Letters to the Editor
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Sure, they read . . .
and they also plagiarize. Constantly. Turning in critical analyses lifted from Sparknotes is irresistible, I guess, though most of us are savvy about the websites students routinely use (luckily, they're fairly lazy about their sources). Take a look at the increasingly Byzantine process colleges and universities have to follow in order to prevent and penalize plagiarism. Yes, yes, there has always been scholastic dishonesty and always will be, but my colleagues and I have seen a huge rise in plagiarism in the last 5-10 years (many departments now employ databases that identify lifted passages in student essays--we're entering into a technological stalemate with those we teach). Often, when the students are confronted, they are more dismayed about getting caught than the deed itself. It's frustrating, sad, and it would frankly bewilder me if I didn't know that they had operated this way all through the years of their elementary and secondary education. The internet is a wonderful tool, but it can't teach them ethics and critical thinking--that's our job.