Remember a month or so ago when we all laughed at the student who claimed that Turnitin.com didn't cover Google Blog Search?
After receiving this disturbing comment on my third Keats post, I decided to test for myself. Turns out, the last laugh's on us:
Ignore the red ink and pay attention to the percentages: the first two near-perfect matches are my own failed attempts to upload the complete text of my Keats' posts into the system. I say "failed," but it appears they stuck. After those, however, there's nothing. Four-percent here, three-percent there, but nothing to prevent someone passing off my work as their own. Obviously, I find this deeply unsettling...
Wait, your Keats posts are only 93% similar to themselves? That's some serious Pierre Menard stuff right there.
Posted by: Mike Russo | Monday, 11 December 2006 at 10:49 PM
Yes.... But... Then again, if I received this paper from one of my undergrads, I'd definitely run a line through google, and check out the results: http://www.google.com/search?q=hoist%20screaming%20scholars%20from%20their%20tiny%20boats.
Blog theft is much easier to catch than paper milling. Especially when they steal from, IMHO, an overexposed blog like acephalous.
Posted by: CR | Monday, 11 December 2006 at 11:56 PM
Mike, the other 7 percent is by a certain John Keats.
CR, overexposed!?! Overexposed!?! Oh...I see what you're saying. Yes yes, I'm the Queen of Google-Ranking! All bow down before me!
Seriously though, I'm saddened by the fact that Turnitin.com lacks the common sense required to consult Google. (If you're going to proclaim that you can ensnare even the cleverest of bugs, you should at least thin the cloud a bit with zappers.)
P.S. If I had an undergraduate write "screaming scholars from their tiny boats," I'd probably contact psych. services.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 02:00 AM
You find it unsettling because some undergraduate slacker may get a higher score than he or she deserves on a paper? Does this cause an injury to your fundamental sense of fair play, or do you fear that someone may utilize your blog posts to gain fame, fortune, and status that is rightfully yours? I can understand why plagairism is upsetting to teachers, but I find myself at a loss to understand why a plagairee would get upset.
Posted by: PW | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 10:25 AM
Oh...I see what you're saying.
No, I meant it in the worst possible sense.
Posted by: CR | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 11:04 AM
With regard to the question of overexposure:
The success of Acephalous shows that trying too hard is trying just hard enough.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 11:44 AM
An idea for Scott -- one way to fend off potential student plagiarists might be to make it a point to write blog posts that are too bloggy to work as formal papers: bloggy as in, based on hyperlinks rather than direct quotations, bloggy as in personal (autobiographical), and bloggy as in conversational, slangy, preferably with a proliferation of four-letter words and eccentric little jokes.
Since, formally, materials posted on the internet are especially easy to steal, the best way to forfend thievery is to produce writing that has no other conceivable context than an internet weblog.
Posted by: Amardeep | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 12:56 PM
PW, I'm upset about it from a teacherly perspective. The "passing off my work as their own" is meant as a general indictment of plagiarism.
CR, you tricky bastard!
Yes, Adam, yes!
Amardeep, but that would defeat the purpose of academic blogging entirely, wouldn't it? I mean, if we're taking a respectable turn here, it makes sense to not limit ourselves by writing genre criticism, er, a particular genre of criticism. (I will say though, I thought our posts were well-nigh complementary last night.)
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 01:28 PM
It looks as though utilitarian factors are driving Amardeep toward something like my much-maligned position on academic blogging -- which I myself was driven to by my own melancholia, self-loathing, and despair. It doesn't matter what brings you there, as long as you arrive.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 01:53 PM
But then I would just be wasting all the hours I devote to blogs and blogging...I'd just be procrastinating. Might as well admit I'm depressed and get on with it, then.
Also, to return to CR's comment: shouldn't my overexposure further damn Turnitin.com's inadequacy? If it can't see the big fish, what can it do about the minnows?
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 02:37 PM
Plagiarism is at least, mostly, invisible. Far worse are the people who ask you to do their homework. If they ask in a public forum and you say no way, there's always someone to ask why you're being hard on someone trying to learn, etc.
Posted by: Rich Puchalsky | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 03:04 PM
I personally don't see any problem with plagiarism. It's a good way to finish a book when you just don't have your own ideas.
Posted by: Stephen Ambrose | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 07:04 PM
I agree with Stephen Ambrose. You get tough on plagiarism, and before long you're attacking those of us who unconsciously copy several passages from other novels for our own novels. Lighten up, people!
Posted by: Kaavya Viswanathan | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 07:09 PM
BTW - just checked my logs over at stale ol' AWP, and, yep, the paper pinchers certainly are prowling tonight. It's that time of year... A few too many searches for: "Analysis of The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much" and that sort of thing.
Posted by: CR | Tuesday, 12 December 2006 at 11:06 PM
Currently playing in my logs (which I don't check as often as I should, all things considered):
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Wednesday, 13 December 2006 at 12:46 PM