Just depressing...

How depressing is it when you put your published essays on-line hoping to get Google to pick them up in searches only to find that they then begin to appear on links to essay writing web-sites! Still, if any of my students try to use them like that there is a reasonably good chance I might just recognise my own work.... :)

Thinking about the difficulties of tracing the impact of the Bible on events and ideas is one thing that occupies me professionally. But I can't help wondering if some of our current problems with plagiarism have something to do with Harry Potter. That boy may have been the chosen one, but he and his witless mate, Ron 'can I copy your work' Weasley, should have been chucked out of school for cheating on their assignments long before book 7 began. At one point, if I remember rightly, J K Rowling has anti-plagiarism quills for exams, but that is not when you need them. You need them when Hermione is handing over her latest script to her cheating mates. What role models!!

Other than that I quite enjoyed the Potter books....