My die-hard Terp days are long behind me, but if any of that spirit remains, it delights in today's message: Coach K sucks. Burying Harden and Love behind the inferior Bryant, Westbrook, Williams, and Anthony was bad. Instead of going small, why not go big? Chandler and Love are both awesome, and James is awesome at the 3. You can play Chandler, Love, and James in the frontcourt, and then Durant/Harden and Paul in the backcourt. That lineup plays amazing defense, giving up nothing easy inside and still having huge size and speed on the perimeter. They get every rebound. And the efficiency of that lineup on offense would be spectacular! Instead we get all those chuckers.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Monday, August 13, 2012
cringe and then chuckle
I've read almost everything Glenn Greenwald has written since the Unclaimed Territory days. He's great. I had to say those nice things because I was starting to complain about something he does every once in a while that makes me cringe. A throw-away line he used a few days ago was sticking in my craw, something like "the founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves!" Come on, Glenn! Fuck the founding fathers, man! They openly sought to design a system to "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority!" They were the original 1%, ruthless exploiters of the working man, and they wanted to keep it that way! Those rich fucks! This whole fucking thing! That's what bugs me a little; Greenwald often seems too reverent to the mythology of The Founders, those glorious secular saints who gave us The Holy Document. But then again I refuse to acknowledge other people's sneezes lest I encourage superstition, so maybe I'm overly sensitive.
Now I see that the piece I'm remembering was shorter than his usual, and the tone more exasperated. I shouldn't take it especially seriously, and I certainly don't begrudge him the occasional outburst amidst his typically meticulous and methodical work. In fact, I admit this one is pretty entertaining. How about that next-day-update where he actually laid down some fucking scripture on us, from the 1777 Epistles of St. John! (He's the patron saint of the 1% because when he recognized that the dependence caused by extreme inequality compromises the political autonomy of the poor, his solution was that the poor wouldn't have any formal political power in his shiny new democratic nation!) Anyway, is Glenn making fun of himself? Either way it is funny, and dark.
Now I see that the piece I'm remembering was shorter than his usual, and the tone more exasperated. I shouldn't take it especially seriously, and I certainly don't begrudge him the occasional outburst amidst his typically meticulous and methodical work. In fact, I admit this one is pretty entertaining. How about that next-day-update where he actually laid down some fucking scripture on us, from the 1777 Epistles of St. John! (He's the patron saint of the 1% because when he recognized that the dependence caused by extreme inequality compromises the political autonomy of the poor, his solution was that the poor wouldn't have any formal political power in his shiny new democratic nation!) Anyway, is Glenn making fun of himself? Either way it is funny, and dark.
Thursday, August 09, 2012
BO sez urrybody wants to be like USA USA USA USA!!
I dunno dude, Canada laughs at you pretty hard.
BO sez like whatever, they're totally jealous.
I dunno dude, Canada laughs at you pretty hard.
BO sez like whatever, they're totally jealous.
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
pondering this plague of pervasive plagiarism
My TA responsibilities recently included marking an assignment for a 2nd year research methods course. 119 students read the same paper and answered the same questions about it (e.g. What were the hypotheses? What were the dependent and independent variables? etc.) A significant majority plagiarized. I was instructed to give them zeros on questions for which their answers were plagiarized, which is a fairly light penalty under the university's plagiarism standards. Still, the net effect was that the class average was close to failing.
I mention this because I've been fascinated by student response to accusations of violations of academic integrity. I got many emails from students who plagiarized, and there were several very common responses:
Denial is fascinating to me, because it was clear that most of the deniers didn't even understand what they were accused of. They just denied as their first instinct. I'd already sent most of them a link to a university site that explains plagiarism quite thoroughly, which they seem to have completely ignored. Often denials were accompanied by lame "proof" of their innocence, unambiguous and perfectly preserved electronic evidence notwithstanding. Once I directed them to the specific section of the website that dealt with their specific form of plagiarism and showed them examples of how what they did is a perfect example, they usually stopped denying and switched to other tactics. It was especially interesting when the strategy shifted from denial to the 4th response and/or 5th response. "I didn't plagiarize... I always plagiarize... I don't know how to do anything other than plagiarize."
It became clear while I was marking these that the standard strategy employed by most students was to find the sentences or paragraphs in the paper where the authors came closest to answering each question and just copy what the authors wrote, despite instructions to "use your own words" and despite the general warning issued to the class after the previous assignment to familiarize themselves with university plagiarism guidelines.. Some especially inept students just straight-up copy and pasted words from the paper to their assignment, but most made at least a shitty effort to paraphrase. (Closely paraphrasing without quoting is a form of plagiarism.) That's generally a good strategy. Unless the person marking the assignment knows the original paper inside and out (which starts to happen when you have to mark 119 assignments about it), it is difficult to detect paraphrased plagiarism. I did find quite a bit of it on their first assignment, but I suspect I overlooked the vast majority. So they generally face low risk of detection for this form of cheating, and they don't have to do all the hard work of fully understanding the research and expressing ideas in their own words.
This is all consistent with what I've observed for quite a while: undergraduate students are generally terrible at writing and critical thinking, and go to great lengths to avoid both. And I can't really blame them, because that's a fairly rational response to the incentive structures they typically face.
I mention this because I've been fascinated by student response to accusations of violations of academic integrity. I got many emails from students who plagiarized, and there were several very common responses:
- I am very upset
- I worked very hard
- I did not plagiarize
- I did the same thing on the last assignment and got a good grade
- I don't know how else to say what the authors said
Denial is fascinating to me, because it was clear that most of the deniers didn't even understand what they were accused of. They just denied as their first instinct. I'd already sent most of them a link to a university site that explains plagiarism quite thoroughly, which they seem to have completely ignored. Often denials were accompanied by lame "proof" of their innocence, unambiguous and perfectly preserved electronic evidence notwithstanding. Once I directed them to the specific section of the website that dealt with their specific form of plagiarism and showed them examples of how what they did is a perfect example, they usually stopped denying and switched to other tactics. It was especially interesting when the strategy shifted from denial to the 4th response and/or 5th response. "I didn't plagiarize... I always plagiarize... I don't know how to do anything other than plagiarize."
It became clear while I was marking these that the standard strategy employed by most students was to find the sentences or paragraphs in the paper where the authors came closest to answering each question and just copy what the authors wrote, despite instructions to "use your own words" and despite the general warning issued to the class after the previous assignment to familiarize themselves with university plagiarism guidelines.. Some especially inept students just straight-up copy and pasted words from the paper to their assignment, but most made at least a shitty effort to paraphrase. (Closely paraphrasing without quoting is a form of plagiarism.) That's generally a good strategy. Unless the person marking the assignment knows the original paper inside and out (which starts to happen when you have to mark 119 assignments about it), it is difficult to detect paraphrased plagiarism. I did find quite a bit of it on their first assignment, but I suspect I overlooked the vast majority. So they generally face low risk of detection for this form of cheating, and they don't have to do all the hard work of fully understanding the research and expressing ideas in their own words.
This is all consistent with what I've observed for quite a while: undergraduate students are generally terrible at writing and critical thinking, and go to great lengths to avoid both. And I can't really blame them, because that's a fairly rational response to the incentive structures they typically face.
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