When a student copies an essay online instead of writing it and then painstakingly changes every word to a synonym until the text no longer makes any sense...
call that the Ship of Thesaurus
Any educator who doesn't feel this on a visceral level has never had to experience the psychic pain of reading the phrase "Unused York City."
This is the fifth anniversary of me receiving the paper that contained "Unused York City." With ChatGPT slop invading my classes like original thought-choking kudzu, I now look back on the copy-paste + Spinbot days with a surprising amount of rosy nostalgia.
I was once in the office and another professor called me over. She was teaching a course on global citizenship.
"I can't figure out what this student is writing about," she said. "She keeps using the phrase 'perspiration stores.' Perspiration stores this, perspiration stores that."
I glanced at the paper and read a paragraph.
"Friend," I said. "She's writing about sweatshops."
i just spent like 20 minutes scrolling through the notes for examples and I'm screeching with laughter




















