online essay help or plagiarism

Plagiarism is a hot topic in academia today. I talk to students about it quite a bit and until recently, I supposed that most of them understood that buying a paper online counts as plagiarism. Fundamentally, I still assume that most of them know that paying for someone else to do their work for them is somehow wrong, but after looking at a couple of online essay writing sites and talking to some students, it has become clear to me that they may not understand that paying for a paper is plagiarism. Many of these sites advertise themselves as producing plagiarism free papers. They tell their potential customers that the papers they are buying are not plagiarized. They assure students that the papers they will receive are "authentic" and completely "original," even that they have been run through plagiarism software to verify their originality. And, of course, they assure students that most people buy their essay papers because they are simply too busy to write them. Next time I discuss plagiarism with a class, I know I will modify my lecture a little to include a discussion about why papers purchased from these sites are in fact plagiarized.

Oh, Wikipedia

Recently, I've seen a good deal of pop culture rifs on Wikipedia - many of them are quite funny. I've been meaning to compile a list of humorous snippets about abuse of the infamous wiki, but as of yet, the list lives only in my head - not a safe place to keep it considering how forgetful I am. I've decided to start that list here. My intention is to create a classroom worthy list of entertaining ways to talk to students about Wikipedia and about the nature of research. I should mention that I am not against the use of Wikipedia across the board. I think it can be quite helpful when used responsibly - and, in general, I am a proponent of wikis. I am hoping that these entertaining sources might help students to understand why resources like Wikipedia are not always reliable.

It seems appropriate to start this list with the parody version of the catch-all online reference, Uncyclopedia. Most, if not all, Uncyclopedia entries are fallacious and many are meant to be humorous. One should take note that since this site is an open forum parady, some of the entries may be offensive and so teachers should carefullly choose the examples they want to use in class.

The web short "Professor Wikipedia" is also an excellent and entertaining example of the hazards of wikis. "Professor Wikipedia" showcases the unreliability of wiki entries and the fact that those who post and edit entries may not be experts. Most of the video is suitable for students but there is a sexual reference towards the end that teachers may want to edit out.

"Colbert vs. Wikipedia" is a clip that aired as part of the Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert. I like this clip because Colbert talks about why people may be invested in presenting biased information. The clip itself is pretty G-rated but there is a short add-on at the end that you may opt not to show your students.

Finally, the clips that got me interested in finding humorous references to Wikipedia are from an episode of 30 Rock - there are two clips on Youtube from this episode and you would probably want to show both - clip one and clip two.

Do you know of any entertaining Wikipedia clips that could be used in the classroom? If you do, please leave a link to them in the comment section. Thanks!