Tomorrow I am giving another of my “thou shall not plagiarize” lectures to masters students. While I like giving this lecture since it gives an opportunity to get discussions going on the limitations between using other peoples work and stealing – I am sometimes concerned that the lecture may instead turn into “thou shall not get caught”
OK so I understand that the students don’t want to get caught , they are nervous and unsure about where the borders go. But there is still a nasty undercurrent of howto copy without getting caught in the questions many students ask.
Its very similar to the students who are very concerned about the number of pages an assignment must be without understanding the reason for this number or that the reader actually want content on the pages.
So the day begins with explaining plagiarism, references, writing etiquette and legal positions. Then after a short lunchbreak its off to grade two final essays…
TGIF.