Bears Get Theirs
Trojans waste Golden opportunity at the Sports Arena, blowing a second-half lead as Cal hangs on to win in overtipie, 92-91 /12
DM TROJAN
Student newspaper of the University of Southern California
FRIDAY
January 25,2002
Of interest...
Historic beauty becomes women at USC Fisher Gallery’s newest painting exhibit / 5
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vol. CXLV, no. 12 www.dailytrojan.com
TECHNOLOGY
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Resource
increases
originality
By STEVEN JONES
Staff Writer
A year-old Web site is making it easier for students to do their own work — and harder for them to steal work from others.
Questia.com’s electronic database of 70,000 books and journals provides college students with an accessible resource for writing better, faster papers, said Questia President and Chief Executive Officer Troy Williams. The database has doubled the size of its original library since last year, he added.
The site also allows professors to identify plagiarism. A professor can type in a few lines from a student’s paper and can scan the entire database to see if the passage was copied.
There is no way the Questia database could contain all possible sources, said Melora Sundt, associate dean for research in the Rossier School of Education. While helpful, a Questia search could not rule out the possibility of plagiarism, she added.
Marie Romillo, an undeclared freshman, said Questia would just make students work harder at plagiarizing, as well as providing professors with needless work.
Sundt investigated academic integrity cases at UCLA about six years ago, she said. Her department used an anti-plagiarism program that eliminated random words from a sentence and asked the writer to supply the missing words. If they could not, the line was less likely to be their own work.
Another popular tool, used at schools such as Berkeley, is the Web site Turnitin.com. It keeps an extensive file of term papers from univer-
I see Technology, page 3 I
King-sized dreams live on
Event: Speakers say furthering MLK Jr!s philosophy is key to improving social relations
By KENNETH BASIN
Staff Writer
Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of social equality and racial harmony is still far from completion, speakers said at the 21st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration in Bovard Auditorium Thursday.
Focusing on the theme of “Dr. King’s Universal Dream,” the celebration praised King’s contributions to activism and hope, which live on today. Keynote speaker Yvonne
Brathwaite-Burke, supervisor of the Second District County of Los Angeles and alumnus of the USC Law School, focused on the King’s philosophy of nonviolence, which he learned from Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi.
“People tend to think they have to use force and violence to get what they want” said Brathwaite-Burke, King’s acquaintance and former coworker.
King worked to change this all-too-common conception, bringing his philosophy of nonviolence to Los Angeles following the Watts Riots in 1965, Brathwaite-Burke said.
“What he brought was the idea that you don’t have to destroy to get new things ... we don’t necessarily have to have altercation — we have to
be strong in our principles and what we believe in," she said.
Nevertheless, she insisted that “a lot of things have changed, but they haven’t changed enough.”
Staying with the celebration’s theme, Brathwaite-Burke also pointed out the universalism and international impact of King’s work.
Reminding the audience that King’s work extended to South African apartheid, class conflict, poverty, unemployment, lack of education and other issues holding down all citizens, she commented on how activists sang “We Shall Overcome” at the conflict in China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Brathwaite-Burke encouraged everyone to accept King's dream and
personally commit oneself to bringing about change.
“Don’t forget,” she said. “Make sure you remember the dream, because you are the dream."
USC President Steven B. Sample, who said he uses King as an example in his undergraduate class in leadership, compared the civil rights leader to founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
“He’s a living testament to the belief that one person can, indeed, change the course of history,” he said.
Praising King as having led America to “follow through on the revolution that began in 1776,” Sample said King had achieved hero-I see King, page 2 I
Sing his praises. Charles Jones, leader of the USC Saved By Grace Gospel Choir, brings audience members to "Amazing Grace" at the 21st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration in Bovard Auditorium Thursday.
their feet with a rousing rendition of
Economy to bounce back in near future, analysts say
Careen Grads-to-be must ride out recession and investigate for stable jobs
By MAUDE WILSON
Staff Writer
Although the recession following Sept 11 has given students reason to worry, experts predict the job market will rebound.
The recession will only last until the second quarter of 2002, according to Ross DeVol, director of regional
studies and author of the Milken Institute report
Thirty-seven percent of recruiters said they were revising their recruiting projections downward, according to the National Association of Colleges Employers’ Job Outlook 2002 report Still, new-hire plans indicate only an additional 1.6-percent decline from their July 2001 projections.
But until the economy is back on track, students will have to distinguish themselves from other job seekers. Career counselors have been encouraging students to start their job search
early, attend professional organizational meetings and participate in informational interviews, said Suzanne O’Connor Alcantara, assistant director of career development at Annenberg . School for Communication.
“We’ve been advising students to take a creative approach to their job search and be patient,” Alcantara said.
Students also need to be flexible, Marilyn Mackes, executive director of NACE, an association that conducts employer surveys yearly, told the Los Angeles Times.
“To maximize their options, stu-
dents need to be flexible about salary, about commuting time, about the industry or company they’ll work for, even about job duties,” Mackes said.
Students need to lower their expectations first, said Dianne Siekmann, acting director of University Career Services at Northwestern University.
But Alcantara said she disagrees with that advice. Instead, she encourages them to be realistic when searching for their first job after college and to remember that the first job is not their final career destination.
“It’s the personal connections
through networking and the personal experience gained through internships that’s going to make the difference for new grads this year,” Eileen Kohan, executive director of USC’s Career Planning and Placement Center, told the Los Angeles Tunes.
Jennifer Landon, a graduate student in communication management who is in her last semester in the master’s program, said if she did not attend USC, she would be worried.
“USC has the best networking system and a solid reputation in this country,” she said.