7. Then rotate another student in and continue.

Why it is awesome? This has the same noise level (meaning students really need to shout) but this time each group has a different word (meaning students can't overhear clues from nearby groups). There's also no need for a blindfold meaning nonverbal communication can be used.

Taboo it

1. Divide classes into groups of 3-5 students

2. Put as many chairs at the front of the class as there are groups.  

3. One person from each group sits in the chair. 

4. Give each group a slip of paper with a different word AND 5 related words they can't use e.g. if the word is Idiom you can't say: phrase, words, literal, figurative or English. Check out the game taboo for more examples. 

5. Count to three and have them go at it!

6. The first team whose person in the chair says the answer so the teacher can hear it wins a point for their team. 

7. Then rotate another student in and continue.

Why it is awesome? Students really need to think of what they are saying since they have these no-nos. It is a lot like taboo except they have group members to help them.

Round, Round

1. Have one student volunteer

2. Sit the student in an office chair and spin him around 10 times (Why? Because its fun!)

3. Put a blindfold on the student.

4. Write a word on the board.

5. Walk to the back of the classroom.

6. Count to three and have the students start shouting clues!

7. Once the word is guessed let another student try.

Why it is awesome? This has the same noise level (meaning students really need to shout) but this time students are working together. And the students all want to spin around in the chair so they'll be eager to volunteer. 

Do you have a twist on hot seat or another game you play to encourage students to practice Circumlocution? I'd love to hear about it.