Let me start with an apology of sorts, I know this isn't exactly a "substantive" diary, but I am hoping to get some feedback from this forum.
I teach as an adjunct on a (very) part time basis at the college level. Some semesters I don't teach at all, others I may have as many as three classes. I teach different classes, all at least somewhat related to my actual expertise.
Normally, my grading structure is built around exams, quizzes, and oral presentations. This semester for one class I decided to include a research paper. This is the first time that I have done so.
I have been getting papers submitted to me, and I am stunned by how blatantly the students are plagiarizing. One paper after another, within three sentences it is clearly not the work of the student, and I go to Google, type the sentences in, and find where they are stealing from.
Have the rules changed since I was in college? Those were pre-internet days, where to copy something you had to actually sit down and retype it, which at least pushed you to paraphrase a little bit so as not to be handing in an exact replica of your source material. Now, you can just cut and paste a twenty page paper in a matter of minutes.
I should qualify that this isn't a high level University by any means. (If you saw how obvious it was, you'd understand what I mean. Some students have not bothered to take out specific references that point directly to the actual author). Still, I almost feel like maybe the culture has changed since I was in college.
One other note- for one student in particular, I typed in the first two sentences in quotation marks on Google. I got over 2600 hits using those exact two sentences, and checking on a handful, all seem to be using the same exact three or four paragraphs. Some of these are well known sites, or are affiliated with major academic institutions. I have no idea who originated these paragraphs, but they are being stolen left and right. Can I even blame the student for thinking this is okay? Is it even plagiarism any more?
Any way, I have to run to another class, but I wanted to post this, and see if maybe I can get some perspective from others in the field. Thanks for all comments, like I said I will be away from my computer for a while, so I won't be replying until much later, after the diary has probably dropped from sight.
Thanks.
EDITED: Thanks for all the comments below (had an unexpected break here for a few minutes). Can't reply to all, but just some general thoughts- the school has a pretty explicit and harsh policy in place. I am required to attach it to the syllabus, so they've all gotten it. I'm not in a position to have them do it over, the class is ending (we are actually on a trimester schedule). If I enforce the rule, I am going to have to fail about 35 out of 50 students, and I could make an argument to fail another 10. I spoke with the Dean of the school, who is a friend, and she more or less told me to fail them, but pointed out that it was up to me to decide how to handle it, which I am taking as her meaning that, in her official capacity, she can't tell me to tolerate this going on, but as a friend that if I fail the bulk of the class I may not be teaching here much more in the future.
Oh, as for how I'll be dealing with this in the future- there will be no research papers, other than of the extra credit variety. I actually decided to try this to save me some aggravation from having to come up and grade quizzes every week, looks like I just pushed the pain down the road. Oh well.