Monday P.S.

I thought I'd just quickly check Turnitin before leaving, to see which students had submitted their papers--and bingo: first blatant copy-and-paste plagiarism of the year. Apart from changing a few words here and there and cutting a line or two on occasion, the student has simply used a paper he found online. I'd have flagged it as plagiarized even without Turnitin, but using Turnitin saved me some time in trying to locate the source. Not even a lot, though: I couldn't get to the original source through the link on Turnitin, so I simply Googled a tell-tale phrase, and ta-da! There it was.

The kid was failing anyway. I don't know if he's actually been stoned all semester or if he just looks and sounds that way, but he's potentially a sweet kid--and might even be potentially smart, if he lays off whatever mind-altering substance he seems to be on. If he's not on any mind altering substances, then he's going to have a hell of a hard time making it in college. It's a shame, but there it is.