I’ve been thinking about an assignment idea for a freshman class. Has anyone ever given students an assignment that asks them to plagiarize? I’m seriously thinking about it, although I’m also conscious of some potential pitfalls and issues.
My thinking is that students could get the following out of an assignment of this sort:
- Students who are unclear on the concept of plagiarism will need to learn what it is in order to complete the assignment.
- Students who think plagiarism is easy will discover how easy it is to get caught.
- Students will have an opportunity to compare how much time an assignment took in order to plagiarize and try to cover their tracks, vs. actually doing an assignment in an acceptable, plagiarism-free manner, as well as to compare how much they feel they learned and/or how much they actually recall from two comparable assignments, one plagiarized, the other required to be plagiarism free.
What do others think? Is anyone aware of something like this having been done before? If so, how did it go? If not, what do you think of the idea?
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