Re: Grading, Plagiarism, Webbed Writing and ...

Nick Carbone (nickc@MARLBORO.EDU)
Mon, 5 Aug 1996 17:29:29 -0400


Sounds like the dude thought of something that the web,and perhaps the
class's ethos and Mick's p.o.v. invited. I'm not clear whether he simply
linked to other student's pages, or to links other students found,or used
show source to cobble a page form students pages, orsome combination of
all the above. But it soudnls like he gave credit. If that's so and he
did so fully and within the web ethos developed in class, then there's no
plagiarism.

Too, he was redoing something he'd already did before, in the way intnded
by Mick presumably. If he tweaked the paramteers of a,nything, it was
what is a quiz and how should it work. When I was in high school the
dress code at South Catholic was someting like shirts, ties, slacks and
jackets for men. So one day about 40 of us showed up in jerseys, wearing
slippers, slacks on backwards, smoking jackets (for kids whose father's
had one), no sockes, and other oddities. AFter about two days of this,
we got a revised dress code that specified what was always intended:
sport coat, button donw shirt, dark socks, shoes, no sneakers or
slippers, creased pants zipper to front, belt, no shoelaces or rope,
etc.

Sounds like for the test Mick will have to lay the ground rules more
carefully--maybe all original coding, links to classmates work only as
secondary and not as primary source, etc. He could assign each a unique
area or subject to search for and build a page or pages around. I guess
it depends on what is going to be tested and why.

As for grading? maybe what each project needs is a short esay wherein
the web-authors expalin what they did and why. What aesthetic in design
where they after? What was the page trying to do and for whom? A little
self-evaluation would make judging their pages easier in any circumstance.

Nick Carbone, Writing Instructor
Marlboro College
Marlboro, VT 05344
nickc@marlboro.edu