Plagiarism and Privacy

[Richard Robin]

Let me add my voice to those opinions so eloquently voiced by Laura Olson
and Genevra Gerhart. Just today my students and I were discussing the
Web's possibilities for cheating -- paper mills set up as Web sites. Or
even more ingenious: "made to order" papers and compositions written by
a stable of writers and paid for by secure credit card transfer (whenever
Netscape makes that available).

But the net cuts both ways. Using SEELANGS (or any other academic
listserv) to verify the honesty of student work is collegial cooperation
at its technological best. I have followed the original sleuthing with
vicarious interest. But I suspect I speak for nearly all of us when I say
that I would be hard put to name the colleges of the case(s) mentioned.
Some of us might have low enrollments, but there are still too many
students (and too many emigre kids, for that matter) at too many schools to
start worrying about witch-hunts.
-Rich Robin
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Richard Robin     <robin at gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
Dept. of German and Slavic Languages and Literatures
The George Washington University
W A S H I N G T O N,  D. C. 20052