Copyscape Saves the Day!

This is a non-web writing story, but I feel proud to have helped out my mom and, possibly, the entire school district. My mom is an independent study teacher and she goes through each day with kids flaking on her and doing the bare minimum. So imagine her surprise when she receives a nice essay on immigration using the words “moreover” and “circumstantial.”

She asked me if there was any way to tell if her student had plagiarized. So I logged into Copyscape (I bought some premium credits) and typed in a portion of the essay. Sure enough this site popped up with the full text of the essay.

She printed out both and is confronting the student tomorrow, and giving copies to the principal. I also wrote down instructions for her and the other teachers so they know how to bust students on Copyscape.

I feel like a super hero.

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November 13, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized 

Comments

4 Responses to “Copyscape Saves the Day!”

  1. Lewis (2 comments.) on November 13th, 2007 10:40 pm

    Damn it! You are helping teachers bust the smart kids! The ones who know how to avoid the silly hard work those other kids put in… ;)

    I guess the lesson here is that he should have hired you instead to write it for him!!

  2. wordvixen (18 comments.) on November 14th, 2007 1:10 am

    Good on yer! I love their slogan “It’s not cheating, it’s collaborating”.

    Funny thing is, I never cheated (on purpose, anyway), but I always wondered why the kids who did, didn’t know enough to dumb down their papers a bit. One spelling error, a few misplaced commas, and a few simplified words is all it takes. I’m totally against cheating, I just don’t understand why people who do it don’t at least try not to get caught.

  3. courtknee on November 14th, 2007 2:16 am

    Thanks for coming by Lewis! :)

    Wordvixen…I laughed at that too! No…it’s cheating!

    And that’s what I told my mom. If she were really smart, she would have changed things and made it seem like her. It was a good essay, but out of character for her. She could have altered it and made it her own.

    Not that I’m advocating that at all…… :)

  4. Julia (4 comments.) on November 15th, 2007 9:37 pm

    “It’s not cheating, it’s collaborating”.

    That’s horrible! Wow… the audacity involved in creating such a site! Apparently it’s been around for a while, too. I can’t believe it!

    (Testing out HTML with my quote.)

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