Deb Carmichael points out, and I agree: >Many students think that information on the Internet is "public" and I have >had some that thought that copying from IMDB or a book jacket was okay because >it is, of course, public on the net or on a glossy (sell the book) jacket. While google searching for key phrases in plagiarised assignments, I have often found that the trail leads to more than one site where the exact same phrases occur. Determining which is the original is impossible. The Internet itself is a complex circuit of unattributed copying -- the culture of the cut and paste -- and I think for the present generation of students, this makes our conventional articulation of what plagiarism is and why it matters archaic. In the world they've grown up in, unattributed electronic copying is as unremarkable as taping a TV show. The related issue for film students is that those majoring in journalism, communications or media studies are also aware of the entirely proper professional practice of constructing news stories from prefabricated media releases, designed to present the simulation of original writing under deadline conditions which don't favour the work it takes to produce the real thing. But I'm trying to find alternatives to Leo's simple march back to boot camp: I don't think exam conditions, either for men or women, liberals or conservatives, is our best solution, as I think this encourages us to retreat from the gains we have made in cinema studies in engaging undergraduates in real research practice. So for the students I teach who base their research papers on the oral history interviews they've conducted themselves into the history of cinema-going, backed up by their own archival research, plagiarism really isn't a problem. But the challenge that remains is that if we continue to ask students roughly the same questions we've always asked about the study of films themselves (particularly in terms of genres), the paper mills will find our moves tremendously easy to predict, and our demands very easy to supply -- as Jeremy's original message proves. The best we can hope for, it seems, is that it's our brightest film analysis graduates writing these essays for sale ... Kate -- _____________________________________________ Dr Kate Bowles Senior Lecturer, Media and Cultural Studies School of Social Science, Media and Communication Faculty of Arts University of Wollongong NSW 2522 Australia tel: +612 42 214651 fax: +612 42 215341 email: [log in to unmask] ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.ScreenSite.org