Cut-and-Paste Is a Skill, Too (washingtonpost.com)
According to Jason Johnson, maybe we shouldn’t try to fight plagiarism any more:
Research papers — of varying lengths, written without the instructor’s direct supervision — are an academic staple. They’ve been a successful way for teachers and professors to evaluate students because they allow the students to create something that tangibly displays their skills and knowledge without using any class time. But despite all its attractive qualities, the paper is an extremely weak link in academic assessment, largely for the same reasons that it has been successful — the work is done outside the classroom.
The comments on this article are pretty funny. Cognitive Daily has a good response.
I’d post the most memorable plagiarized paper I ever got from a student – note: one needs some grasp of grammar, noun/verb agreement, and sentence structure before one can cut-and-paste convincingly – but some student would probably copy it and hand it in, thus torturing a future colleague.