5 ms·

Not sure whether this anecdote fits the thread well, but does address "don't copy and paste from a website to, well, anywhere without examining what you just pa

Not sure whether this anecdote fits the thread well, but does address "don't copy and paste from a website to, well, anywhere without examining what you just pasted": I was administering a final exam to a programming class. Exam was done on class computers, so with me in the front of the room most of the time I couldn't actually see what everyone was doing (and given the nature of the class, if you cheated it probably wouldn't really help you anyway). Grading one student's submission, the wording of most of the "essay" questions seemed ... odd. Nothing objectively wrong, but everyone has their own writing style and his answers weren't, well, his. Scrolling thru one particular answer there were some blank lines after the answer ... and then a URL. The URL contained much of the test question. Checking the unfamiliar site, it was a paid technical-question-answering service, base price for answers $30 and rising depending on depth, quality & speed of answer. Copying-and-pasting the purchased answers added the source URL to the selected text, proving malicious plagiarism on the final exam. I figure he spent at least $300 to fail that exam and get one strike per the school's "three strikes and you're out" policy.

jacquesm 11y ago
Ouch. Double fail.
jonas21 11y ago
Does your school really have a "three strikes and you're out" policy for plagiarism? It seems like that would almost encourage cheating, up to the point where someone gets their second strike.
- hyperpape 11y ago
  He failed the exam. I assume that "three strikes and you're out" means out of the school. At the schools I went to, I don't think a single plagiarism incident would get a student kicked out. They would fail the assignment or the class.
  - burke 11y ago
    At my school, it was made very explicit that you'd be immediately expelled for plagiarism (subject to appeal, IIRC, but yes: One strike.)
    - will_pseudonym 11y ago
      As it should be. The whole system is underpinned by the assumption that no one can cheat. Everyone knows tons of people cheat, but any university who has a "n-strike" policy for academic dishonesty (aka fraud), is purely in it for the money. To students who busted their asses to graduate legitimately, it's a hard slap in the face.
      - jes 11y ago
        I think I know what you're saying. Still I wonder if perhaps the students that worked diligently and honestly gained more in the long run.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        I was this kind of student, to the bemusement of people at my year. And I can say we like to tell ourselves that - that by honest learning we somehow gained more. But to be honest, what you do at work is so different than what you learn at university that in retrospect, you may just cheat your way through bullshit exams. If you're an autodidact, it could be even better for you, since you won't waste so much time learning nonsense to pass arbitrary performance bars. I'm not encouraging cheating here. But I learned that sometimes you have to accept that you hold to some rules just because morality, and you don't need to invent practical reasons to justify it to yourself and others. Sometimes following the rules leaves you worse off, but the world where people follow those rules is better for everyone than the world where they don't, and I want to live in the former.
        will_pseudonym 11y ago
        I feel much the same way. Especially centered around worthless electives classes when I was studying maths. If I was interested in "Movies & Music," I would be reading about it already, and it's completely unrelated to my subject matter.
- azdle 11y ago
  Usually these policies work where the first strike is a zero on the assignment, the second strike is a F in the class, and the third strike is getting expelled from the school.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  "Three strikes" would be 3 major offenses like flagrant plagiarism/cheating. I was rather surprised buying answers to a final exam wasn't sufficient for expulsion. Didn't dig into the policy details further.
- tgokh 11y ago
  My school gives undergrads one warning before kicking you out for academic dishonesty. However, we've been repeatedly reminded that graduate students know better and we'll get kicked out for a first instance of plagarism
vidarh 11y ago
And I thought it was ridiculous when someone had cut and pasted a page from an Oracle manual in response to a set of pre-screening questions for a hiring round, headers included (for a generic SQL question we expected a one sentence answer to). At least that guy didn't pay for it - to my knowledge at least (he did cut and paste most of his answers from various places, though, and got many of them wrong, including an word-for-word copy of an answer from a forum where the answer he had quoted was torn to pieces by other commenters right below).
- collyw 11y ago
  Isn't the first place you would go to the Oracle manual? I use stack overflow all the time these days (documentation pages before that existed), not quite cutting and pasting but close enough.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > Isn't the first place you would go to the Oracle manual? If I knew the answer, or had a decent notion of the answer? Hell no.
  - Retra 11y ago
    The thing is, if you came to me and said "I know everything in this book", I'd say "so let's save money and buy the book instead of hiring you." Interview questions are an opportunity for you to show what you are worth. If you're worth less than a book, it's not a good sign.
    - daurnimator 11y ago
      The most important skill is to know how to look something up. No one knows everything; or even a majority of things. How fast you can find an answer is what determines your productivity. Whether its via a book, a man page, google, stack overflow, or asking the right people doesn't matter.
      - deleted 11y ago
kcbanner 11y ago
Keep in mind that if the paste buffer includes a newline, everything preceding that newline will be executed. Pasting into an intermediate buffer, like a text editor, would be advisable.
zobzu 11y ago
trust but verify ;-)

jacquesm 11y ago

Ouch. Double fail.

jonas21 11y ago

Does your school really have a "three strikes and you're out" policy for plagiarism? It seems like that would almost encourage cheating, up to the point where someone gets their second strike.

hyperpape 11y ago
He failed the exam. I assume that "three strikes and you're out" means out of the school. At the schools I went to, I don't think a single plagiarism incident would get a student kicked out. They would fail the assignment or the class.
- burke 11y ago
  At my school, it was made very explicit that you'd be immediately expelled for plagiarism (subject to appeal, IIRC, but yes: One strike.)
  - will_pseudonym 11y ago
    As it should be. The whole system is underpinned by the assumption that no one can cheat. Everyone knows tons of people cheat, but any university who has a "n-strike" policy for academic dishonesty (aka fraud), is purely in it for the money. To students who busted their asses to graduate legitimately, it's a hard slap in the face.
    - jes 11y ago
      I think I know what you're saying. Still I wonder if perhaps the students that worked diligently and honestly gained more in the long run.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        I was this kind of student, to the bemusement of people at my year. And I can say we like to tell ourselves that - that by honest learning we somehow gained more. But to be honest, what you do at work is so different than what you learn at university that in retrospect, you may just cheat your way through bullshit exams. If you're an autodidact, it could be even better for you, since you won't waste so much time learning nonsense to pass arbitrary performance bars. I'm not encouraging cheating here. But I learned that sometimes you have to accept that you hold to some rules just because morality, and you don't need to invent practical reasons to justify it to yourself and others. Sometimes following the rules leaves you worse off, but the world where people follow those rules is better for everyone than the world where they don't, and I want to live in the former.
        will_pseudonym 11y ago
        I feel much the same way. Especially centered around worthless electives classes when I was studying maths. If I was interested in "Movies & Music," I would be reading about it already, and it's completely unrelated to my subject matter.
azdle 11y ago
Usually these policies work where the first strike is a zero on the assignment, the second strike is a F in the class, and the third strike is getting expelled from the school.
ctdonath 11y ago
"Three strikes" would be 3 major offenses like flagrant plagiarism/cheating. I was rather surprised buying answers to a final exam wasn't sufficient for expulsion. Didn't dig into the policy details further.
tgokh 11y ago
My school gives undergrads one warning before kicking you out for academic dishonesty. However, we've been repeatedly reminded that graduate students know better and we'll get kicked out for a first instance of plagarism

vidarh 11y ago

And I thought it was ridiculous when someone had cut and pasted a page from an Oracle manual in response to a set of pre-screening questions for a hiring round, headers included (for a generic SQL question we expected a one sentence answer to). At least that guy didn't pay for it - to my knowledge at least (he did cut and paste most of his answers from various places, though, and got many of them wrong, including an word-for-word copy of an answer from a forum where the answer he had quoted was torn to pieces by other commenters right below).

collyw 11y ago
Isn't the first place you would go to the Oracle manual? I use stack overflow all the time these days (documentation pages before that existed), not quite cutting and pasting but close enough.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > Isn't the first place you would go to the Oracle manual? If I knew the answer, or had a decent notion of the answer? Hell no.
- Retra 11y ago
  The thing is, if you came to me and said "I know everything in this book", I'd say "so let's save money and buy the book instead of hiring you." Interview questions are an opportunity for you to show what you are worth. If you're worth less than a book, it's not a good sign.
  - daurnimator 11y ago
    The most important skill is to know how to look something up. No one knows everything; or even a majority of things. How fast you can find an answer is what determines your productivity. Whether its via a book, a man page, google, stack overflow, or asking the right people doesn't matter.
    - deleted 11y ago

kcbanner 11y ago

Keep in mind that if the paste buffer includes a newline, everything preceding that newline will be executed. Pasting into an intermediate buffer, like a text editor, would be advisable.

zobzu 11y ago

trust but verify ;-)