Case of the 16,569-word Essay
Imagine that you are employed as a “reader” for a university professor
who assigns a 16,000-word essay each week to be written out longhand.
It is your job to screen the essays submitted for any hint of
plagairism and, where possible, to determine who has copied from whom.
One semester you read an essay that seems very much like another you
have read. Comparing the first three pages of the two papers you find
that they are completely identical. Then on page 13 of one essay (#1)
you find the word “organic” and the word “orgasmic” in the same place
on the other essay (#2). In context “organic” make sense, but
“orgasmic” is riscible.
Q:
What is your initial conclusion?
Later you come across another seemingly identical paper (#3). This one
not only has the organic/orgasmic error on page 13, but also a
substitution of “erratic” for “erotic” on page 20, a change of
“historical” to “hysterical” on page 33 and “mitosis” in a place on
page 37 where only “meiosis” would make sense.
Q:
What do these observations suggest?
The next paper (#4) you read is just like #3 except it doesn’t have
the mitosis/meiosis error. Yet another essay (#5) reveals all of the
errors found in #4 except for the erratic/erotic substitution. And
finally, essay #6 contains the following errors: organic/orgasmic;
erratic/erotic; hysterical/historical; and a substitution of “feces”
where only “theses” would make sense, even in an essay on political
philosophy .
1.
...Organic...
...Erotic...
...Historical...
...Meiosis...
...theses...
4.
...Orgasmic...
...Erratic...
...Hysterical...
...Meiosis...
...theses...
2.
...Orgasmic...
...Erotic...
...Historical...
...Meiosis...
...theses...
5.
.. Orgasmic..
...Erotic...
...Hysterical...
...Meiosis...
...theses...
Q:
3.
...Orgasmic...
...Erratic...
...Hysterical...
...Mitosis...
...theses...
6.
...Orgasmic...
...Erratic...
...Hysterical...
...Meiosis...
...feces...
Who copied from whom? Can you construct a family tree showing the
“modifications with descent” among the various essays submitted?
The errors noted would be annoying even to a reader not concerned with
plagairism, but in most cases the reader would still be able to make
sense of the sentences and paragraphs in which they occurred. The
essay might still “work.” These errors are like the neutral mutations
that arise over time in the genome of any organism, although this
Rev’d. 2006 Michael Bucher, College of San Mateo
example is more like such occurances as they are found in asexually
reproducing organisms which have only a single parent.
Q:
What organisms reproduce only asexually?
Q:
What parallels can you draw between a 16,000-word essay being
passed down imperfectly from student-to-student and genetic
information being passed down with occasional mutations in
mitochondrial DNA?
Rev’d. 2006 Michael Bucher, College of San Mateo