Raven, Chad:
I wasn't suggesting that students can, in general, turn out even good-enough, much less flawless, first drafts. I was the one, after all, that inserted those qualifiers, and I did so most intentionally.
If you will note my earlier post, as a college and grad school instructor, I required far more evidence of process than rough drafts--subject descriptions, source lists, thesis statements, expanded source lists, outlines--before a final draft was handed in. But even before computers (and therefore on-the-fly self-editing), I could see the futility of demanding rough drafts from students who could claim, however unpersuasively, that they didn't have rough drafts. I know it's more work to shepherd fifty undergraduates through the full paper-writing process (I did it, I know) than to collect multiple drafts at the end of the semester, but at least I had a fair shot at actually teaching them how to write papers, and I was being paid to teach them something!
Of course, then I went into publishing, and from there to book design, and now I just try not to catch any errors, it only annoys the editors when I catch errors they miss or don't recognize. I got into a job-endangering brouhaha at an earlier point in my career (pre-freelancing) by pointing out that neither the author nor the editor knew the difference between "flout" and "flaunt." So for overworked TAs to miss plagiarism is not surprising, to me at least.
I realize that you are arguing that the university bears some responsibility--not all, but some.
Leaving aside the question of whether I agree with you on that point--I'll have to think about it some more, although my emotional impulse is more along the lines of "off with his head!", which reason suggests is a bit extreme--the problem with your solution is that the university will simply turn around and pass the cost of the three free years on to its other students.
Why should (one hopes) honest students have to bankroll someone who already threw away three years of educational opportunity? They surely, going by the facts presented, bear no responsibility for either this one student's dishonesty nor the university's alleged negligence.
Chad wrote: There may be people who don't need to go through multiple drafts of their work on paper, but the number of people who really and truly turn out flawless first drafts is vanishingly small.
Oh, granted, few, but there must be some. The names of three authors who claimed to use the one-draft-only technique leap instantly to mind: Rex Stout, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Heinlein.
They all admitted to making corrections, but not to writng more than one draft, and never (after reaching a certain point in their respective careers) major rewrites.
Wish I could write like that (any of 'em) after several drafts, never mind one!
Most professors were fairly savvy about it: you never just handed in a final draft at my school, you had to hand in all your rough drafts (general rule of thumb: they looked for TWO drafts), all your notes, and copies of any sources that wouldn't be 'easily accessible' in the Wittenberg Library.
Ah, yes. The old "two draft" rule. I taught Political Science for a semester at Brooklyn College back in the day, and as I recall I went one better--I required every stage of research paper writing: A 1-paragraph statement of subject, a list of subject research sources, a 1-page description of subject, a 1-paragraph description of thesis, a list of thesis research sources (all of which much be in addition to and, thus, not the same as, the first source list), an informal outline (in any form), and the final paper. Each of these hand-ins had a deadline. I can't swear there was no plagiarism, but I figured that if anyone had copied or purchased a paper and had to back-create all this stuff, he or she would have done a hell of a lot more work than just writing the paper would have required.
I also handled the cheat-sheet problem on tests by having an open-book final. The final consisted of one thought question (they had a choice of three). Anyone who didn't know the material already would have quickly discovered that trying to look up the facts they needed to answer the question intelligently wouldn't leave enough time to actually write the answer.
All of this made a lot of work for me, but one way or another, everyone learned something.
Happily, now the only teaching I do is introductory t'ai chi. There are no papers, and the final consists of doing the form solo. Cheating not possible.
Thank you for the pointer (not to mention all the help--which of course I just mentioned, so just pretend I didn't)--I'll give Fugu a look-see.
And yes (she said confusingly), the "disks" protocol wasn't listed in the URL tab of RCDefaultApp, only "disk". Which I disabled. And I'm running 10.2.8--maybe it doesn't exist yet? ...and now it sounds like I'm time traveling, which would be even more appropriate (read aloud etc.)
Thanks, Patrick. I followed your instructions--admirably clear and lucid (and yes, I prefer "disabled" to launching a game!), by the way--except that I couldn't disable "disks:" in URL, because it doesn't seem to exist.
(where does one get a real FTP programs, she wonders. quietly to herself.)
I have a headache, but I think I feel safer. (But there's always something...I'm not really paranoid, it's just that they are all out to get me.)
Dan: Thanks for that last link--I followed the advice there and downloaded Paranoid Android on the "every little bit helps" theory. Hope I've finally got a safe system, but of course there's no such thing, really.
Playing:
BA, MA, ABD in Political Science/Government/Politics (three different universities, three different names, one subject).
I'm now a book interior designer and typesetter. Also I teach beginning t'ai chi at my old undergraduate institution. (Long story, which I only inflict on the unwary. To make it short:) Life happens. Thank G-d.
I've just downloaded the same Security Update. Kudos to all those who pointed it out, not only for providing fixes and so forth, but also for forcing Apple to finally address the problem!
Of course, this raises the question: does the update really fix the problem? Or do we still need the prescribed fixes? Inquiring minds want to know...
Oh, I learned on a manual too--my mother's old college typewriter. I loved that thing, she let me use it when I was still in grade school, I felt so grown up. And I spent quite a bit of time poking at it until I figured out exactly how it worked, which meant I could at least understand what was wrong when it didn't work, which I can't, mostly, with my Mac. (And I love my Mac too, I have a 17" flat panel iMac, it's nice to look at and it does everything I need a computer to do. When it works. Which right now it doesn't, so much.)
Okay, never mind. I surrender. I cannot do just the minimum and expect it to work. I dutifully downloaded More Internet and redirected help, disk (after having to add it, it didn't turn up automatically in the list), and telnet to a game on my disk that I don't play. (MoreInternet wouldn't let me use Chess, I don't know why.) I've disabled the open-safe-documents preference. I bow to OS experts.
This has been a very bad week for me with MacOSs.
I'm starting to think that typewriters had their points.
(By the way, sorry for the inadvertent earlier triple post--I only sent it once, honest!)
Is it enough to disable the "open safe files after downloading"?
Oh, my aching head. I'm running OS 10.2.8--does the hole affect me or not? (I've just spent over 2 days trying to fix a multitude of Classic problems, and have no more room in my head for understanding MacOS problems. Sigh.) Help!
Oh, my aching head. I'm running OS 10.2.8--does the hole affect me or not? (I've just spent over 2 days trying to fix a multitude of Classic problems, and have no more room in my head for understanding MacOS problems. Sigh.) Help!
Oh, my aching head. I'm running OS 10.2.8--does the hole affect me or not? (I've just spent over 2 days trying to fix a multitude of Classic problems, and have no more room in my head for understanding MacOS problems. Sigh.) Help!
Re: Disgusting Book--
Because some idiot non-book person at the upper management level has shipped all design and production overseas, that's why!
(Very funny stuff, the rest of it...)
Back to JAD for a moment:
Was that even in English? If the Salon piece is what JAD considers a professional piece of writing, I am shocked and horrified that anything she's ever written was bought and paid for.
Or I would be, if it weren't for the fact that authors like Danielle Steele, who don't appear to write in any recognizable language whatsover, sell big time.
Oh, hey, whoa! It's not always us poor designers' fault when a design is less impressive/ornate/gorgeous! Most of the time, we come up with something we love, that will perfectly complement the text and theme, that will just BLOW the readers away--and the art director or (dare I say? yeah, I'm fearless) the editor comes back with a "it's too much, it looks more like an ad than a book, I really wanted something that looks like the cover..." Or the art director or production manager will refuse to put it through on the grounds (not ALWAYS baseless) that the typesetter will destroy it and it will never come out right. (I'm sure I don't need to add that if I am doing both, it will be perfect, bad past experience with some yahoo or no bad past experience with some yahoo. Yay, me!) Sigh.
So give three cheers and one cheer more for a perfect match!
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