Thoughts on the Shadow Scholar

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published this article, written under a pseudonym, by someone who makes a (rather good) living writing papers for students who cheat. He accuses us (we teachers) of being ignorant of how much of this goes on. In fact, I was perfectly well aware that such services exist; you only [...]

Of Romance, Ferrets and Plagiarism

Apparently the Romance readers and writers blogs were abuzz some time ago with news that one of the hottest writers in their genre had been caught with her pants down (so-to-speak) having stolen word-for-word material from a non-fiction article about ferrets. Ferrets? You may well ask. The author of the ferret article has written most [...]

The Seven Deadly Sins of Plagiarism

Beware of the following: Lust: your sinful desire for a good grade leads you to the ever-so-tempting paper mills. Gluttony: overindulgence in the works of others. Greed: desire for a better grade than you deserve. Sloth: sheer laziness either in failure to do your own thinking and writing, or thinking that you don’t need to [...]