Winning Hearts

Plagiarism is the subject of this essay. However, the message in the theme is plagiarism in college is a complex problem with various causes. The ultimate solution lies in educating the writer rather than simply punishing them. Scott Jaschik captured the varying feelings of several college professors. Those professors teaching first year students were especially aware of the challenges they faced in the battle with plagiarism.

That is the reason why wherever talking or writing is involved, English is important. It can show us what a student knows and what they do not know about a particular subject. It might make a student look clumsy if a student uses the wrong words or grammar. There is nothing more humiliating then using an incorrect grammar while talking in front of all your classmates. Studying more words alongside the meaning will allow the student to feel happier using the words correctly in talking and when writing.

By Jaschik providing student`s perspective, the professors may further understand the deeper reasons why students are plagiarizing. This adds more credibility to the article by showing the root of why plagiarism is occurring. In order to eliminate plagiarism, English professors must realize the reasoning behind students plagiarizing. R. Gerald Nelms, an associate professor at Southern Illinois University, stated, “how plagiarism must be seen as an educational problem that requires an educational response” (264). Professors have to recognize that students are plagiarizing due to lack of education; so edu... ... middle of paper ... ...e English professors to educate on plagiarism through unorthodox techniques.

Teachers play an important role in the students’ learning. They decide whether the students pass or fail which gives the idea that students should impress the teachers to achieve good grade. According to “The Poisoned Fish” by Kenneth Macrorie when writing, students think that the teacher only cares about grammar and not content which is manifested in the red marks and corrections in the student’s paper. (5) To change this, teachers should use free writing exercises to let the students know that content also matters for the teacher. This must be able to change the mentality of the students about teachers’ criteria of grading.

Once he finishes his own story, he calls the schools to action advising them to not only allow students to use their interest as writing topics, but instead to teach the students on how to implement those compelling interests and present them in a scholarly way. In perspective, Graff’s argument becomes weak with his poor use of ethos, in which he solely focuses on his own anecdote but, through the same means he is able to build his pathos and in the last few paragraphs, with his use of logic he prevents his argument from becoming dismissible.

The lessons that Mr. Keating presents the students reflect the transcendentalist beliefs of Ralph Waldo Emerson found in “Self-reliance” and influence the students to become more independent thinkers. Mr. Keating teaches his English class in an unconventional fashion which is reflective of the principles in Emerson’s “Self-reliance”. During the first class, he tells his class to rip out the page that introduces in the English textbook. On this page, the author of the textbook, Dr. Pritchard, says that a poem’s greatness can be measured based upon two criteria: the importance and the perfection of the poem. However, measuring the greatness of a poem using a rubric is ridiculous and as a result, he has the students rip out the page.

There are serious charges related to plagiarism, and the school has a duty to prepare the students for their future writing career. Conclusion Plagiarism is cheating, and every learning institution should be discourage. There is a need to apply plagiarism software in order to curb this habit. However, it is important for schools to address the repercussions of the plagiarizing of work. Penalties may also apply to those with plagiarized work, as a disciplinary measure.

I believe students feel daunted by all the rules that the teachers are trying to teach them with grammar. However, writing classes are encouraging the students to release their barriers with writings and encourage their inner thoughts to be released as well. In the study from Patrick Hartwell’s article, he mentioned that, “So Grammar 1 is eminently usable knowledge—the way we make our life through language—but it is not accessible knowledge; in a profound sense, we do not know that we have it (Hartwell).” This article encourages our grammar knowledge, which we have stored unknowingly, be brought out and one way that this could be is if we let the students hand in their writing unedited to the teacher to look over their mistakes but not to make any corrections. Then the students use a red pen to correct their mistakes and edit their paper themselves so that the teacher has an understanding of what grammar errors students can correct on their own. This way students’ strengths and weakness in grammar are considered more than teaching the rules of grammar.

Many times, high school students are assigned to write essays based on inspirational figures or literature read in class, often requiring the same rhetoric following fastidious rules of English and sprinkling decorative wording across pages. Obeying the formats demanded by teachers is easy enough, but it is not creatively challenging. Author of "What Should Colleges Teach? ", Stanley Fish, claims it is to learn the proper ways of composition alone that allows students to flourish; however, I question if it is possible to follow these principles too closely. Can it be so that the curriculum being taught in high schools fail to allow students to realize the potential creativity that can be involved when writing?

Professors should enforce pedagogical intervention regarding students’ emails and explaining them the appropriate information to be used while writing emails. A student writing an email to a professor and asking questions about the assignments given, and any clarification about the chapter explained in class is truly acceptable. Opponents of Email to professor claim that students email about notes that they missed classes or to provide information which is already available in school websites (Glater, 2006, para.1). Despite the fact that not all the students disturb the professors by unreasonable mail. However, professor has to encourage students that they are interested in the missed classes and they want know the chapters explained in the class.