Are you saying that a student cannot get their parent to proof read
their work to help improve grammar and spelling etc? What about PHD
students who have a tutor read over their work? Are they not allowed to
suggest improvements to the student either? What is the point of have a
tutor if it is not to offer some guidance?

I know that this is a generalisation but a lot of children go through
their educational life having a parent or someone, review and suggest
changes before they submit their work to be marked. Do they now have to
change a habit of an educational lifetime to prove they can do it on
their own? Can you tell me when people do some written work entirely on
their own in life - maybe academics who do not want their want to be
discovered by somebody else until it is published? I think it is a kind
of educational snobbery to say that you cannot have someone else read
over or "proofread" your work before you submit it.

Is not the cry of plagiarism and unfair academic practice not required
to be discovered and brought to light in a different matter than forcing
everybody to do all the work on their own. How will this stop
plagiarism? If somebody is going to copy work from someone else then
they will do that whether their work is proof read or not. Even in
employment there is rarely a time when you do the work individually
without having someone read over it to "see how it sounds/looks/reads"
or at least that is what I do and most people that I know do.

Sorry for the rant but I just feel that we are making the education
process more and more removed from the real world and trying to contract
and legislate for every detail. When you move down the line of
legislating for everything then you I feel that you encourage the people
the legislation is designed to control, to use every legal manoeuvre or
some other legal loophole to avoid following the legislation, or they
are more inclined to sue for some reason or other.

Just my two cents worth - probably not even worth that! Please do not
take any offence from any of the comments as none are intended.

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hubert, Paul [STU]
Sent: 10 June 2003 10:32
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sympathetic marking

>In all this debate about "proof reading" has anyone given
> thought to the fact that the vast majority of students,
> disabled or not, will have someone proof read their
> dissertation.
>
Under our institution's regulations such assistance is liable to lead to
the
student being put through a quasi-disciplinary 'unfair practice'
procedure
and being subject to disciplinary sanctions from failing the piece of
work
through to failing the level and being required to withdraw. If the
proof-reader is a student, she could be subject to the same procedure.
This
is because a dissertation or assignment (subject to any specific
groupwork
element) is supposed to be the student's own unaided work and they sign
to
that effect. Given the fear that there is a rising tide of plagiarism
and
unfair academic practice, any different treatment for students with
disabilities needs to be clearly defined and justified to avoid
accusations
of bad practice and a punitive response.



Paul Hubert
  Welfare Officer
  Leeds Metropolitan University Students Union Student Advice Service
  B Building
  Leeds Metropolitan University
  City Campus
  Leeds LS1 3HE.
  ============================
  Tel 0113 209 8408
  E-mail: [log in to unmask]