Sunday, November 30, 2008

Plagiarism by Korean students at US universities?

The JoongAng Daily reports:

According to a study submitted by Korean scholar Dr. Samuel Kim to Columbia University last summer, 44 percent of the 1.5 and second-generation Korean Americans who entered high-level U.S. universities dropped out of school halfway through.

Meanwhile, there is another predicament into which Korean students are likely to fall - plagiarism.

“Many Korean students still write cut-and-paste essays, which is considered to be plagiarism here in the U.S.,” said Dr. Kim.

Used to more lenient Korean standards when it comes to copying the work of others, many Korean students find it hard to get used to strict Western academic standards, under which copying just a few sentences without identifying the source is considered plagiarism.


This reflection of US academic practice is consistent with the rough handling of Allison Routman. However, is is consistent with Joe Biden at Syracuse or Glenn Poshard at SIU? One can also think about the KY Cha matter at Fertility and Sterility.

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

The "stricter standards" notion is nonsense. They cheat because they can. They know it's cheating and don't care. Moreover, the cut and paste type of plagiarism isn't the problem. The vast majority of Korean students use ghostwriters from the moment they come to Canada or the U. S. to study. They call them "editors" and tutors... there's an entire cottage industry in Korean communities servicing these students in this way. There are students that have come here and completed degrees in English who then return to Korea to gain PhDs in English who have never written an essay in English ever. Plagiarism isn't a problem of a handful of students... It IS the system among Korean students. The scary thing is the universities know about all of this and not only do nothing about it but validate and encourage it so that these students can graduate and more foreign tuition can flow through their coffers.

10:36 AM  

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