ATAR Notes: Forum

VCE Stuff => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE English Studies => Topic started by: LFC_Kero on October 18, 2014, 04:55:41 pm

Title: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: LFC_Kero on October 18, 2014, 04:55:41 pm
Do they check?
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: Vividdreamer on October 18, 2014, 05:02:05 pm
Do you mean by writing down ideas that you've read in study guides and resource materials? If so, I would be cautious with using those references since most of the examiners write that stuff and they would hate it if you regurgitate that information back at them. I reckon using your own ideas with original interpretations will make your writing stand out. You can't bluff the examiners.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: LFC_Kero on October 18, 2014, 05:10:08 pm
ok thanks
what about using parts of peoples essays on here
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: Vividdreamer on October 18, 2014, 05:12:13 pm
I don't think that's a good idea, ethically speaking.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: shadows on October 18, 2014, 05:15:09 pm
Just don't. I wouldn't risk it.
Study and have faith in your own writing!
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: LFC_Kero on October 18, 2014, 06:02:02 pm
alright thanks guys! i was just wondering  ;)
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: keltingmeith on October 18, 2014, 06:20:55 pm
If you plagiarize anything on anywhere, you can and will be punished for it. If you have to ask "will I be failed if I do this?", you should always assume the answer is yes.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: MJRomeo81 on October 18, 2014, 06:33:12 pm
You will NEVER fail a VCE English exam for plagiarism. Copy what you like word for word mate. Seriously, do you really think the examiners go out of their way to try and catch this?

Don't do it for SACs since your teacher knows you personally. A random examiner doesn't even know your name.

Until VCAA start using OCR software to assess the papers you have nothing to worry about.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: abeybaby on October 18, 2014, 06:35:04 pm
You will NEVER fail a VCE English exam for plagiarism. Copy what you like word for word mate. Seriously, do you really think the examiners go out of their way to try and catch this?

Don't do it for SACs since your teacher knows you personally. A random examiner doesn't even know your name.

Until VCAA start using OCR software to assess the papers you have nothing to worry about.
Whether true or false, this is a horrible idea.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: MJRomeo81 on October 18, 2014, 06:39:57 pm
Whether true or false, this is a horrible idea.

Not really. Some of us can't stand VCE English. Some people just need the numbers to get into a certain course. I know plenty of people who have done this and scored 40+ in English. It isn't moral but neither is paying 50 bucks for A+ essays from a private tutor.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: abeybaby on October 18, 2014, 06:47:44 pm
Not really. Some of us can't stand VCE English. Some people just need the numbers to get into a certain course. I know plenty of people who have done this and scored 40+ in English. It isn't moral but neither is paying 50 bucks for A+ essays from a private tutor.
I also, hated English - I was pulling in straight D pluses in year 9, and I worked my butt off for the next 3 years to improve. I was lucky - I had a good support network. I had teachers who cared, and friends who helped. But all the work was mine. And so, the mark I got was mine. It wasn't the product of someone else's knowledge, or technique, or strategy or methods. It was mine, and I used every bit of help I could to create it.

Taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own is cheating.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: Aaron on October 18, 2014, 07:03:00 pm
Is it wrong? Yes. Can you get caught? Probably not.

I am in no way supporting plagiarism, but i'm just putting it out there that you are most likely not going to get caught even if you tried.

Until specialist scanning tools come into effect for all English exams, it's essentially impossible to detect plagiarism. I don't think an examiner is going to sit there trying to compare essays, when most of the time they just want to get the marking out of the way.

Some people don't have the luxury of having a great support during VCE (English in particular), and I can guarantee that ALOT of people would do this just to satisfy university requirements.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: abeybaby on October 18, 2014, 07:03:56 pm
Is it wrong? Yes. Can you get caught? Probably not.
All I need to know!
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: brenden on October 18, 2014, 07:06:43 pm
Ehh... If you plagiarise parts of an essay, things will look really weird because of stylistic dfferenves in the language. If you plagiarise a whole essay and it's on AN, there's definitely a non-zero chance of getting caught. Teachers hand essays from this sure to their class and teach with them. The only way not to get caught guaranteed would be to get an unpublished essay from a friend or tutor.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: M_BONG on October 18, 2014, 07:09:18 pm
But it's not even about whether you will get caught or not.
VCAA doesn't set generic prompts, they usually change the wordings around so that the essay you copy word for word from is probably going to be really different from what the VCAA prompt is asking.

So score-wise, your assessor will see that you have just regurgitated another 10 out of 10 essay without any relevance to the prompt. Score: 5/10?

Don't get me wrong by all means read high scoring responses or study guides, but only use them as a reference but never rote-learn them and pray for the exact same topic in the VCAA exam... (the people writing the exams aren't stupid so they will come up with unique prompts...)

EDIT: beaten by Ned Nerb who basically said what I wanted to say, lol
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: LFC_Kero on October 18, 2014, 08:07:50 pm
alright cheers guys!
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: AmericanBeauty on October 18, 2014, 08:11:12 pm
You will NEVER fail a VCE English exam for plagiarism. Copy what you like word for word mate. Seriously, do you really think the examiners go out of their way to try and catch this?

Don't do it for SACs since your teacher knows you personally. A random examiner doesn't even know your name.

Until VCAA start using OCR software to assess the papers you have nothing to worry about.

This guy knows what he is talking about.

It's barely plagiarism. I could just memorise an essay on here and regurgitate it out. I'd be shooting myself in the foot if it had nothing to do with the prompt. But if you think taking ideas from another person is plagiarism, then lock me up now because I've gotten so many ideas and model answers from VCAA report answers.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: jeanweasley on October 18, 2014, 09:25:39 pm
Hmm, probably not but then again if you plagiarise now, what's stopping you from plagiarising in the future, especially if you are wishing to go to university where there's a strict no plagiarism policy?
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: brenden on October 18, 2014, 09:42:12 pm
This guy knows what he is talking about.

It's barely plagiarism. I could just memorise an essay on here and regurgitate it out. I'd be shooting myself in the foot if it had nothing to do with the prompt. But if you think taking ideas from another person is plagiarism, then lock me up now because I've gotten so many ideas and model answers from VCAA report answers.
...It is literally the definition of plagiarism to regurgitate someone else's work.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: AmericanBeauty on October 18, 2014, 11:59:00 pm
...It is literally the definition of plagiarism to regurgitate someone else's work.
If VCAA ever recognised it, then bravo to them. But in saying that, if I had recently read an essay and it fit the prompt perfectly, I wouldn't feel morally bad about taking some ideas from an essay. It is literally the same as working out of someone else's notes through a textbook.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: literally lauren on October 19, 2014, 01:31:08 pm
There's a difference between taking some ideas/interpretations and straight out copying someone else's work.

Someone asked this question in my class last year, and my teacher said he was correcting an essay that sounded a little bit rote-learned. He consulted with some other markers and they noticed there was about half a paragraph that stood out as poorly written, but relevant, and the rest was all just sophisticated gibberish. They googled a few excerpts (and yes, AN results do show up on google) and sure enough they found a version of that essay online. The convention in these cases is to simply cross out everything that's not your own work, and mark what's left. So this kid ended up getting a two for the half paragraph that s/he'd tried to write.

The markers aren't idiots, and they have a very good radar for this sort of stuff. You're doing VCE for the first time; they've gone through the system year after year and marked hundreds, even thousands of essays.

So you might not fail exactly, but you can potentially have an entire essay score (or three) nullified. So yeah, don't bother.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: LiquidPaperz on October 19, 2014, 01:42:16 pm
just wanted to add - you might want to look at that ad in the bottom :P
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: keltingmeith on October 19, 2014, 01:45:57 pm
If VCAA ever recognised it, then bravo to them. But in saying that, if I had recently read an essay and it fit the prompt perfectly, I wouldn't feel morally bad about taking some ideas from an essay. It is literally the same as working out of someone else's notes through a textbook.

"Taking some ideas from" and "plagiarising from" are two completely different things, though.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: literally lauren on October 19, 2014, 02:08:44 pm
just wanted to add - you might want to look at that ad in the bottom :P

Even the random internet ad generator agrees with me  8)
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: appleandbee on October 19, 2014, 02:13:56 pm
It's just not worth the risk!

If you fail English, you automatically do the same for VCE.

But using other people's examples (like in context) is fine, as long as you make your own interpretation and analysis of it.
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: LiquidPaperz on October 19, 2014, 02:37:00 pm
It's just not worth the risk!

If you fail English, you automatically do the same for VCE.

But using other people's examples (like in context) is fine, as long as you make your own interpretation and analysis of it.

look if you can remember it i guess all credit to you. You can only regurgitate what you can remember, if you can remember all you can cheat for the whole thing essentially.

I know someone who got a 47, and he said his whole essay was rote learned, and quoted "if you search a line of my essay, you'll find a lot of matches"
Title: Re: Can you fail english exam for plagiarism?
Post by: literally lauren on October 19, 2014, 02:48:26 pm
I know someone who got a 47, and he said his whole essay was rote learned, and quoted "if you search a line of my essay, you'll find a lot of matches"

These people are the minority. Of course you don't hear about people who cheated and were caught; why would they advertise the fact that you were dumb enough to do something like that?

OP, it is hypothetically possible that you could cheat and not get caught, as has happened before I'm sure. But in the end the assessors can distinguish between people who've made a genuine attempt to engage with the prompt and adapt what they know, from those who spit out anything and everything they know, and fortune/bell curves favor the first group.

I, and many others would advise against it for both pragmatic and moral reasons, but it's your future you're risking so whatevs.

/endthread