I had a look at the Revise.it tips for "customising" essays. If a student
attempted to do this with coursework they should be quite rightly thrown off
the course, the exam board informed and quite possibly thrown out of the
school.
With the incresed workload students will be facing from the new
specifications the temptation to cheat will inevitably grow.
I am most especially worried about the suggestion of fabricating dates,
quotes and examples. The only consolation is teenagers are often so gormless
in what they fabricate that it is fairly easy to spot and then challenge
them to show the source material.
(I've seen some wierd attempts at cheating including the A level student who
was so impressed by Barclays Business Start up pack that he copied it out
and gave to me as an essay on starting a new business. Last year I had a lad
who was quite adamant that there was no Lloyds Bank in the Solihull area
.... I ended up making him phone Directory Enquiries to disprove that
one!!!)
Perhaps insisting on a full bibliography including page numbers and ISBN
numbers would be a way of detering those who have been caught out on
non-coursework / homework tasks!! Or even offered up as a deterent in the
first place. In my experience students hate having to do bibliographies at
the best of times!
Julie Parton
>From: david haynes <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Are my fears unfounded?
>Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:53:22 -0700 (PDT)
>
>This circular has arrived from 'Revise.it' a site set
>up by two undergrads at university.
>
>"
>Revise.it has just launched EssayLab, a collection of
>hundreds of free A grade GCSE and A-Level essays
>covering all the popular subjects and questions.
>
>Feel free to use them however you want… (we've also
>included a guide to making our essays look like one of
>your own)
>
>We hope you enjoyed the summer and that Revise.it can
>take some of the hassle out of the new term for you.
>
>Take care and have fun
>
>Jordan and Nick
>
>If you do not wish to receive any further email from
>revise.it go to
>http://www.revise.it/reviseit/common/stopmail.asp
>
>"
>
>Is it me being overanxious? My gut feeling is this
>development of their site is a retrograde one, one
>that encourages people to cheat ratehr than think;
>copy (even adapt) rather than investigate.
>
>Or is it me that's at fault for not bringing this to
>people's attention as a useful internet resource?
>
>David Haynes
>
>
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