Reduce use of "Ready Made" Papers and Essays Online
In order to reduce the possibility of students downloading "ready-made" papers and essays from the internet, I tailor them to specific questions or issues to the course and phrase the assignment to the specifics of the course as it's being taught.
For example, in abnormal psychology, I develop a scenario such as:
"your friend has set you up with the perfect blind date. You and your date haven't said much but now you're at the restaurant and have just placed your order. You sit back and begin to get to know each other better." The task is to take a personality disorder (e.g. anti-social personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder) and develop as creative a scene as desired that clearly demonstrates the behavior, thinking, and emotions of an individual with that disorder. The individual could be the "date" or the "student."
For example, in general psychology, I select a current problem in psychology (e.g. effectiveness of disbributive study versus cramming) and ask the students to develop an outline of a possible scientific research study utilizing the text chapter on psychological research. I, then, ask specific questions such as why the study should not be correlational, what ethical issues does the research need to consider, etc.
Even if students use WEB sources, they can't easily download an entire essay nor can they easily cut/paste from the WEB.
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