Plagiarism, support for higher education, anti-cheating efforts, and The Onion: Required Readings for 8.5.14

Plagiarism and copyright have been much on my mind thanks to a 4-week course on copyright for educators and the process of developing a scientific writing lecture for future medical practitioners. So I found this “field guide” to defenses and other public statements from accused plagiarizers interesting and a little frightening. SoD readers: Do you consider “It was an accident” to be a valid defense for plagiarism? What do you teach your students about paraphrasing and using others’ work?

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich suggests that government education policy should focus on forgiving the student debts of graduates who choose social work, child care, elder care, nursing, teaching, and similar professions as opposed to efforts such as the subsidization via tax breaks of donations to Ivy League endowments from wealthy alumni. Thoughts?

Kudos to the interim president of Kentucky State University, who is taking a 25-percent pay cut to boost the salaries of the school’s lowest paid workers.

Uzbekistan takes its college entrance examinations seriously. So seriously, in fact, that the government recently shut down all internal Internet traffic and SMS messaging during testing hours to prevent cheating.

This week in news literacy: The oldest science magazine in the United States cited a 5-year-old article from satirical news site The Onion as well as a legitimate research article in a story about schadenfreude in young children. Oops!

An effort to expand government-funded prekindergarten in New York City is running up against the church-state wall as religious schools are being asked to host these programs to add capacity for additional students.

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