College Misery posts about a paper on the Magna Carta, which is totally ridiculously wrong and was not only plagiarized but also published on the net by the student in question. I wonder how often Aaron Kerzner’s theft of a paper will be googled during his working career.
Every once in awhile, I google a few phrases from the paper to see how it’s gettting along in the wild. Over the years, the two seed essays I planted have spawned a dozen or so Google hits at various disreputable sites. Sometimes they even want you to pay to see the whole text. However, for years I had no idea if any student had actually handed the thing in.
It kind of makes me want to write something equally ridiculous on the topics which I ask my students to write about and see who brings it in. But apparently design trumps content for many professors, since Kerzner’s work was published on the net. I’m guessing the prof didn’t realize it was plagiarized. But surely he would recognize the ridiculousness of some of the statements in it?