Not funny

My plagiarism alert brought me a Press Release today, mint-new!

PRWeb announced: Plagiarism Removal Introduces Plagiarism Checking Services : The service ensures no project has copied content from another body of academic work.

It’s a new service… and it might even be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Plagiarism Removal is a site based in India. If it’s front-page looks familiar, that could be because it bears strong similarities with the WriteCheck website: the fonts, the layout, the icons, the buttons the colours, Continue reading

Breaking the spell

I think I recall that, when Microsoft first added a spell checker to MS Word, there was outcry that it would give unfair advantage to students who could afford Word, as against those who could not, or maybe could not even afford a computer. Fears were also expressed that people would forget how to spell, that children might never learn how to spell, and, of course, claims about the inaccuracies and “lack of intelligence” of spell-checkers.

Never mind that Word was not the first word-processing software to include a spell-check.

Nowadays, we take the use of spell-checkers for granted. Continue reading

Authentic Authenticity

A frequent question in academic and educational forums is, “How much help can a student get?”

The answer, not surprisingly, must be “It depends.”

In the first place, it depends on the terms of the assignment. If the instructions state that the work must be done without help, then no help is permitted.

If the instructions state that the work can or must be carried out in consultation Continue reading