Cheating has always been a problem in university. I once knew a student who sold an "A" grade essay to several students during a two-year period at York. This went undetected by the university faculty. Students who can afford to purchase custom written essays also get away with cheating. It's amazing what money can do. The rest of had to put up with writing term papers from scratch.
One phrase in the article really resonates with me -- "patchwork quilt". I see a lot of this. Students tell me that during their research -- mostly online these days -- they copy snippets of text into their notes. Then they edit these snippets into the final paper, in many cases unaware (or unconcerned) that they are committing plagiarism.
