Having lived in Nairobi for a while, I’m impressed that this works. Kenyans have an idiosyncratic relationship with the English language. Even the major newspapers would print things that would give editors in the US hives. So good on these students for being able to fake American English well enough.
On a semi-related note, we’re currently putting our former housekeeper’s son through college in Nairobi. At $1000 per semester it’s considerably more affordable than if we had our own children we were putting through college in the US.
Or much like American English, they have their own perfectly coherent dialect of English? It seems strange that you’d call what Kenyans would consider perfectly normal Kenyan English as idiosyncratic, but not American English, which very much deviates quite wildly from British English (as do all other English dialects). That’s kind of how language works?
I’d also say that there is probably some standardization with regards to teaching English across the English speaking world, enough so that each has enough overlap, and that more specifics of each dialect are easy to find online now. So, I’m not sure this is a huge leap for a college educated person just about anywhere in the English speaking world.
I get a lot of work delegated to me. That is actually my job: developing software features my superiors tell me do. But their work day is as full as mine, in many ways fuller and more stressful, since after having gotten our marching orders, my colleagues and I pretty do our stuff as we please, while they have meeting upon meetings, keeping track of everything and reporting to their superiors. While we get left alone as long as we generally stay within our estimates.
Genius idea. I imagine the tricky part will be identifying and contacting the real authors. While Ms. Mbugua and her colleagues might be very keep to accept such scholarships, I’m willing to bet their employers won’t like this idea one bit.
I’m third on agreeing with that, as often times, first time offenders are doing it out of ignorance for proper citation styles rather than out of a desire to cheat.
One nice thing about teaching at a Community College is that most of my students are actually there to learn instead of just looking for a place to party. Recent studies have shown that Community College students who transfer to selective Universities actually have higher academic performance and graduation rates than students who enroll in those Universities as freshmen, largely because they had to have focus and determination to get there.
If someone else is doing their work, yes. They are a scammer, gaming the system. This is a bright line. Second chances can only come after an acknowledgement of the wrong doing. Making excuses for the activity is NOT conducive to that.
But I had no idea they were going to turn it in as their own! I thought they just wanted a five to seven page essay on the causes of the American civil war that cites at least five sources, of which three must be peer reviewed articles, because they were interested.
I also believe in 2nd chances, but in my experience and based on the reading I did on this topic, I think cheaters are usually near the top of the class and taking a full load or overload of classes. They are used to getting excellent grades and believe they ‘deserve’ them. They cheat because it’s expedient and they suspect or know that ‘everyone else is doing it.’ Then there are the students that want to get a degree and don’t care about the learning, especially in classes outside of their majors. I don’t believe in giving cheaters 3rd chances. Strike two and you’re out.
I live in Canada, so I can’t view a lot of American videos.
It’s from “What we do in the shadows” (the tv show, not the movie), and it’s a clip about the resident day-walking energy vampire who masquerades as that annoying office-worker in every office who annoys the hell out of everyone talking about his toe-fungus, or his trip to the garage have his tires rotated. In excruciating detail.
Surely there could be concessions for doing it practically for, as the essayist Mary puts it, their own survival? The cheater definitely exploits the situation, but the essayist is between a rock and a hard place, at least in Mary’s situation.
