Plagiarism Brokering via Instant Messaging

Nate Kushner’s blog reports an amusing story of how he received an instant message from a college student looking to commission a term-paper on Hinduism (via Boing Boing). Kushner ended up writing a “silly” paper, riddled with intentional errors and poor sources, and sold the paper to the student for $75. Additionally, Kushner blogged the entire incident, and sent the story to the College’s president after the paper was assumed to be handed-in.

I am not sure if Kushner’s handling of the incident was particularly honorable, but it certainly makes for an interesting story. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

1 thought on “Plagiarism Brokering via Instant Messaging

  1. What a soap opera!

    The new revelations were revealed that he did not actually call the University, but thanks to the story and the traffic, people from the site did. I still believe that this was the wrong way to do this, and believe that he should have contacted the dean first. Then after he should have blogged it and made a mention.
    I think that a story such as this can really help with your education on plagiarism and technology, Alec!

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