Sunday, in the Miami Herald, an article ran concerning wind power and environmental problems. It naturally caught my eye and my first reaction was one of disbelief, then disappointment. Apparently, as reported by the Miami Herald, the infrasonic waves that are caused by the motion of the windmill causes a varied amount health concerns for those who live near wind power fields. Symptoms include headaches, insomnia and stiffness of shoulders, to name a few. It is ironic that as we try to clean up the world we messed up, we still can’t get away from harming ourselves. Read more…
Karen In the News
Remember the “Education President”? I bet you don’t. Well that was George W. Bush Jr.’s slogan and what a preposterous notion! However, thankfully, a new sherriff is in town and one that actually may be worthy of the title of Education President. According to an article in Inside Higher Eduction, President Obama is pushing the idea of a “National Skills College“, a program designed to provide access to educational courses free for community college students and high school students. $500 million a year is expected to be allotted to the program for the first 5 years in order to assist states, colleges and schools in becoming technology friendly with online books and classes. Read more…
Karen In the News
View Above Notre Dame
- Football coach fired because he didn’t get the top recruits for two years in a row (Tyrone Willingham, coincidently African American) and he failed to get his team to the “big money” bowl game two years in a row.
- Priest plagiarizes portion of book on the Pope! (Father Richard McBrien, accused twice of plagiarism…cleared by University once, caught with his pants down the second time!)
- Would anyone like to survey the football team and see how many of them are Catholic? (Sign me up and let me put a Vegas bet on it that it’s a little heavy on the Baptist side!)
You can see where I’m going with this. Notre Dame is abhorrent for making a fuss over the President’s policies on abortion and protesting his appearance when they are no more representative of a Religious Institution than the Knights of Columbus are at a Friday Night Fish Fry. According to Notre Dame History Professor Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C, the percent of Notre Dame staff that checks “yes” on survey as to whether they are Catholic or not is only 53%. What is going on inside the walls of Notre Dame, according to Miscamble, is nothing akin to the Catholic traditions that cosmetically denote the campus.
I don’t mean to rag on an institution that is already having a heck of a time deciding what to do with itself in this world. (Do they let priests marry? Do they pay off former altar boys or go through messy litigation? Questions, Questions, Questions!) It’s a tough time to be Catholic. So how about alienating the President of the United States and getting holier than the Pope, who in 2007 honored Nicholas Sarkozy, the pro-choice President of France, by inviting him to the Vatican and bestowing the title of Honorary Chanoine.
Hmm…What are we saying when our educational institutions are hypocritical and antiquated? Perhaps Notre Dame needs to rethink its priorities and decide what type of school its going to be…one of the greatest football institutions in America or a Catholic banner waving monstrosity of outdated ideals that not even the Pope adheres to.
Karen In the News
Outside of plagiarism just being dead wrong, there are psychological issues involved with taking someone elses work. I’m always preaching anti-plagiarism and being careful about citing information. The resent accusations of plagiarism against Coldplay illustrate how delicate an issue plagiarism is for artists. Basically, Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, is accusing Coldplay of stealing a guitar riff of his in the song Viva La Vida. Yusuf is a little sensative of this issue, as he has, in the past, accused several artists of plagiarism and sued one, The Flaming Lips. So Coldplay has a fight on their hands. Both sides are hurt and both sides think they are right. The only protection either side has is careful documentation of their own work, even as musicians.
Plagiarism is a serious offense and knowing how to avoid it is very important for college students. It follows you throughout your life, even if your rock stars. Lesson learned…document, document, document. Even if we are talking only 8 notes in a scale and only 7 different ones.
Karen In the News
TurnItIn.com is as common to college students blue books, pizza and cheap beer. Write your term paper, submit it to TurnItIn.com and submit the paper and report to your professor. However, not all students want this process to be a part of the academic world. A group of high schools students have taken iParadigms, the owners of TurnItIn.com, to court for copyright infringement. The decision of the suite against TurnItIn.com was released this week, with the court voting that since no transformation of the work takes place, there is no violation of copyright.
This is an excellent victory for both students and colleges and universities. Services like TurnItIn.com assist in the fight against plagiarism and encouraging students to maintain academic integrity of their work. A recent study and subsequent authoring of a book about the study reveals that students care about plagiarism far more than colleges and university administrations give them credit for. Susan D. Blum reveals the results of a three year investigation into college culture and plagiarism in “My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture“. We will be reveiwing her book on this blog next week and I think most of you will be very surprised at what she finds. According to Blum’s findings, one can speculate that most students will applaud the court’s decision in favor of TurnItIn.com. If you have an opinion on the TurnItIn.com decision, we would love to hear it!
Karen In the News
Free College
According to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, a recent trend in private universities is to offer a guarantee that if a student doesn’t graduate in 4 years, the 5th year is free! Pennsylvania’s Juniata College is one of several private schools to launch this program in hopes of attracting financially strapped parents. Since approximately only 1 in 3 college students actually graduate in 4 years, colleges like Juniata are hoping that parents will realize that two thirds of them will need to pay for an extra year they may not have budgeted for and be lured in by the 20% savings. Sound good parents? Well…wait just a minute…You have to have a bit of help from your college student… Read more…
Karen In the News
In a lame bit of reporting by the Chronicle of Higher Education, author Thomas Bartlett “reports” the “shocking” news of “essay mills” being a global phenomena. Even more astounding, Bartlett acts as if it is news that these companies plagiarize what they call “custom” term papers. Furthermore, he asserts that these companies are growing rapidly and “becoming” international. Bartlett’s reporting is lame due to the fact that these companies have always been owned by foreign corporations, never sold anything but plagiarism and, in fact, they are actually dying out rather rapidly. Learn more…. Read more…
Karen In the News
George M. Bodner
A recent study by George M. Bodner, Ph.D, a chemistry Professor at Purdue University, sought to elucidate why students cheat and what can be done about it. The results of the study revealed that students aren’t as devious as once thought, and that “cheating” often times comes as a result of ignorance on proper citation and what constitutes plagiarism. Bodner studied graduate students involved with LANGURE, a group of student and professors involved in developing model curriculum in the areas of science, engineering and various other fields. Results revealed that students at the graduate level have not been taught how to carefully edit, cite and evaluate their own written work. Bodner blames undergraduate professors for not assigning enough written work and then not taking the time to properly assess their student’s written work.
Many graduate level students look towards Paper Masters in order to avoid these issues of plagiarism. In a recent discussion with one graduate student that was looking to order a research paper, the student stated that the sole purpose for searching out help and a model research paper was to have a sample of exactly how to cite properly.
Citation is confusing but as Thomas Holmes, director of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Exams Institute, stated in regards to Bodner’s study: “I usually tell students if it’s more than four words you better be quoting them”. Great advice to live and trust your academic career on when writing a research paper at any level.
Karen In the News
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