Google is to ban adverts for essay writing services - following claims that plagiarism is threatening the integrity of university degrees. Ever been accused of plagiarism?
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What's funnier is the way all the companies are up in arms about it, saying they offer legitimate services and always warn their student clients to not pretend the bought essays are their own work. OK then....
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these are useless at my Uni anyway. There's been several students kicked out for using their services, apparently the essays are pretty easy to spot with new software and an experienced marker. Just not worth the risk IMO
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Having caught out students over the years it is pretty easy to spot some aspects of plagiarism. Often it's because you've a pretty poor essay then suddenly a fantastic paragraph, which if you copy and paste into google you can easily find. It doesn't just come from essay writing services, it can just be that a student has cribbed it off the web.
I know a number of universities are really cracking down on this as it is a problem. Unfortunately not all students understand the concept of plagiarism - particularly those from different countries where learning by rote and telling a tutor what you think they want to hear is common teaching practice. So that means you often get people copying from books etc and not referencing properly which they don't see as plagiarism - although as universities do see this as a problem it's a shame if they get caught out and penalised when they thought they were doing okay.
I don't think it's just an issue about the integrity of a degree, it's about a learning experience. If all you do at uni is copy a standard essay then you've not really learned to think for and express yourself - which defeats the purpose of a degree really.
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