For once

I had to meet with a student today because of plagiarism. I dread these meetings. I dread them because no matter what the student says, I usually keep the failing grade the same. But today's meeting wasn't as bad. Normally, most of my students get either really angry or they start crying (or both). This person was relatively calm, acknowledged a level of guilt, and was already planning on what to do to correct the situation. They didn't blame me or give me dirty looks. I was quite pleased with this and even let the student into my next course.

I've been debating about giving up on the whole idea of checking for plagiarism. It's a real pain, and nobody is ever satisfied with the consequences. Other TAs don't seem to do it, and I hate playing the "bad cop" out of the group. Frankly, I also get tired of filling out the paperwork and determining the fate of the student just because they ran out of time.

Well, "just because" is obviously not a good enough reason to plagiarize. The other side of the coin is that I wouldn't feel okay if I just let someone get away with turning in an assignment that they stole or bought. I would want to let them know that they got caught and that they will be punished.

It's been getting easier. I've been assigning umbrella topics for the Research class and specific topics for the Composition class. This almost guarantees no plagiarism. Since I've done this, my average in catching plagiarists has gone down to about 2 a semester. Not bad. I also use http://www.Turnitin.com to scan the papers. A year ago, I was pulling my hair out trying to find the source material, but this site does it all for me.

All in all, I don't personally regret the stiff policy on plagiarism. I just hope that the next time around I can completely eliminate it. I don't enforce the classroom like it's a police state, but I would hate to find that my students have been lying to both me and their academic conduct code.


On another note, I am debating about turning in the "keys to the kingdom" and relinquishing my duties as graduate student rep. I've been doing the rep thing for about a year and a half. I think I've made some significant headway. My advisor recommends that I stick with it until the near end of the term. I don't know. I personally don't know if I want to continue with it, but I also worry that all my work towards establishing good faculty-student relations (which we didn't really have before) and master's project requirements (didn't have this either) will go down the drain because the next rep won't focus on these things. Some of the students think that everything is wrong with the world and attempt to fix all of those things. Other students don't voice their opinions because they are shy and afraid of offending the faculty. So, we have ourselves the two polar opposites, people who talk too much and people who don't talk enough. Frankly, I am not sure who would be good for the next position. So, I would rather make sure that I get everything done for my own project before I turn over the position to someone else.

It's a minor dilemna, but I don't have a life outside of grad school, so these are the problems I'm mostly concerned with. What can I say?


On yet another note, I found an email address of a former boyfriend and friend. He managed to get himself into Duke for law school. I sent him an email a few days ago. He just replied today with an email that makes me not want to reply back. Blah. I don't really have much of an interest in seeing high school friends any more. The idea of a reunion used to be cute -- now it doesn't seem like any fun. He also asked about the well-being of another former high school friend I haven't seen in about 10 years. I have no idea how this person is doing. I don't really care that much either. I don't mean to sound cruel and heartless, but how many of us actually keep in touch with our high school friends after 10 years? Sure, there are some friends that I had for quite a bit longer (usually because we also went to college together), but please!