Plagiarism is the easiest way to fail. No ifs, ands, or buts.There have been rumors going around—as there are each year—about so-and-so plagiarizing on his or her history paper and thus earning a zero. Most students react in shock or disbelief. With our teachers’ numerous lectures, most onlookers are surprised that anyone would even think to try something so stupid. Plagiarism can be unintentional, however. Scouring essays for copied work is tedious and annoying, and writers naturally assume that all their work is what it seems—entirely their own.Accidents do happen. Certain phrases stick in our minds when we’re researching, and these turn up in our papers. We can rarely prevent this—it’s just the way our brains work.And what if a coincidence happens? There are times when the phrasings of certain sentences can align with those of another source, even if a writer has never seen the source.Our teachers try their best to prevent this sort of thing from happening, but using just their own intuition doesn’t seem to cut it. Now, Turnitin.com, a website that checks essays and papers against original sources for copied work, does it all for them.Unfortunately, Turnitin has more than a few flaws.First of all, the teachers’ settings for the site don’t include text sources. It only checks the internet and other submitted essays. Don’t many of the sources that we use for essays and such come from books? Sure, some books’ text is online, but most of the time this is not the case. This is clearly an enormous gap in the website’s ability to provide accurate assessments of work.On top of that, Turnitin looks at everything in a paper. That means that there is not a single phrase that is omitted, even if it’s something simple, such as “The other day I went…”.On my history paper, it said that my page numbers were plagiarized. Page numbers. Turnitin is essentially useless. Of course, it catches some things; if you were to fob off an entire piece of work you would get caught. However, Turnitin doesn’t catch the right things, but rather catches all the wrong things. Books are left out as sources, and citations, quotations, and even page numbers are counted. I don’t really see how anyone thought that this would help us.Despite this, many teachers take Turnitin very seriously. My history teacher threatened to give a zero to anyone who didn’t submit their paper to the site by a certain time the night before it was due.As for the actual issue of plagiarism, yes, it is a problem, and yes, it can be stopped.Is Turnitin the answer to this problem? No, because it just doesn’t work.]]>
Now, the first lunch line is comparable to a mob, lacking only pitchforks and burning torches.
The ensuing chaos causes some students to wait in line for the duration of lunch, forcing many to bring their lunches to class, while others choose not to eat at all because of lines.
To make matters worse, the entrance, a very small doorway, is nearly impossible to squeeze through, and it is anything but pleasant trying to navigate the various lunch counters beyond the doorway.
I’m not claustrophobic but sheer volume of people in the lunch line would likely scare King Kong, let alone hungry South students.
Two of my classes have swapped lunches to relieve crowding, yet the situation remains the same. Cancelled freshman classes take first lunch; adding at least fifty extra students to the first-lunch crowd every day.
The new policy mandating the first floor of the 6000s to take second or third lunch has yet to yield results.
The cafeteria staff have made efforts to clear the jam by moving the registers outside the doors. The tactic has allowed more space where no food exists, but doesn’t change the high concentration of students surrounding the counters.
Following the current lunch situation’s trajectory, I doubt anything will by fixed by the end of the year.
Nearing the end of the third term, there may not be enough time for a proper solution, which is unfortunate when students are forced to go without food and seek places to eat outside of the cafeteria.
The simple solution to the problem would be to rearrange the lunch schedule to reflect the traffic, which would eliminate the problems.
But seeing as there are no imminent solutions, there are only a few small things we can do to make life easier during our half-hour of culinary solace.
The first thing is frustratingly simple: pay with smaller bills. Students stand in line watching people pay with fifty dollar bills, which is ridiculous. Or, even better: put money in your lunch account!
Another solution, although it might be “retro,” would be to bring lunch from home.
Your parents would surely be happy to save at least $17, and if you still have that refrigerated Power Rangers lunchbox from third grade, you can eat a chilled lunch!
So, why complicate life when you don’t need to? Do your part to speed up the lunch lines and we’ll all be rewarded.]]>
…unnecessary and inappropriate
It was the week before February Vacation. Everyone was excited, and no one wanted to be in school. Then we learn some good news. Movies all week in Spanish!
Normally, this would be a great thing, but unfortunately, there was a problem. In both of the movies, there were some “adult” themes in terms of American cinema.
The two movies took inappropriate much too far for an “educational” setting.
Take the first movie, Manolito Gafotas. At the beginning, it appeared to be a simple movie about a simple family living in Spain.
Viewers soon saw that we had been deceived, starting with unexpected and superfluous nudity.
There was a scene in which the little brother of the main character needed to use the bathroom. I’m sure you can infer what happened next.
Needless to say, this was too much information for our uncontrollable teenaged minds. We were shocked, the room full of awkward teenagers suddenly getting very uncomfortable.
It didn’t get any better after that. I don’t think any of us had a desire to see Manolito in his underwear, or see him and his father undressing themselves—all of themselves.
The second movie, La Cuarta Planta, was worse. It was a movie about teenagers with cancer, which normally would be sad and emotional. But at the end, instead of feeling moved, I felt deeply disturbed.
The main characters would spend part of their day on the roof, trying to catch a glimpse of a girl through a window. One of the boys claims he saw the girl in a magazine and thinks that she is spectacular. The other boys don’t believe him, and the first boy feels the need to prove himself. In order to do so, he gets his hands on a poster of the half-naked woman.
By now, all of the Spanish students watching the movie had become, in a sense, desensitized. A half-naked woman? Hey, at least she’s got some clothes on.
At this point, our cheeks were bright red, our eyes were glazed over, and our mouths were hanging open. It was the definition of “system overload.” It could not, we reasoned, get any worse. It did.
Anyone who saw the movie has to remember the “bathroom music” scene. It was perhaps the most uncomfortable moment of the whole ordeal, and in addition to it being profoundly shocking it was very, very odd, seeing the boys’ facial expressions change in the mirror, in the center of the screen, and nothing else.
The themes were unsuitable for school and we could not comprehend why our teachers thought it was a good idea—or even a moderately good idea, or a passable idea, or a not bad idea—to show them.
Both of the movies were, quite frankly, inappropriate choices. Yes, they showed us life in Spain. The only problem? They didn’t leave anything out.
Was there even a point to screening the movies? Sure, they took up class time, but to what end? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t any more educated about Spain after watching them than before.
In fact, the only difference in my knowledge before and after the movies was that before I was blissfully unaware that a simple movie shown in Spanish class could cause Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
There is a line that divides purposeful displays of adult material for educational purposes and gratuitously explicit material. The Spanish movies helped distinguish this boundary, finding themselves beyond the realm of necessary educational experiences.