I'm going to cut myself off right there. Yes, I do have more going on in my life than just English class. But when I'm working on papers for English, I'm at my computer, and I'm typing, and I get ideas that can't fit into the paper, but I still want to write about them, and the only reasonable place to do that is this blog. That's why all I write about recently are my papers. Carry on, then.
--class, and the professor gives three examples of some paragraph. She gives a quote from a made-up source, and then writes three (fake) "student" paragraphs. We get to pick out which ones are good and which ones are not. Meaning, we look to see if everything is cited and quoted properly, and make sure none of the phrases are taken without quoting (as in plagiarism). And they're always REALLY over the top examples. It's like.... seriously, nobody can be that stupid.
So, I have a paper to write for CJST (criminal justice. I don't feel like typing that out every time, so I abbreviated it. Memorize it.). I'm writing about forensic anthropology. Now, that is the subject of the Fox show, Bones. So, there should be lots of interest in the topic, right? No. There is like NOTHING on the internet about forensic anthropology outside of Wikipedia, and we all know that you can't use THAT monstrosity in a paper. So I've got like two PBS articles and one from the Court TV library (which is actually a REALLY awesome resource).
I try running a search on forensic anthropology, and it brings up a student paper. Now, I figure that I'll check out this paper to see what sources she used, and maybe that will point me in the right direction. But while I'm looking at this paper, I might as well read the content, yeah?
OMG.
EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. Is copied and pasted directly from the PBS and Court TV articles. Really. No quotations, not even properly paraphrased. I mean WORD. FOR. WORD. It's like.... seriously? SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE? There is one paragraph that is just.... you know what, I'm just going to show you.
This is the paragraph from the PBS article:
The field of forensic anthropology is relatively new. Although there were famous grisly murders of the 19th century solved through examination of bones and body fragments, it wasn't until the 1930s that the relationship between anthropology and the police was formally acknowledged. The gangland murders of the 1930s forced the FBI to turn to physical anthropologists.
And now the paragraph from the student paper. And I'm not going to give you the link for this one because it has the student's name on it and stuff. So sue me for plagiarism.
The field of forensic anthropology is relatively new.During the 19th century, a few famous gruesome murders were solved through the examination of bones and body fragements, but it was not until the 1930s that the relationship was formerely acknowledged between anthropology and the police force (PBS). Anthropology proved to be an asset to the FBI in the gangland murders in the 1930s.I mean.... really. Nice try, but no. Actually.... that wasn't even a nice try. That was just....
I mean, seriously, I just wish I knew what grade the student got on this. I'd have flunked her ass right out of that school.
