Another Word for Kidnapper

I was reading and grading the last of my students' review magazines, intending to return them the following day, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was wrong. The phrase "raindrops are projectiles" kept surfacing in my mind, like some piece of crap that refused to get flushed. I looked for the student's article, a movie review of A Bug's Life that I had given a B+, and found it: "a movie where raindrops are dangerous projectiles, single berries provide full meals, and the most feared enemy is a bird." This is too good, I thought, and felt bad for thinking it.

But I went to Google anyway and typed the phrase. And discovered the student had lifted whole paragraphs from an online movie review. I Googled some other phrases from his article, which turned out to be from other reviews. He had cut and pasted and rearranged other people's words to form a mishmash of an article. How could I have overlooked this? I looked at his (checked) draft and found all the plagiarized phrases there. Was I in a hurry when I checked it or was I just too trusting?

Insulted at having been fooled, I went on a Google frenzy, hunting for unusual phrases and well articulated ideas in their reviews and typing them up. I found two other articles where entire phrases and paragraphs had been lifted from Internet sources. Both of them were movie reviews---one of Shrek 2 and another of Lord of the Rings. The annoying thing was that the students had copied even the plot summaries and character descriptions (ex. "a Zorro-style swordsman turning into an overbearingly cute, saucer-eyed puss"). I mean, how difficult can it be to summarize a freaking plot and describe characters of a movie of your choice in your own words?

And one group's introduction/ editors' letter turned out to be a Time magazine article by Richard Corliss on movie sequels. The last two sentences gave it away: "Some Greek, upon hearing that Homer had just composed the Iliad, probably groused, 'That old war story?' And when the Odyssey came around: 'What? Not a sequel!'" I should have known. Judging from their grades in the vocabulary items I include in quizzes, I bet less than one-third of the class knows what to grouse means.

So I prepared a short speech, which I gave after yesterday's official lesson. Starting with, "There's a reason why I haven't returned your review magazines yet." I wrote the word PLAGIARISM in humongous capitals occupying half of the blackboard. That got their attention. They gave their definitions: "taking someone's words and passing them off as your own," "using ideas and phrases without acknowledging your sources," "stealing other people's ideas."

I added, "It comes from the Latin word plagiarius. Can anyone guess what it means?" A brave soul answered, "Cheat?" I said, "No. Worse. It means kidnapper." Nervous laughter. "In a sense, plagiarism is like kidnapping someone else's child and pretending he or she was your own. Or like kidnapping then hacking off the child's arm or head to graft onto your own deformed, premature Frankenstein baby." I get dramatic and grotesque when mad.

I said students who plagiarize are either: 1) ignorant, which is inexcusable---as sophomores, they should know when they're plagiarizing or not; or 2) outright deceptive---regardless of whether the motivation is laziness, insecurity, dislike of the subject, or simply because they can, because Internet sources are so accessible.

I told them about an intelligent, articulate student I knew in high school who would write term papers for people as long as she got paid. Know where she is now? She works for an advertising company. I had college batchmates whose modus operandi was to cut and paste, cut and paste, breeze through Great Books courses without having read a single book. One of them is now in law school, and eventually wants to be a politician like her relatives. How disturbing is that? Advertising, law, politics---three fields where integrity and honesty have time and again been proven to be sorely lacking.

I said that if they still had an ounce of integrity, the offenders should approach me by Friday and admit they had plagiarized. Or face worse consequences. Then I dismissed the class a few minutes before the bell, noting how certain people couldn't look me in the eye.

The speech must have scared them. A (paranoid) couple approached me and asked if copying ingredients and items from a restaurant menu was plagiarizing. Two others whom I hadn't even suspected admitted they had copied passages from other reviews (I pretended I already knew, and said I'd still give them an F for the task).

Later, in the department, the first (raindrop-projectile) offender approached me, looking very apologetic and penitent. "What do you have to say?" He answered, "Ma'am, I'm very sorry. I plagiarized." In halting English he said he had watched the movie and started writing, but, unsure of his opinions, read online reviews which were better than his own. He said he's really terrible at writing and just wanted a good grade so he could keep his scholarship, etc. I felt bad for him, knowing he was one of the nicer, more active students in a class I had walked out on two weeks ago.

Instinct told me he was essentially a good kid who needed to be taught a lesson. So I rejected his offer to rewrite the review, said he would get an F for that task but still be able to make up for it by doing the next tasks well. In my most mataray voice I said I was insulted and disappointed, but that I wouldn't report him to the ADSA this time. But that I would be watching and expecting more from him. He thanked me and apologized again, on the verge of tears. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he won't, in 25 years, be just another con artist, cheating husband, or overweight congressman.

The whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't like knowing I was deceived. I don't like playing police either, playing the moralistic disciplinarian (esp. knowing I've broken some rules myself and am hardly a parragon of virtue). And I don't want to be forever suspicious of the next good phrase from a student's paper. But, I guess, as a teacher, vigilance should be my new watchword.