When a fellow teacher of mine told me about the plagiumkereso site, I was not sure that it was something that I wanted to use. Granted, I was fairly new to teaching and still had a lot of naive ideas about my students. I wanted them to be the best that they can be, but I realized that they are going to be the best that they want to be. The sad truth is, not all of them want to get the best grades possible. For some of them, skating by is their best, or at least what they are willing to put into the course load.
I still wanted to trust my students that they would not cheat to get passing grades, but my friend told me enough stories that I felt I should take off my rose colored glasses and see my students for who they truly are. Now don’t misunderstand me, because most of them are really good students who do want to get good grades. There are a few though who don’t mind passing off work that is not their own. I decided to use the plagiumkereso site one day when the essay that a student turned in did not match what I thought he was capable of doing.
I was surprised to see that he had copied nearly the entire essay, once I ran the text through the checker. He had changed a few words, hoping to pass off the work as his own, but he had reached too high on the essay. It made it easy to know that it was not his own. I went to him with the proof that I had because of the plagiarizer checker, and he was very ashamed. He explained that he is not a good writer, and that started a discussion that I knew I could help him with. He now turns in his own work, and no one is the wiser about what happened other than the two of us.