Well, here’s the problem. In a lot of Mighty Big Universities these days, it’s possible that the student who cheats in the 1000-person class will cheat in next year’s 800-person class and will cheat in the following year’s 600-person class. And no one will ever really see that student with any specificity or individuality from the first day they enroll to the last day of classes, and most of the people who will teach that student will be graduate students or adjuncts who are handling very large numbers of students for very poor compensation and generally don’t have the time or relationship to the institution to do more than basic due diligence in assessing student performance. In those kinds of universities, the skilled cheater whose primary tests of competence are going to be formal exams could arguably get away with it all the way to the end and into medical school. Where, we all hope, they will in fact finally get caught, though I think we also all know that’s not necessarily the case either.

So the answer isn’t really technology. The answer is pedagogy. It’s ok to deliver introductory courses in lecture format to large groups of students. It’s not ok to not follow that up with much smaller, more face-to-face courses where every single individual student’s daily, continuous facility with the subject matter is made visible to an instructor. It may turn out that staffing that kind of curricular design is more expensive than installing monitors and watermarking note paper and so on. But that’s what really makes the credential worth something, makes it an assurance that every graduate has been observed and assessed by an expert as possessing the competencies that he or she is certified as possessing. If a large introductory biology class in the first year was always followed by a 30-person lab course where the primary means of assessing student performance were not formal exams but instead involved their ability to produce relevant knowledge on an ongoing basis in the lab, you’d spot cheaters more effectively than if you installed every technological safeguard imaginable.

Plagiarized writing is a more complicated issue in certain respects, but it’s still easier to deal with through pedagogy than it is by perfecting Turnitin.com’s algorithms.

First, again, if a student consistently progresses over four years into smaller courses where they receive more individual attention from a professor, usually it’s going to be obvious when there is a considerable gap between the student’s formal written work and their capabilities in discussion or in types of writing that can’t be cut-and-paste plagiarized, such as short response papers, timed writing exercises in class, or hybrid forms like blog entries. If not within a single class, the discrepancy will often become visible across several classes, and is often the first thing that tips a professor off that they need to examine a student’s writing more closely, when their performance in a current course is wildly at odds with their performance in a past class where the kind of writing and subject matter is was very similar. (This tends to mean either that something really emotionally or personally difficult is going on in the student’s life, that the professors in each course have wildly divergent standards, or that the student has at some point submitted work not their own.)

Second, the easiest way to beat most plagiarism is to come up with essay prompts that are highly customized to a course, and to individualize or customize your course designs in some respect. I constantly shift my readings mostly to please myself and to chase what I think are the most interesting issues or questions in a particular subject area, but it doesn’t hurt to be using material that’s not commonly used in classes and to craft assignments which would be almost impossible to find plagiarisable material for. I think most humanists and social scientists can find a way to accomplish this in upper-level courses.

The only thing you can’t beat that way is the student who is willing to pay high prices for a skilled analytic writer to produce a customized product that responds to the prompt. I’m sure there are services like that out there. I’m unfortunately pretty certain that it’s not just students that use them, but some researchers (after all, isn’t that what pharmaceutical companies have been caught doing for some researchers)?

In doing so, he also highlights the value of small liberal arts colleges.

Worth your time.

Fitting.

Via

In one way or another, people keep asking,

That answers the questions posed, and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to know much more (feel free to ask if you do). I think I’m sufficiently far into my navel now that escape is uncertain. I’d better stop.

Doesn’t all this blogging take a lot of time? Isn’t it a lot of work? How do you gather the information for a post?

My answers are in part inspired by a post by Joanne at the blog Tomorrow Museum (h/t Tyler Cowen). She discusses the various ways in which she gathers and keeps track of ideas using modern tools.

First of all, blogging is not work for me. It’s entertainment. So whatever time it takes escapes my notice. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter how much effort I exert doing it. If it ceased to be enjoyable I would stop. Nevertheless, I can answer the question how much time it takes.

When I started blogging I spent hours per post. I recall one post (OK, maybe two) on which I probably spent over four hours, but most took me about two until I got the hang of it. I no longer spend nearly that length of time, and I don’t think it is because quality is lower. I think I’ve just gotten more efficient at writing blog-length pieces. Writing nearly every day does improve one’s skill. Now I tend to compose blog posts in my head during spare bits of time. When I get a few minutes in front of a computer I type out my thoughts. The paragraphs mostly flow. There’s hardly any wasted time at the computer puzzling over words and structure. My thoughts are in order well in advance.

I write two kinds of posts. The “real time” type are responses to and thoughts about events that are in the news and public (blogosphere) debate right now. I usually want to get those out quickly and they don’t take much time. Sometimes fifteen minutes is all that is needed to write such a thing. An example of this type is Consequences of Obstruction. When I write these I publish them immediately.

The other type of post is less time-sensitive and I write them far in advance. They do not rely on any current news or information and will seem fresh even if published months after I write them. I typically have blog posts of this type scheduled two to four months into the future. I wrote this sentence on 1/1/10, for example. These types of posts take longer to write because the ideas come more from me and less from news/blogosphere sources. They take an hour at most.

I gather and keep track of information that goes into posts using several Google products. Most information comes to me via Google Reader. Anything that sparks an idea or is related to something I’ve written or am working on I flag in some way, either by sharing it (putting it in my News & Links feed) or staring it (a way to mark Google Reader items to find them easily in the future). I also keep a Google Notebook dedicated to blog ideas. I drop in links and notes into that as I see them. Then when it comes time to write a post I just pull up my Google Reader and Notebook and plop in the links. The two references I made in the third paragraph of this post were stored in my Google Notebook until I was ready to use them. The second of them (the link to Tyler Cowen’s summary) was shared in my News & Links feedthe minute I read it on 1/1/10.

Because I have access to Google Reader and Google Notebook nearly everywhere (on my phone or on any internet connected computer) these are the only tools I need to gather and keep track of information for blog posts. Once upon a time I also kept a small spiral notebook in my work bag in which I would jot notes. But I don’t see a need for paper and pen anymore. It’s hard to jot down a URL anyway. Cut and paste with Google tools is far better and faster.

Anyone who has tried blogging knows that it can take up an inordinate amount of time. Furthermore, I do not think that the jury is out on whether blogging is beneficial for academics. Some questions to consider: 1) Does blogging improve one’s writing skills? 2) Does blogging encourage sloppy argument? 3) Don’t the discussions in the comment sections usually become insult parades? As the framing of my questions indicate, I am not convinced blogging has many academic benefits.

I am certainly willing to acknowledge that there can be exceptions to the free trade is always good dogma you sometimes hear, particularly for developing countries, but for me the burden of proof will always be on those who want to restrict markets rather than those who want them to remain open:

Smoot-Hawley is the economists’ Munich, isn’t it?, by Eric Rauchway(under cc): Our friends in the economics departments (except the economic historians, and only some of them) have a thing about free trade, but only when, via Thoma, I read this remark by Tim Duy, did I begin to understand how it works.

And every right minded economist and policymaker knows unequivocally that free trade is good, and to even question that assumption makes one an ignorant heretic who has never heard of Smoot-Hawley.

To the extent that this is an accurate representation of how “Smoot-Hawley” works among economists (except the economic historians, and only some of them) this is very similar to the neocon deployment of “Munich”; to wit, “Every tough-minded analysts knows unequivocally that appeasement is wrong, and to even question that assumption makes one an ignorant heretic who has never heard of Munich.” The obvious problem is that in fact not all tinpot dictators are worse than Hilter!!!!1!!! Or at least, they generally don’t pose the same threat to world order as Hitler did. But if you want to look tough you say, “Munich!”

There is a similar problem with Smoot-Hawley. Yes, the Smoot-Hawley tariff is widely understood to have been asinine, but not because protectionism is everywhere and always wrong–rather, because protectionism in the specific context of the late 1920s, with an awful lot of money owing internationally and a number of countries desperately needing to trade with the US, was wrong.

If we think about this for five seconds we know it’s true, because in fact protectionism has, in various times and places, gone hand-in-hand with fairly brisk economic growth. Alexander Hamilton understood this; so did Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln. Can it really be true that economists (except the economic historians, and only some of them) have willfully forgotten this? There are whole books on the subject. By economists (albeit economic historians).

Now, this was not and is not an argument that protectionism is always a good thing either, as a second’s contemplation of the phrase “infant industry” will disclose. And of course any historian, but especially an economic historian, should be able to tell you that once you impose a tariff, political shenanigans tend to ensure it remains in place and grows even well beyond the infancy of a protected industry.

But it appears “Smoot-Hawley” really is a kind of shorthand for the economists (except the economic historians, and only some of them) to say, what are you crazy? You let that happen and the next thing you know Hitler is invading Czechoslovakia.

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All of which is peripheral to Duy’s main point, which is also fascinating, and depressing, and includes among other insights a solid entry into the “how do we periodize the last half of the twentieth century” sweepstakes:

Note that a number of trends all begin in the 1980s. Absolute manufacturing declines, the rise of persistent trade deficits, the decline in labor’s share of output, growing income inequality, and the Great Moderation.

There is I think a good argument that certain political and policy changes of the 1970s predate and cause these trends, but talking about when these trends become visible would, I think, be a good way to teach students about the shift in expectations from one generation to the next.

I agree with the point Thoma made. The burden of proof is now on the protectionists. The economic literature I have read suggests that free trade has more positive than negatives. But one point that is neglected too often is that there should be a strong social safety so the economic distress caused by free trade for some is mitigated. Currently, the social safety net in the United States is inadequate.

So, what was the Sokal Hoax?  In 1996, Alan Sokal, a professor of physics at NYU, submitted an article titled “Transgressing the boundaries: Toward a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity” to the non-peer reviewed journal Social Text. The article used postmodernist jargon and misused scientific terms to argue that scientific objectivity is an illusion. Anyone competent in basic college physics would have rejected the article. But the editors of Social Text published the article in a special issue about science. Soon after, Sokal wrote another article basically telling the editors they had been punk’d.

How does the hoax apply to humanities? The hoax sheds light on an pseudo-intellectual fad particularly prominent on in Literature and Sociology Departments. People who subscribe to this fad will call it postmodernism, deconstruction, critical theory, post structuralism, or anti-foundationalism.  For the purposes of this post, I will use the umbrella term “postmodernism.”

Reduced to their crudest form, most postmodernist theories share this claim: there are no objective truths. NYU philosopher Paul A. Boghossian writes,

Most philosophers accept the claim that there is no such thing as a totally disinterested inquirer, one who approaches his or her topic utterly devoid of any prior assumptions, values or biases.

But postmodernists believe that perspective ruins the chance for truth. Boghossian, again, on why the postmodernist claim is wrong:

To concede that no one ever believes something solely because it’s true is not to denythat anything is objectively true. Furthermore, the concession that no inquirer or inquiry is fullybias-free doesn’t entail that they can’t be more or less bias-free, or that their biases can’t be more or lessdamaging. To concede that the truth is never the only thing that someone is tracking isn’t to deny thatsome people or methods are better than others at staying on its track.

Historicism leaves intact, then, both the claim that one’s aim should be to arrive at conclusions that areobjectively true and justified, independently of any particular perspective, and that science is the best idea that anyone has had about how to satisfy that aim. Postmodernism, in seeking to demote science from the privileged epistemic position it has come to occupy, and thereby to blur the distinction between it and `other ways of knowing, — myth and superstition, for example — needs to go muchfurther than historicism, all the way to the denial that objective truth is a coherent aim that inquiry mayhave. Indeed, according to postmodernism, the very development and use of the rhetoric of objectivity,far from embodying a serious metaphysics and epistemology of truth and evidence, represents a mereplay for power, a way of silencing these `other ways of knowing’. It follows, given this standpoint, thatthe struggle against the rhetoric of objectivity isn’t primarily an intellectual matter, but a political one:the rhetoric needs to be defeated, rather than just refuted….

[...]

[T]o say that some claim is true according to some perspective sounds simply like a fancy way of saying that someone, or some group, believes it. The crucial question concerns what we are to say when what I believe — what’s true according to my perspective — conflicts with what you believe –with what’s true according to your perspective? The one thing not to say, it seems to me, on pain of utter unintelligibility, is that both claims are true.This should be obvious, but can also be seen by applying the view to itself. For consider: If a claim and its opposite can be equally true provided that there is some perspective relative to which each is true,then, since there is a perspective — realism — relative to which it’s true that a claim and its opposite cannot both be true, postmodernism would have to admit that it itself is just as true as its opposite,realism. But postmodernism cannot afford to admit that: presumably, its whole point is that realism is false. Thus, we see that the very statement of postmodernism, construed as a view about truth,undermines itself: facts about truth independent of particular perspectives are presupposed by the view itself.

I think that Professor Boghossian shows convincingly that when one closely inspects the central claim of postmodern theories, the claim collapse upon itself. Defenders of postmodernism dismiss the self refutation argument, but they don’t offer a convincing response to why we shouldn’t accept this argument put forth by Professor Boghossian. “It’s annoying” will not do.

So why are some academics drawn to this pseudo-philosophical fad? Boghossian speculates:

[O]n purely political grounds… it is difficult to understand how this could have come toseem a good way to conceive of multiculturalism. For if the powerful can’t criticize the oppressed,because the central epistemological categories are inexorably tied to particular perspectives, it alsofollows that the oppressed can’t criticize the powerful. The only remedy, so far as I can see, for what threatens to be a strongly conservative upshot, is to accept an overt double standard: allow a questionable idea to be criticized if it is held by those in a position of power — Christian creationism –for example, but not if it is held by those whom the powerful oppress — Zuni creationism, for example.Familiar as this stratagem has recently become, how can it possibly appeal to anyone with the slightest degree of intellectual integrity; and how can it fail to seem anything other than deeply offensive to the progressive sensibilities whose cause it is supposed to further?

The short answer is that questions about truth, meaning and objectivity are among the most difficult and thorny questions that philosophy confronts and so are very easily mishandled. A longer answer would involve explaining why analytic philosophy, the dominant tradition of philosophy in the English-speaking world, wasn’t able to exert a more effective corrective influence. After all, analytic philosophy is primarily known for its detailed and subtle discussion of concepts in the philosophy of language and the theory of knowledge, the very concepts that postmodernism so badly misunderstands. Isn’t it reasonable to expect it to have had a greater impact on the philosophical explorations of its intellectual neighbors? And if it hasn’t, can that be because its reputation for insularity is at least partly deserved? Because philosophy concerns the most general categories of knowledge, categories that apply to any compartment of inquiry, it is inevitable that other disciplines will reflect on philosophical problems and develop philosophical positions. Analytic philosophy has a special responsibility to ensure that its insights on matters of broad intellectual interest are available widely, to more than a narrow class of insiders.

Back to the main question of this post: What can people in the humanities learn from the Sokal Hoax? There are three take home lessons. The first lesson is to stay away from relativism. Appreciation for a certain view or culture does not require a relativistic mindset. For example, I appreciate Charles A Beard’s work even if I believe that some of his arguments are wrong. (It does not follow that I believe that he is a bad person because I think that he is wrong on some issues.)  The second lesson is that philosophical issues, such as truth, are very complicated. Be wary of people, who are not philosophers, who freely throw around theories of truth and language. More often than not, these people won’t know what they are talking about. The third lesson is that quality matters.  As John R. Searle would say, once you have given up on the idea that some work is better than other work, you have given up on the academy.

The late Sixties had favored the peace sign–the index and middle fingers in a V–which proclaimed a world of possibilities, the emphatic conviction that young americans could build a new and better world. During the mid-1970s, the peace sign gave way to “the finger.” That obscene gesture lacked the hopefulness of the Sixties but still expressed a clear point of view.

Some clarifications:

As I understand, foundationalists maintain that explanations or justifications “derive” from a relatively limited starting point (foundation.)

Foundationalism about empirical knowledge is the view that the most important and most basic source of justification for empirical  knowledge is perceptual beliefs. This modest view allows for perceptual beliefs to be corrected by other perceptions or by theory. As stated, this view seems obviously true.

Foundationalism about explanation is that all explanation should be from general laws or principles. This view seems extreme and wrong. Such a view would render subjects like history, and evolutionary biology useless.

When a proctor sees something suspicious, he records the student’s real-time work at the computer and directs an overhead camera to zoom in, and both sets of images are burned onto a CD for evidence.

[...]

Anti-plagiarism services requiring students to submit papers to be vetted for copying is a booming business. Fifty-five percent of colleges and universities now use such a service, according to the Campus Computing Survey.

The best-known service, Turnitin.com, is engaged in an endless cat-and-mouse game with technologically savvy students who try to outsmart it. “The Turnitin algorithms are updated on an on-going basis,” the company warned last month in a blog post titled “Can Students ‘Trick’ Turnitin?”

[...]

Some educators have rejected the service and other anti-cheating technologies on the grounds that they presume students are guilty, undermining the trust that instructors seek with students.

I think that there is a kernel of truth in the last excerpted paragraph.  Turnit.com should be used as an aid to confirm suspicions on already-suspected plagiarized work. Using it all the time sends the wrong message to students. It sends the same message as giving a pop quiz: You must be flawed in some respect and I am going to find those flaws.

**In my computer science class in high school, I did a project investigating the loopholes in plagiarist detection sites, such as Turnitin.com. I found that if you place the text within a table and hide the table, the turnitin scanner wasn’t able to read the document and returned a score of 0% copied. But I assume turnitin has fixed this flaw, sorry cheaters.

Funny and probably true.

You would have never guess who I heard the quote from.*

*Bobby Valentine on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight.