# Plagiarism in GCSE controlled assessments



## Hellsbells (May 10, 2013)

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## goldenecitrone (May 10, 2013)

What was the sentence? 'To be or not to be, that is the question.'


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## spanglechick (May 10, 2013)

How did he do it?  If he committed it to memory I think there's a case that that's learning from research rather than plagarism.

In CAs for my subject we have to supervise them at all times and they aren't able to access the internet, so I'd be fairly impressed if they did that.


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## skyscraper101 (May 10, 2013)

'committed to memory from extensive research' combined with the George Harrison vs Ronnie Mack defence (subconcious plagarism).


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## skyscraper101 (May 10, 2013)

Or 'I dun know not nothin about nothin... ...what _is_ the internet?' - said in cockney. That might work.


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## Hellsbells (May 10, 2013)

I'm guessing he had it written down & brought it in the assessment with him.


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## Firky (May 10, 2013)

It's pretty easy to memorise one sentence.

Seems a shitty thing to do over GCSEs.


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## Hellsbells (May 10, 2013)

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## mrkikiet (May 10, 2013)

I would put money on it that students have plagiarised considerably more than one line.

We had students memorising whole chunks of essay for their Controlled Assessments. We spotted it, partly due to their errors, and made them re-write with a different title. A different school, with a focus that isn't purely exams, may have awarded them 0. I wanted to give them 0 but wasn't allowed to be the HoD, one of many reasons I am leaving.


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

Another controlled assessment today. Just been looking throught their essays and there's more plagiarism  Worse than before as well.


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## Shippou-Sensei (May 11, 2013)

Plagurism is fucking rampant.  it's rediculous.


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## AKA pseudonym (May 11, 2013)

Plagurism is fucking rampant. it's rediculous.


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)




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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

This doesn't answer my question on what to do though


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## free spirit (May 11, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> It turns out one of my students has plagiarised a line of his controlled GCSE essay from the internet. My manager spotted it during internal verification. Everyone's making a huge fuss about it, wanting to contact the exam board, give the student zero for the assessment etc. It's one sentence though - that's it!! Does anyone have any experience of this or know what the procedures are?


that's not plagiarism, that's a kid who's not been taught properly how to use quotes in his essays - ie teachers fault not the kids.

tell the teachers who're wanting to ruin this kids academic career to wind their necks in and use this as an example of something they need to improve on in their teaching methods ffs.


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## Shippou-Sensei (May 11, 2013)

Really the college needs to man the fuck up and re-run the course

they won't of course  but  there you go.


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## Shippou-Sensei (May 11, 2013)

free spirit said:


> that's not plagiarism, that's a kid who's not been taught properly how to use quotes in his essays - ie teachers fault not the kids.
> 
> tell the teachers who're wanting to ruin this kids academic career to wind their necks in and use this as an example of something they need to improve on in their teaching methods ffs.


 
this isn't necessarily true

some students just don't get it no matter how clear you paint the picture

education is a two way process.   there isn't an easy to identify cause of the problem


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

free spirit said:


> that's not plagiarism, that's a kid who's not been taught properly how to use quotes in his essays - ie teachers fault not the kids.
> 
> tell the teachers who're wanting to ruin this kids academic career to wind their necks in and use this as an example of something they need to improve on in their teaching methods ffs.


 
It wasn't a quote. It was a random sentence stuck in the middle of a paragraph of his own writing.


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## BoatieBird (May 11, 2013)

Is it just 1 sentence?  Seems really harsh if that's all it is.
Does the college have a plagiarism policy?

There are a number of detection programmes that can be used - have all of the students had their work put through detection software?
If not, and this was just spotted by chance then it does seem unduly harsh (not to mention unfair)


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

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## equationgirl (May 11, 2013)

But to be fair if they've never been taught how to properly quote from a text. it WILL look like plagiarism even though it isn't really.

What have you discovered?


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

equationgirl said:


> But to be fair if they've never been taught how to properly quote from a text. it WILL look like plagiarism even though it isn't really.
> 
> What have you discovered?


 
..


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## clicker (May 11, 2013)

i'm sure in the good old days, revising from a real bona fide text book for o'levels ,writing copious notes with ink pen and scratchy papered rough book,you were just as likely to inadvertentky slip in the odd text book sentence.....thankfully harder to detect.


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## free spirit (May 11, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> It's an adult learner. And I'm the teacher! It wasn't a quote. It was a random sentence stuck in the middle of a paragraph of his own writing. I'd love to have had the luxury of having time to teach students how to use quotes properly, but in a 4 month GCSE course, I've struggled to even get them through the set texts, never mind anything else!


ok, maybe I misphrased that - it's a fault with the teaching, not necessarily the teacher if you're being expected to teach the course in too short a time, though tbh I do wonder about your description of this as a luxury.

either way, if you've never taught them about using quotes properly, then your institution has no business thinking about punishing the student for plagiarism IMO. 

I seriously suggest you have a proper discussion with where you work about the need to include a lesson on the proper use of quotations vs plagiarism to avoid this issue in future, along with some other serious conversations it seems you need to have with them about their competence to manage such courses. 

sorry if this seems harsh, but frankly your descriptions of how the course was run makes it seem more like the students should be suing the college than the college looking to strip them of their GCSE for something they've not taught them about IMO.


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## free spirit (May 11, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> this isn't necessarily true
> 
> some students just don't get it no matter how clear you paint the picture
> 
> education is a two way process. there isn't an easy to identify cause of the problem


thing is I was right, they hadn't been taught about it at all.


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

free spirit said:


> sorry if this seems harsh, but frankly your descriptions of how the course was run makes it seem more like the students should be suing the college than the college looking to strip them of their GCSE for something they've not taught them about IMO.


 
no, i totally agree. I'm on the students side here.


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## Shippou-Sensei (May 11, 2013)

free spirit said:


> thing is I was right, they hadn't been taught about it at all.


Good for you.

I just wanted to point out  that  in this context  there is often not a clear cut answer.


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

would anyone mind if I PM them a section of one students essay, just so i know whether it really is that bad...


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## free spirit (May 11, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> no, i totally agree. I'm on the students side here.


glad to hear it.

one thing you could suggest would be that the college acknowledges they#re at fault for not including a section on the use of quotes vs plagiarism, and does this by the book in terms of failing those who're found to be plagiarising, but then offers them a free resit, plus a lesson about the use of quotes and plagiarism.

then includes this basic prerequisite for preparing students for exams as a standard part of their course from then on.

This might piss the students off initially, but long term they're far better off to actually know this stuff than not.

that'd be my suggestion, but it's not the easy route.


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

Crap, read another one now where whole paragraphs are plagarised


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## free spirit (May 11, 2013)

looks like you've got a problem then.

what subject are you teaching?


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## Shippou-Sensei (May 11, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> would anyone mind if I PM them a section of one students essay, just so i know whether it really is that bad...


 
i'll give it a go.  i've done a lot of assessing.  been the unofficial IV


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

free spirit said:


> looks like you've got a problem then.
> 
> 0


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

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## Metal Malcolm (May 11, 2013)

We've had some problems at our Uni with plagiarism, but students have to submit as a word file or pdf so we can run it through plagiarism software. Are these typed or handwritten essays? What our plagiarism software does is give a percentage mark. Almost anything anyone writes can seem plagiarised, odd sentences etc, but it's only when you get a mark of 30-40% or above that it gets flagged. I can't imagine one sentence would ever be a problem, but that's a different qualification and subject...


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## free spirit (May 11, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> GCSE English


I'm really struggling with this.

How can a GCSE english course not include teaching the students about the proper use of quotations vs plagiarism?

If you're right and it's not part of the standard course framework, then that would explain a hell of a lot about the rise of plagiarism in all other subjects, as it's clearly something that should be taught as part of the english GCSE course IMO.


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

Metal Malcolm said:


> We've had some problems at our Uni with plagiarism, but students have to submit as a word file or pdf so we can run it through plagiarism software. Are these typed or handwritten essays? What our plagiarism software does is give a percentage mark. Almost anything anyone writes can seem plagiarised, odd sentences etc, but it's only when you get a mark of 30-40% or above that it gets flagged. I can't imagine one sentence would ever be a problem, but that's a different qualification and subject...


 
Some are typed, some handwritten.


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## Hellsbells (May 11, 2013)

free spirit said:


> I'm really struggling with this.
> 
> How can a GCSE english course not include teaching the students about the proper use of quotations vs plagiarism?
> 
> If you're right and it's not part of the standard course framework, then that would explain a hell of a lot about the rise of plagiarism in all other subjects, as it's clearly something that should be taught as part of the english GCSE course IMO.


 
There hasn't been any course framework - it's been a shambles! I totally agree with what you're saying. But having said that, I can't believe that students (adults!) who've lifted chunks of their essays straight from the internet really don't realise this is plagiarsm. They know the difference between a quote and plagarism!


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## Metal Malcolm (May 11, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> Some are typed, some handwritten.


 
So someone's spotted that this sentence is plagiarised, just because it happens to be the same as something on the internet? To me, it doesn't sound like they have a case to answer. Hard to tell without seeing it in context, but surely it could just be subconscious or chance similarity?

Those with whole paragraphs though, there's definitely a case to answer there.


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## barney_pig (May 11, 2013)

I remember my o level English exam (30 years ago), there was a question requiring the writing of a poem,I was completely stumped, and from memory wrote out the lyrics of down in a tube station by the Jam.
Never heard anything more about it. And got a C.


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

,


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

barney_pig said:


> I remember my o level English exam (30 years ago), there was a question requiring the writing of a poem,I was completely stumped, and from memory wrote out the lyrics of down in a tube station by the Jam.
> Never heard anything more about it. And got a C.


 
I got a B for GCSE English oral and I never even took the exam


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## Metal Malcolm (May 12, 2013)

Who's at the exam board? At the uni we have external examiners come in to assess, and if I had issues with how the course had been handled, they're the people I would raise it with, if the in-house assessors hadn't been any use.

Difficult situation. If you think the students deserve to pass, I'd say nothing, but only if you can claim ignorance should it be discovered after the fact. And if that's the case, you might want to delete this thread...


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

m


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## toggle (May 12, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> How do you delete a thread? ! (just in case)


 
you pm a mod


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## equationgirl (May 12, 2013)

Helps if there's not many posts on it.


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

have edited out some of my posts, but after marking all day and finding more and more plagiarism issues, I decided I have to be honest.
Anyway, my question now is, does anyone know the procedure? If a student has plagiarised, say 1 third of their essay, do they get marks deducted/a fail for that assessment/a fail for the whole course....?


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

If there's that much plagiarism then it sounds like their has been an issue with the teaching.  Have you really not explained quoting/referencing to them?

I am in the final module of my degree and am still making referencing mistakes.  I don't think it is that unlikely that adult learners doing a GCSE in English would make mistakes with quotations.  Obviously 1/3 of an essay is different.

How much time did you spend on what is/isn't allowed in essays, what plagiarism is?


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## emanymton (May 12, 2013)

This might be a silly question but do you think they are deliberately 'cheating' or as issues around referencing and plagiarism where not discussed with them they might not get what they have done wrong? It might have a bearing on how the exam board approach things, would certainly give them grounds for complaints against the college.


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

These aren't referencing errors. Theyre not the kind of essays that have referencing in them, just short quotes from the text they're writing about, which they all understand how to use properly.


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

Do they understand what plagiarism is though, what the rules are?  Have they been explicitly taught how and why to quote things?


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## ddraig (May 12, 2013)

did you actually go to teachers training OP? or learning on the job by asking here? no fellow teachers to discuss with?


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

Yes and no, not right now


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

I really can't believe that an adult would have no concept that copying half their essay from the internet and pretending it's their own work is ok.


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## toggle (May 12, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> I really can't believe that an adult would have no concept that copying half their essay from the internet and pretending it's their own work is ok.


 
i've met people into the third year of a degree that had never bothered doing an6yhting other than copying the references off whatever wiki articles they precised.


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

Did they have internet access while writing the essay, or were they writing it from their notes?

To be honest, if they were never told what plagiarism was and what the rules are then I think they have grounds to complain.  If lots of your class have plagiarised large chunks, then either they are all sneaky cheats who thought they would get away with it or something has gone wrong with how the course was taught.

As I said, even in the 3rd year of a degree we are reminded with every essay what the rules are with plagiarism and what is/isn't acceptable.


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## BoatieBird (May 12, 2013)

Doesn't the college have any kind of plagiarism policy in place?


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## spanglechick (May 12, 2013)

ddraig said:


> did you actually go to teachers training OP? or learning on the job by asking here? no fellow teachers to discuss with?


thing is, if it happened in my assessments I'd talk to the exams secretary and see what penalty was due.  but Hellsbells is in a pretty unique situation, in that her students have been fucked around by the college, have had a tiny fraction of the appropriate learning hours, an under-resourced course, and she has a singularly unsupportive set of colleagues.

the controlled assessment is a ridiculous beast: designed to replace coursework, it's neither one thing nor another - you can't offer feedback or direction (or catch them plagiarising and make them do it again), but they can prepare their own 'notes' to help them write it, which apparently opens up a risk of them copying stuff off the internet and passing it off as their own.


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## free spirit (May 12, 2013)

Thora said:


> Did they have internet access while writing the essay, or were they writing it from their notes?
> 
> To be honest, if they were never told what plagiarism was and what the rules are then I think they have grounds to complain. If lots of your class have plagiarised large chunks, then either they are all sneaky cheats who thought they would get away with it or something has gone wrong with how the course was taught.
> 
> As I said, even in the 3rd year of a degree we are reminded with every essay what the rules are with plagiarism and what is/isn't acceptable.


this.

though we'd not be reminded every time - it's covered in detail at the start of the course, and you'd be expected to know it from then.

it's an english GCSE course, it should be covered, if it hasn't then this is a problem with the teaching, and the mass plagiarism being reported is the result of that.

Sorry if this isn't the response the OP was hoping for with this thread.


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## ddraig (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> thing is, if it happened in my assessments I'd talk to the exams secretary and see what penalty was due. but Hellsbells is in a pretty unique situation, in that her students have been fucked around by the college, have had a tiny fraction of the appropriate learning hours, an under-resourced course, and she has a singularly unsupportive set of colleagues.
> 
> the controlled assessment is a ridiculous beast: designed to replace coursework, it's neither one thing nor another - you can't offer feedback or direction (or catch them plagiarising and make them do it again), but they can prepare their own 'notes' to help them write it, which apparently opens up a risk of them copying stuff off the internet and passing it off as their own.


ok fair enough
apols for presuming it was a normal teaching set up HB


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

I do remember in my GCSE or A Level English Lit exam writing loads of stuff I had memorised from Cliff Notes   It was on Thomas More's Utopia, I found the book itself unreadable.  And I got an A.


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## spanglechick (May 12, 2013)

hang on - i don't think i was ever specifically told that i wasn't allowed to copy chunks out of books and pretend it was my own stuff.  i don't think we can say these students are innocents.


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> thing is, if it happened in my assessments I'd talk to the exams secretary and see what penalty was due. but Hellsbells is in a pretty unique situation, in that her students have been fucked around by the college, have had a tiny fraction of the appropriate learning hours, an under-resourced course, and she has a singularly unsupportive set of colleagues.
> 
> the controlled assessment is a ridiculous beast: designed to replace coursework, it's neither one thing nor another - you can't offer feedback or direction (or catch them plagiarising and make them do it again), but they can prepare their own 'notes' to help them write it, which apparently opens up a risk of them copying stuff off the internet and passing it off as their own.


Yes, sounds like the whole course has been a nightmare - not the OP's fault and not the student's fault either.  The college need to be forced into making it right though, not just leaving the students to all fail.


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> hang on - i don't think i was ever specifically told that i wasn't allowed to copy chunks out of books and pretend it was my own stuff. i don't think we can say these students are innocents.


 
thank you!


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> hang on - i don't think i was ever specifically told that i wasn't allowed to copy chunks out of books and pretend it was my own stuff. i don't think we can say these students are innocents.


I don't think I've ever taken any course where plagiarism and not passing off anything else as your own work hasn't been mentioned, several times.


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## spanglechick (May 12, 2013)

Thora said:


> Yes, sounds like the whole course has been a nightmare - not the OP's fault and not the student's fault either. The college need to be forced into making it right though, not just leaving the students to all fail.


yes - but coursework has to be with the exam board on the 15th. there is no more time to make this right.


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

I stil have to flag it up and highlight all the plagurism on the essays now though. I have it down to 2 really bad cases. And one with just a few sentences. So perhaps not as bad as I thought.


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> I stil have to flag it up and highlight all the plagurism on the essays now though. I have it down to 2 really bad cases. And one with just a few sentences. So perhaps not as bad as I thought.


Did you ever mention plagiarism to them, or how to use other sources?  If not then I think you should support students in making complaints/appeals or whatever.


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## spanglechick (May 12, 2013)

Thora said:


> I don't think I've ever taken any course where plagiarism and not passing off anything else as your own work hasn't been mentioned, several times.


different experiences.  it certainly wasn't mentioned when i did my gcses / a-levels, and i don't think it was at uni or either of my post grad courses either, though we were likely given policy documents about it.  there  was a load of stuff at uni about referencing, but that was given to us in writing and seemed to be more about the 'house style' for footnotes etc.  

did you need to be told?  at school, when you memorised those cliff notes, did you think it was ok to do so?


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

of course not. People (especially adults) shouldn't need to be told it's not allowed to copy half the essay from the internet!!! As if they don't know, I mean, come on.


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## emanymton (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> different experiences. it certainly wasn't mentioned when i did my gcses / a-levels, and i don't think it was at uni or either of my post grad courses either, though we were likely given policy documents about it. there was a load of stuff at uni about referencing, but that was given to us in writing and seemed to be more about the 'house style' for footnotes etc.
> 
> did you need to be told? at school, when you memorised those cliff notes, did you think it was ok to do so?


I'm pretty sure it was never mentioned when I did my English GCSE (as far as I ever got) either, don't even think it was relevant.


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> did you need to be told? at school, when you memorised those cliff notes, did you think it was ok to do so?


Yeah, I don't think I thought it was cheating - I'd remembered things I'd read that were relevant to the question and written them down.  Though even by GCSE we'd been told to put things in our own words.  I don't think at that point I'd have considered it A Big Deal though.

I can well imagine GCSE students reading things, writing them down in their notes and then rewriting them in a controlled essay - more the students who have included sentences here and there rather than whole chunks.

The students who have plagiarised a 3rd of their essays though - what is going on there?  Did they know that it is plagiarism and is definitely not allowed?  Were they intentionally cheating?  It seems like such a blatant thing for them to do I would wonder if they knew what the rules were.


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

yeah, i'm only really talking about those who copied huge chunks, not the odd sentence. Of course they know plagiarism isn't allowed. Who would honestly think that copying and pasting half your essay from the internet is ok?


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

maybe they were just hoping no one would notice. They've all got to the stage (due to crapness of the course) where they're all a bit desperate


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

But presumably the ones who copied odd sentences are being failed too?


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

I do find it odd that there were no rules explained for the controlled assessments, or that them being all their own work was never mentioned.


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

I don't know whether they'll be failed. i don't know what the policy is.


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## emanymton (May 12, 2013)

Thora said:


> Yeah, I don't think I thought it was cheating - I'd remembered things I'd read that were relevant to the question and written them down. Though even by GCSE we'd been told to put things in our own words. I don't think at that point I'd have considered it A Big Deal though.
> 
> I can well imagine GCSE students reading things, writing them down in their notes and then rewriting them in a controlled essay - more the students who have included sentences here and there rather than whole chunks.
> 
> The students who have plagiarised a 3rd of their essays though - what is going on there? Did they know that it is plagiarism and is definitely not allowed? Were they intentionally cheating? It seems like such a blatant thing for them to do I would wonder if they knew what the rules were.


i agree if people have done some reading and chuck in a couple of relevant sentences they may not see it as cheating if they have not been told they need to reference. After all it sounds like they just need to put in a reference and it would be fine, so why leave it out unless they don't know? A third of the essay though, yeah they should now that's cheating.


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

Have all the students plagiarised to some extent?


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## spanglechick (May 12, 2013)

referencing doesn't come up in controlled assessments, because the format doesn't require them to reference anything.  it's supposed to be all their own work - not from research or whatever.


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## equationgirl (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> referencing doesn't come up in controlled assessments, because the format doesn't require them to reference anything. it's supposed to be all their own work - not from research or whatever.


Can you expand on what a controlled assessment is please? I've not come across them before and I'm not sure I understand what they require.


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## free spirit (May 12, 2013)

Hellsbells said:


> of course not. People (especially adults) shouldn't need to be told it's not allowed to copy half the essay from the internet!!! As if they don't know, I mean, come on.


you're dealing with adult learners taking GCSE English - presumably there are reasons why they're doing this as adults, and you shouldn't make such presumptions IMO.

This isn't something that people are born knowing, it's learned, and for most kids who's parents have a reasonable education and take an interest, then they will teach the kids this stuff if the teachers don't.

A lot of the reason that kids with parents with poor education themselves end up falling behind is because they don't have this back up, and teachers who don't get this make assumptions like you are about the ubiquity of the understanding of stuff they view as second nature, so the kids never get taught it by anyone - and these are the same people who end up going into adult education later in life, at which point it seems you're making the same mistake again.

You're the teacher, you now understand this is an issue, so make sure you teach take this lesson into the next class and reassess the assumptions you make about their prior knowledge, and teach them about the difference between the use of quotes and plagiarism, and particularly amphasise that you will be checking for plagiarism and what the impact is if they're caught plagiarising.

ps IMO the teaching of proper use of quotations goes hand in hand with the teaching about not plagiarising other peoples work, if one isn't done then the other makes no sense to the students as they see examples of people using other people's writing within their work all the time. Also, if you're not going to teach this in English, then who else is going to teach it, and why should other subject tutors have to teach such basics of the use of the english language just because the English teachers can't be arsed to do it?


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## stuff_it (May 12, 2013)

free spirit said:


> I'm really struggling with this.
> 
> How can a GCSE english course not include teaching the students about the proper use of quotations vs plagiarism?
> 
> If you're right and it's not part of the standard course framework, then that would explain a hell of a lot about the rise of plagiarism in all other subjects, as it's clearly something that should be taught as part of the english GCSE course IMO.


I don't remember being taught anything about how to quote correctly at GCSE. That said we didn't have any exams you could take your own notes in to back then either. 

Not like the dire warnings you get at uni certainly, but IIRC the beginning of the course was mismanaged by the college, including letting Hellsbells know what needed to be covered.


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## spanglechick (May 12, 2013)

equationgirl said:


> Can you expand on what a controlled assessment is please? I've not come across them before and I'm not sure I understand what they require.


controlled assessments are basically coursework done under exam conditions.  so students go to lessons, prepare notes and then can bring those notes into the controlled assessment to help them write the essay.  notes should not be a draft of the essay.  teachers are not allowed to help or advise during the assessment.  if done on computer, computers should not have access to the internet.  students should not have access to their controlled assessments in between writing sessions.  controlled assessments may not be marked and returned for students to improve upon.


at gcse level, they don't require research etc, not least as it would be problematic to bring this research into the controlled assessment without it being seen as 'too developed notes'.


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## free spirit (May 12, 2013)

this entire thread is pretty depressing tbh.


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## equationgirl (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> controlled assessments are basically coursework done under exam conditions. so students go to lessons, prepare notes and then can bring those notes into the controlled assessment to help them write the essay. notes should not be a draft of the essay. teachers are not allowed to help or advise during the assessment. if done on computer, computers should not have access to the internet. students should not have access to their controlled assessments in between writing sessions. controlled assessments may not be marked and returned for students to improve upon.
> 
> 
> at gcse level, they don't require research etc, not least as it would be problematic to bring this research into the controlled assessment without it being seen as 'too developed notes'.


Thank you, spangles, I think I get it now.


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

free spirit said:


> Also, if you're not going to teach this in English, then who else is going to teach it, and why should other subject tutors have to teach such basics of the use of the english language just because the English teachers can't be arsed to do it?


To be fair, if the OP isn't a teacher and hasn't taught GCSEs before, then she might not have realised what needed to be covered rather than not being arsed.


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## spanglechick (May 12, 2013)

free spirit said:


> ps IMO the teaching of proper use of quotations goes hand in hand with the teaching about not plagiarising other peoples work, if one isn't done then the other makes no sense to the students as they see examples of people using other people's writing within their work all the time. Also, if you're not going to teach this in English, then who else is going to teach it, and why should other subject tutors have to teach such basics of the use of the english language just because the English teachers can't be arsed to do it?


 

why is it down to english? lots of subjects use quotes - history comes to mind.  but directly quoting evidence from a poem or a letter and then writing about it, is conceptually different to taking a chunk of someone else's essay and making it seem like you wrote it.

I work with lots of special needs students, and i think you're being pretty patronising if you think that those who were anywhere near the ability level of gcse, wouldn't see the difference.

at any rate, i'm sure hellsbells has said these are second language speakers who need to pass english gcse to be accepted on PGCE courses - so by definition, already graduates in their own language.


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## Hellsbells (May 12, 2013)

i'm the total opposite of someone who can't be arsed thanks! I've nearly killed myself teaching this GCSE, trying to do everything i can for these students. Today has been horrible


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

Sounds like neither you nor the students should have been in this position.  Did they pay for the course?


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## free spirit (May 12, 2013)

Thora said:


> To be fair, if the OP isn't a teacher and hasn't taught GCSEs before, then she might not have realised what needed to be covered rather than not being arsed.


I refer you to my last comment.

if that is the case, then the college had no business dumping them into this class in this way - fair enough if they were an experienced English teacher, but the college shouldn't have offered the course if they weren't in a position to offer it either with a suitably experienced teacher, or with a newly qualified teacher who they have the personnel and systems in place to support properly though the course.

Though from the comments on this thread, Hellsbells doesn't seem to view it as being something that ought to need to be taught, hence my can't be arsed comment.

My issue is really with the system itself,and I have previously worked trying to pick up the pieces of the kids that this system has chewed up and spat out, none of whom IMO deserved to have been failed by the mainstream teaching system in the way they were.... and then failed by the money grabbing incompetent bastards I briefly worked for - so I can sympathise on that score, having gone 4 months without seeing any sight of any prepared teaching plan they'd promised they were supplying, leaving us to make it up as we went along.

Anyway, I'm going to walk away from this thread shaking my head sadly. Spangles obviously is experienced in the actual teaching of this course, so will no doubt be able to give the advice on how to sort this situation out within the system.


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## free spirit (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> why is it down to english? lots of subjects use quotes - history comes to mind.


Because English should form the base on which all other subjects can then be taught - to use the english language correctly you have to know how to use quotes, if you don't then you'll end up getting marked down in every other subject as well, and be far more likely to end up plagiarising because you don't know how to do it correctly.

If it's not taught in English, then it then has to be taught multiple times in every other subject, because as you identify, it is a requirement in virtually all subject areas.

I can't actually believe you asked that question tbh - why not let the science teachers also teach about punctuation, grammar, spelling etc because they're also needed in science, history etc.



> but directly quoting evidence from a poem or a letter and then writing about it, is conceptually different to taking a chunk of someone else's essay and making it seem like you wrote it.


I'm not the one needing teaching this stuff, I'm well aware of the difference, my question is why you apparently think this shouldn't be taught, as plagiarism and lack of understanding about how to correctly use quotes are 2 sides of the same coin IMO.



> I work with lots of special needs students, and i think you're being pretty patronising if you think that those who were anywhere near the ability level of gcse, wouldn't see the difference.


really? I think it's pretty shocking that you don't see it as being an English teacher's responsibility to teach this, so there we go - if that's patronising, then so be it.

sorry, I was going to leave this, but I couldn't let that go I'm afraid.


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## Thora (May 12, 2013)

I wonder if the set up of this assessment with them being able to bring in their notes, but not explicitly being told about plagiarism/own words, muddied the waters a bit?


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## free spirit (May 12, 2013)

Just to back up what I'm saying on this thread, here's the main best practice points from a Bristol University presentation on Plagiarism, prevention being better than cure.



> *Assume students know none of our expectations upon arrival. All prior experience differs*
> 
> *Students need to know what the school expects and why plagiarism/poor academic practice is unacceptable.*
> 
> ...




So essentially everything I've said in this thread would be best practice, and the students would have a legal case against your college if they hadn't taught them this and just relied on assumptions of what they ought to know, then failed them for plagiarism.
So if Hellsbells really does care about the students, then you're going to have to take this on the chin, explain to the college that due to the chaotic nature of the course you didn't have the time to teach them properly about the use of quotes, and the seriousness with which plagiarism is taken, and that by just punishing those students the college would risk having legal procedings taken out against them by the student... therefore the college needs to take some responsibilty for this, and no ignore the plagiarism, but come up with a fair way of dealing with this such as offering a free resit or similar to the students.
Then take this sort of guidance on board, for future reference and structure your courses to ensure that this is included within them. If the students then ignore you and plagiarise then at that point you can punish them with a clear conscience. You obviously must know this wouldn't be the case here or you'd not have started this thread.


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## spanglechick (May 12, 2013)

free spirit said:


> Because English should form the base on which all other subjects can then be taught - to use the english language correctly you have to know how to use quotes, if you don't then you'll end up getting marked down in every other subject as well, and be far more likely to end up plagiarising because you don't know how to do it correctly.
> 
> If it's not taught in English, then it then has to be taught multiple times in every other subject, because as you identify, it is a requirement in virtually all subject areas.
> 
> ...


of course it needs teaching in english but not just in english. i teach drama, and yes it's my job, and the science teacher's job, and the maths teacher, to teach correct spelling, punctation and grammar.  you'd be failed by ofsted if you weren't (these days it's called 'literacy across the curriculum' - it used to just be called good teaching). 

i think it needs to be taught as it comes up.  at the point where students are required to refer to the thoughts of other people in their writing, they need to be taught how to reference.  before that (so, at gcse), and from primary school onwards, i think the phrase "do not copy other people's work" is adequate.    And that is a message that is taught - from five year olds doing spelling tests through to students being called to the teacher as s/he marks two identical homeworks... you can't get even a year through the education system without understanding that copying someone else's work and passing it off as your own is cheating.  

You started saying that special needs students would get confused by being allowed to quote a line of poetry so you could talk about the imagery in it, but not allowed to copy someone else's essay and pretend you wrote it yourself.  That's what I'm saying is patronising - do you still stand by that?  Because i know and have known lots of students who might need to take gcse english as adults, but none of those would muddle up those two concepts.  Low literacy doesn't equal thick.  

I notice that in all the points of my post that you couldn't resist addressing, you missed off the last one: if these are all graduates, do you still think they need to be told that plagiarism is wrong?


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## free spirit (May 12, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> of course it needs teaching in english but not just in english. i teach drama, and yes it's my job, and the science teacher's job, and the maths teacher, to teach correct spelling, punctation and grammar. you'd be failed by ofsted if you weren't (these days it's called 'literacy across the curriculum' - it used to just be called good teaching).


well that's fine, but this is an english GCSE we're talking about here where this hasn't been taught, and IMO the primary responsibility for teaching this should fall on the English teachers in the first instance, the rest should just be reinforcing knowledge already provided by the english teacher.



spanglechick said:


> oYou started saying that special needs students would get confused by being allowed to quote a line of poetry so you could talk about the imagery in it, but not allowed to copy someone else's essay and pretend you wrote it yourself. That's what I'm saying is patronising - do you still stand by that? Because i know and have known lots of students who might need to take gcse english as adults, but none of those would muddle up those two concepts. Low literacy doesn't equal thick.


If you're going to accuse me of being patronising could you at least do it about something I've actually said, as you've entirely imagined that. I haven't even mentioned special needs students or poetry ffs.

What I did say is that those who have well educated parents have an advantage over those who don't because the parents will often fill in the educational gaps left by teachers who don't teach stuff like this, whereas those without educated parents are more reliant on the teachers to actually teach them everything they need to know. This thread has supplied examples of the teachers on the thread making assumptions about what the students ought to know, not because they've been taught it on the course, but because they assume the students just ought to know it - which specifically highlights the sort of problem I'm talking about.

Or to put that another way, you're assuming that because you apparently never needed to be taught that this was wrong, that no other students should need to be taught that either. As I said, this stuff isn't some sort of innate knowledge we're born with, it's learned, and kids from different backgrounds, have different levels of opportunity to learn this stuff outside of the formal education set up, so if they're not taught it formally by their teachers, then some will just fall through the cracks and not understand it because nobody considered it their responsibility teach them it.

I'm explicitly not saying that those taking GCSE English as adult education are thick, I am though saying that (at least for those from the UK) it should be obvious that they're more likely than average to have been failed as kids by the education system, as well as more likely to not have had well educated parents to make up for those shortcomings, so assuming that they just automatically know about how to use quotes, paraphrasing etc properly rather than plagiarising would be a mistake.

Regardless of this though, this should apply.


> *Assume students know none of our expectations upon arrival. All prior experience differs*


And if the students are from abroad, then this should apply even more so, as their experiences will obviously differ significantly from each other and from the teachers.


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## barney_pig (May 12, 2013)

Which website a student copies from is also important.
 During mymy access history course, where we were once again rehashing the third reich.
 We had to give presentations on a topic of our own choice. 
 I was amazed to hear a report on the anti Jewish laws drawn almost word for word off a neo nazi site. 
 Prize quotes included, the anti Jewish laws saved Germany from chaos as they only defended Germans from foreign attack. There were no German Jews, only polish immigrants. They controlled all the press and the brothels.
That lesson did not end well.


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## stuff_it (May 12, 2013)

barney_pig said:


> Which website a student copies from is also important.
> During mymy access history course, where we were once again rehashing the third reich.
> We had to give presentations on a topic of our own choice.
> I was amazed to hear a report on the anti Jewish laws drawn almost word for word off a neo nazi site.
> ...


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## barney_pig (May 12, 2013)

I went ballistic. She was a nasty piece of shit,


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## stuff_it (May 12, 2013)

barney_pig said:


> I went ballistic. She was a nasty piece of shit,


I bet she knew exactly what she was doing. Well as much as that type ever does.


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