an entire Reading program had to be recalled because the copyright permissions were for the authors work was not obtained. Like she said, that's Publishing 101 -level wrong.

Somebody wasn't following procedure, that's for sure! Reminds me of the time we had to fire an editor for lifting an entire section from someone else's book without obtaining permission--she had a JD, you'd think she'd remember the definition of "plagerism"! We had to do some fancy stepping to avoid a lawsuit.

she had a JD, you'd think she'd remember the definition of "plagerism"!

you'd be surprised. I had to deal with a lot of people who didn't know the meaning of plagiarism when I was teaching at the law school. I remember one case where they decided that she had plagiarized, but that she really didn't know that she had done something wrong, so she just failed the paper.

I wonder what the mentality is there. Plagiarism was a huge no-no drilled into my head right about the same time we were learning creative writing in elementary school, let alone every course I took in college.

Is it that they don't consider it stealing? I'm almost irrationally protective.

I had to deal with a lot of people who didn't know the meaning of plagiarism when I was teaching at the law school.

Ditto. At least the student always claimed s/he didn't know it was wrong to cut and paste text from the Internet into his/her paper. ::rolls eyes forever::

I've had law school administration tell me that it is because "this generation" is so used to file sharing activities that the students don't see anything wrong with it. What the administration does about it seems to be related to 1) the rank of the law school (higher rank, less punishment) 2) the potential of that student to be a rich alum (I'm a cynic, but it comes from my experience)

Timelies all!

Bleah, as if it wasn't bad enough that this cold keeps lingering, now the muscles between my shoulderblades have decided to tighten up. sigh.

I did know a girl who flunked a class in college because she didn't cite anything and claimed she'd never been taught how to properly cite works.

I knew about plagiarism since third grade when a boy got busted for copying The Pokey Little Puppy for some creative writing thing we were doing.

The thing is, even if you don't get the intellectual property argument, there's still the it's-cheating-because-you-didn't-write-it thing. That's pretty fucking obvious, I'd think.

OTOH, my mother had a couple of students (team project) who plagiarized off the handout so there's apparently a lot about it I don't get.

It's not a date. I would go as high as 98% sure.

Guys don't use the same scale. I have been told too often that a guy won't hang out with a chick for any considerable time if he's not angling for something more.

This was told to me by someone with whom I'd spent insane amount of platonic time, but needless to say I didn't go any further with the point.

Just experienced my first blind spot. I really hope I'm not just working my way down the migraine symptom list. I was having a long number dictated to me over the phone and three of the digits disappeared off the paper while I was writing.

No yay.

I had no morals when it came to plagiarism (I do feel terrible that I misspelled it upthread, though!). I remember plagiarizing a 4th-grade project (we had to write our own story, illustrate it, and bind it, and my mind was so blank that I lifted the story from a book I was reading at the time--it was an older book that nobody else seem to have read, so I got away with it) and my 6th-grade report on Sweden (our encyclopedia set at home wasn't World Book but a set no one else had, so I got away with it, too).

I also got ideas for college papers from things people said/stuff I read in other sources, but never lifted things whole-cloth from them, so I felt only partially guilty for not being completely original. I called it "effective plagiarizing," which, along with the ability to bullshit at length, was required for every English major.

I would say that today's Asshat of the Day award goes to the teachers who thought it would be a good idea to stage a gun attack on 11-year-olds.

Nice. Message to asshats: STOP MAKING THE REST OF US LOOK BAD.

No love,
Kristin