Dissertation duplicate check: I bought the "weight reduction service", and the dissertation is not mistaken
"Guard against the gentleman but not against the villain" has led to "the one who obeys the norm dare not quote reasonably, and the one who ignores the norm will copy it in a different way."
Our reporter Zheng Minghong and Shi Qiangui
As the graduation season is approaching, many college graduates have begun to worry about the repetition rate of their dissertations.
After the first investigation, Tan Yuan, a recent graduate of a college in Southwest China, found that the repetition rate of his graduation thesis was much higher than the school's standard.
Immediately after that, he reduced the weight of the paper according to the method in the weight reduction experience post.
When he encountered a professional term that could not be relayed, he directly deleted that sentence.
After two weight reductions, Tanyuan successfully reduced the repetition rate of his graduation thesis to 10%, and successfully passed the school's review.
The reporter's investigation found that according to the mark in the duplication check report, it has become a common phenomenon for graduates to use various techniques to reduce the weight of papers, using various techniques to reduce the weight of the papers.
What's more, they will directly purchase weight reduction services in order to make the repetition rate of papers up to standard.
The price of duplicate checks has risen
In early March, Wang Benben, a graduate of a university in Southwest China, received a notice from the school to upload his dissertation for preliminary examination.
In order to ensure a smooth passage, she and another classmate combined their papers into one, and then purchased a duplicate check service online.
Wang Benben introduced that in order not to be discovered by the system, they adjusted the structure of the paper and removed all the titles that could be removed.
“We spent a total of 180 yuan, 90 yuan per person.” She added, “checking duplicates is too expensive. This is done to save money.”
The reporter learned that although Wang Benben's university did not explicitly require students to check the paper before submitting it, it must ensure that the repetition rate is less than 20%.
For the sake of insurance, most students will conduct self-examination first and reduce the weight according to the inspection report before submitting it to the school for review.
Despite the fierce price increase in dissertation investigations, graduates often dare not say anything.
Tan Yuan told reporters that he had purchased two undergraduate dissertation double checking services in the school's print shop, each time for 198 yuan.
When printing documents recently, I found that the price of the duplicate check service had been increased to 228 yuan each time.
On April 27, the reporter searched on the e-commerce platform and found that the price of the master and doctoral dissertation check service was generally around 500 yuan, and the most expensive one was sold at 1,800 yuan.
According to the customer service of one of the education franchise stores, a duplicate check service of 1,800 yuan can provide four reports and support verification and removal of published documents.
The reporter looked through the academic standard review methods of the dissertation of a university of political science and law and found that the school stipulated that students whose dissertation repetition rate exceeds 10% will be postponed for defense or disqualified for degree application.
Respondents admitted that the number of duplicate checks provided by the school is very small, and they worry that the excessive repetition rate will affect the submission of papers for review, which are the main reasons why they rush to purchase duplicate check services.
At present, although domestic colleges and universities conduct centralized checking of the dissertations, the results are often decisive.
According to CNKI's customer service, the academic misconduct detection system is a serious management tool that only provides services to institutions and is not open to individuals.
For this reason, students who need to check duplicate papers can only purchase duplicate check services through other channels.
The reporter's statistics found that the monthly sales of duplicate check services basically exceeded 2,000 times, and some even reached tens of thousands of times.
Based on this calculation, some businesses that operate duplicate check services on e-commerce platforms have a monthly turnover of several million yuan.
Secretly purchase paid weight reduction services
In fact, businesses that operate duplicate checking services on e-commerce platforms secretly provide paid weight reduction services.
In order not to be discovered by the platform, these merchants did not put it on the window, but diverted it to their personal account before proceeding with the transaction.
When a reporter asked about the price of paid weight reduction services as a fresh graduate, many practitioners said that they would charge fees based on students' requirements for delivery time, repetition rate, and the number of repetitive words in the original paper.
A practitioner said that to reduce the weight of a paper with a total word count of 50839 words and a repetition rate of 17.9% to less than 10% requires 1,800 yuan. 400 yuan".
"We are modified by the teacher, not the machine." According to a contact person in an education franchise store that provides this service.
But when the reporter asked whether college teachers were responsible for weight reduction, the contact said: "You can rest assured about the quality of weight reduction, and you don't need to ask more about other things."
In addition to purchasing weight reduction services, some graduates will also adopt some techniques to reduce weight by themselves.
A number of interviewees reported that after they purchase the duplicate check service online, the merchant will not only provide the duplicate check report, but also a "Weight Reduction Guide" to explain to them the duplicate check rules and techniques.
The reporter looked through a "weight reduction guide" provided by the interviewee and found that these weight reduction techniques mainly include synonymous substitution of keywords, sentence changes, paragraph segmentation, semantic paraphrase, deletion of repetitive parts, and English-Chinese translation.
Because the duplication check system could not recognize the pictures, when a postgraduate thesis defense was held in a college in Southwestern China in 2020, the teacher who participated in the defense found that when reviewing the thesis, a student took a screenshot of the text and inserted it into the thesis in order to reduce the repetition rate.
In the end, the student was convicted of cheating and his defense was postponed.
Respondents such as Li Jia, a master's degree student in a university in Beijing, believe that the frequent occurrence of various dissertations and dissertations is related to the low repetition rate of some universities and the decision on whether students can graduate smoothly.
"In order to meet the school's standards, the paper may be changed beyond recognition." Li Jia said.
According to Liu, the dean of a college in a southwestern university, in the college where he works, students whose repetition rate exceeded the standard in previous years will have another chance to make corrections before leaving the school.
Starting this year, graduation will be delayed depending on the circumstances, and may not even be graduated.
"We must resolutely resist this kind of behavior that uses technical means or techniques to reduce weight. The school should let students realize the wrong nature of this approach." said Zeng Yi, a doctoral supervisor in a university in Beijing.
Some interviewees also pointed out that buying papers online for duplicate checking may bring risks in aspects such as intellectual property rights.
"The research of some graduates of masters and doctors is relatively cutting-edge, and some are even classified. The risk of buying duplicate checking services online is very high," said Feng Xu, a doctoral student in a university in Beijing.
Paper review cannot be checked
In fact, since the domestic colleges and universities implemented the double check system of degree thesis, there have been controversies about it.
Some scholars believe that the implementation of the system of checking the duplicates of dissertations and the requirement of low repetition rate in universities are sticking to the bottom line of preventing academic misconduct.
“If you can’t hold onto the bottom line even if you don’t want to plagiarize, then students simply don’t write graduation thesis.” Zhuang Quan, an associate professor at a college in Southwest China, said that the root cause of students’ fear of repetition is the lack of research capabilities and academic ethics of college students. And the students did not write the thesis seriously.
However, some scholars pointed out that it is actually a kind of lazy political behavior that universities rely too much on technical means when reviewing their dissertations.
According to several interviewed scholars, at present, the repetition rate has almost become the only criterion in the preliminary review stage of a dissertation.
According to the staff of the Postgraduate Quality Supervision Office of the Graduate School of a University in Beijing, the school has several masters and Ph.D graduates every year, and their graduation is postponed due to the excessive repetition rate of thesis.
In the opinion of Zeng Yi and other scholars, the mechanism of relying on the repetition rate to determine whether the dissertation can be submitted for review or participate in the defense needs to be improved.
"Innovative topic selection and its value to science and social development are the most important criteria for evaluating the quality of papers, and the repetition rate is only one of the review criteria." Zeng Yi said.
Both parties in the dispute believe that weight checking has a certain effect in preventing academic misconduct, but it cannot improve the quality of papers.
“Some papers that are of poor quality or are plagiarized in nature can also reach the standard after their repetition rate is reduced.” said Zeng Lin, a doctoral student in a university in East China.
Scholar Lu Wei once pointed out that duplicate checking is more like a system of "preventing the gentleman but not the villain", which leads to the phenomenon that "the one who obeys the norm dare not quote, and the one who ignores the norm does not copy it", and even causes "inferiority". Only to expel good talents".
Li Yuxiao, a doctoral student at a university in Southwest China, also believes that plagiarism cannot be curbed by repetitive investigations, and that "people who want to copy will change the method of copying."
Respondents such as Li Yuxiao believe that colleges and universities pay too much attention to the repetition rate when reviewing their dissertations, which may cause students to only follow the repetition rate when writing the thesis, and are forced to reduce citations or wash the manuscripts, and pass on the classics and repeated readings. The famous saying was changed beyond recognition.
"In order to avoid repetition, the sentences and theories carefully crafted by the academics are discarded or changed beyond recognition, which is not conducive to the cultivation of academic ability." said Guo Xiaoan, a doctoral tutor of Chongqing University, deliberately changing the classic sentences of the academics. In fact It is a new kind of academic misconduct, "but it can't be discovered through technical means, only through artificial means."
Scholars such as Zeng Yi emphasized that the general direction of opposing academic misconduct is correct, and the duplication check system cannot be completely abandoned or abolished.
However, scientific laws must be respected in actual operations, and the standardization of academic behaviors ultimately depends on "human factors."
They worry that the excessive reliance on technical means when reviewing dissertations by universities may go against the original academic intentions and even lead to technological alienation.
Respondents suggested that the evaluation of dissertations should shift from "technology-based and human-assisted" to "human-based and technology-assisted", and the duplication rate can only be used as a reference data.
At the same time, it is necessary to establish a corresponding evaluation system and operation manual for the dissertation, and strengthen academic moral education to help students establish a sense of academic integrity.
Interviewed scholars pointed out that the internationally accepted method of academic evaluation is peer evaluation, and the duplication rate should not be and cannot be the only standard.
(On request, some interviewees are pseudonyms)