The plagiarism business

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran a piece by a man who makes his living writing ‘bespoke’ essays for university students: The Shadow Scholar.

I’ve been keeping an eye on this business since I was flyered by one ‘Oxbridge Essays’ on campus about five years ago. At the time I was officially a PhD student, so possibly a customer (they’ll do you an 80,000 word PhD thesis in a month for a bit over £10000). I was also a part-time lecturer though. I’d just dealt with my first case of plagiarism, and the dude flyering got rather an earful.

I can recommend spending some time on the Oxbridge Essays website. Their cynicism is an eye-opener if nothing else. UKessays.com is also worth a read. They both stress that the essays are for research purposes only, a way of finding a model answer. They present themselves as a support center for students. Oxbridge Essays has a blog covering issues like the increase in fees. Both also stress their openness. You can see photos of the UK Essays writers, and visit Oxbridge Essays’ offices. According to an interesting piece from the Guardian, they are both owned by Barclay Littlewood who, via a link on his wikipedia page, I learnt had made the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List (see also a piece from 2007 and another from 2006).

If any of those links depress you, you might find the scepticism of this student forum page cheering.

Such ‘bespoke’ essays are unlikely to be caught by plagiarism checks (e.g. turnitin) and more likely to fit the coursework brief than cutting and pasting off the web. I do know a tutor who once caught a student who had bought an essay from such a site. She noticed a sudden rise in a student’s standard of coursework, so pulled him into a meeting to discuss the essay’s topics, at which point he broke down and admitted it. But she only spotted this because she is a good tutor who knows her students, one that thinks about their development as she works through her marking. I think it’s fair to say that tutors like that are less likely to get students cheating in the first place.

When I first caught that undergrad cheating, I was angry with her. I thought she was being phenomenally lazy (it was a real doozy of a cheat) not to mention downright cheeky to think such laziness was ok when other students had bothered to produce original work. But part of me also felt like I’d failed her slightly, that she either felt unable or simply uninspired by the coursework. I don’t think I was just being hard on myself. I think any sign of student failure (and this includes them making ‘stupid mistakes’ as well as dishonesty) should be taken as a signal for the teacher to at the very least check themselves. I think assessment is not just a part of measuring learning, but helping to develop it. I put a lot of effort into setting and marking coursework. I think most (good) lecturers do. Still, it is difficult, and even the best lecturers will set coursework students cannot do well in. This isn’t (just) because we set challening work, it’s because it’s bad coursework: confusingly articulated, uninspiring. As another bespoke essay writer puts it ‘Imagine trying to write a novel, for a grade, under a tight deadline, without ever having read a novel’ (hat-tip Paula Salgado for that link).

I’m not saying we should ‘spoon-feed’ lazy students or set easier work (or let cheaters get away with it), I’m just saying a good coursework assignment is a project students can and want to work on.

So, educators: read up on this bespoke essay business. Keep an eye out for students using it, but take their existence as a challenge to yourself too. As the guy in the Chronicle piece put it ‘I live well on the desperation, misery, and incompetence that your educational system has created’. If you find him disgusting, think about how you can most productively help cut off the food supply.

Blogs a science communication student might like

A colleague asked me for a list of blogs that next year’s science communication MSc students might like to read. I figured the only way to share this information was in a blogpost.

Warning: there is no such thing as a reading list of science blogs, you need to explore for yourself. These are just starting points.

• If there’s a hot new biology story, you can bet Ed Yong will have a thorough and humour-filled post over a Not Exactly Rocket Science. He also regularly writes about issues in science and (new) media too, and his recent thread on the origin of science writers should be of particular interest to science communication students.
• Another blog everyone recommends (and I’m just going to agree) is Mindhacks. A very joyful neuro/psychology themed read, great for sending you to some of the more interesting ends of the internet.
• Two notable science writer bloggers currently developing personal sites after the recent mass-exodus from scienceblogs.com are Brian Switek and David Dobbs. Carl Zimmer’s post on the scienceblogs diaspora contains a feast of links to more great writers once of this network (Zimmer’s blog is worth a mention in itself too).
• I expect my prospective students to already know Bad Science, and I can also recommend his posterous account. The phenomenon of “bad science” blogging is bigger than Ben Goldacre though, two blogs in particular I’d recommend because they often write about science in the media are Lay Science and Gimpyblog (most of the media discussion goes on his posterous account).
• Fiona Fox of the Science Media Center doesn’t blog very often, but when she does, everyone talks about it. On a similar note, Natasha Loder’s blog is worth a look, as is Framing Science, from American science communication academic, Matthew Nisbet. Real science media nerds might also like Ivan Oransky’s embargowatch.
• The Times & Guardian both have good (though very different) science blogs, note the former now has an “entrance fee”. I really like Nature’s the Great Beyond, and it is worth keeping track of New Scientist’s range of blogs.
• The Science Museum’s collections department has a nice blog, as does the Wellcome Trust. (and the Wellcome Library, and the Wellcome Collection…).
• Research Fortnight’s Exquisite Life is a must for following UK science policy. It is also worth having a look at the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience Blog and the Campaign for Science and Engineering. The Royal Society policy team have just started a blog too, which (I hope) will be worth watching.

Twitter is a good way of engaging with the science blogosphere. My “awesome science” list of people who write and/ or link to great science writing on the web should be a useful starting point. Twitter is also brilliant for discussing/ eavesdropping on debates about science in the media and policy, so I can recommend people on my science policy and science communication lists too. Please note, many of these accounts will tweet about other things too.

These links are really just the tip of the iceberg. Or, a small section of a big chunk of ice, as I’m not sure something iceberg-shaped is the appropriate metaphor. I should also add that I don’t agree with everything these people blog/ tweet about. Not even close. They do, however, tend to write about topics a science communication student might be interested in. At the very least, they’ll point you towards some new ideas and make you think.

Click on a few links here and see who they link to. See what entertains, educates or enrages you. Go, have a play.