I accidentally (we share a Kindle account) discovered that my HS sophomore son wrote an assigned major essay without ever having read the assigned book (just used SparkNotes and various Googled sites). The high school requires them to submit through TurnItIn, so he managed to reword enough to get it to go through without it being marked as plagiarized. I am certain he did not read the book because he confessed when asked.
His school handbook specifically describes this type of behavior as academic dishonesty. He has completed various plagiarism tutorials and knows this is wrong. I need to check, but assume his sources are not cited.
He is in a challenging admission-based program, but had plenty of time to do the reading and had no LDs or other issues that would have prevented him doing so. The assigned book is very difficult and dull, however.
What would you do? I suspect this type of behavior is common, but of course I don’t know and I 100% do not approve. My job actually involves academic honesty on some level, and I have reported people for plagiarism before. He knows this and is well aware of family values on the topic.
Options I am considering:
Turn him in. It is possible he will get kicked out of the program. I need to look into this. It is a severe consequence that will affect his future a lot if it happens. But he knew that.
Make him do the reading now and write a new essay, under my eye.
Make him read articles about plagiarism, personal stories about being caught for plagiarism, etc, then write an essay about why it's a bad idea.
He may not be thrown out. I have the feeling it’s the kind of thing where they say that but don’t do it. But I don’t know. They do say it’s a potential consequence.
( It’s a selective, admission-based program. They can find someone to fill his seat in a heartbeat.)
Because of where we live, his school options if kicked out are not good. Again…he knows this.
If you decide to go with admitting it, I think the proactive steps 2 and 3 serve better (now, with the school, and in making future decisions,) than just going in, confessing, and laying on lots of mea culpa, which could seem empty. Best wishes on this.
I think 3 is more for the hs to see he considered his actions. The idea in this and the re-write is to proactively react.
Educators know how kids make dumb mistakes and still can continue to grow. In respects, they know better than we parents, because they’ve dealt with so many kids, over time.
I might not ‘declare’ my kid cheated. I might phrase it differently.
I’m interested in how folks think they’d go about this in our shoes. Have him rewrite first? Do we all go in together or does he go in to the lion’s den alone? Approach teacher only, or call in some admin?
My son knows he is in trouble but does not know what consequences will be yet. I just discovered this this morning before school when he had difficulty printing the essay (which I didn’t know existed as an assignment). I knew the book had been assigned and was already aware it had not been read, since I can see % read on my Kindle. I had asked, and been assured it was due “later.” We didn’t really discuss other than me calling him out and him admitting it pretty quickly (though irritably). A quick glance at his laptop history brought up all the Sparknotes, etc.
Hmmmm…when I was in high school, there were a few books that had reports written based on Cliffs notes and not reading the entire book. Is that considered plagiarism?
“1. Turn him in. It is possible he will get kicked out of the program. I need to look into this. It is a severe consequence that will affect his future a lot if it happens. But he knew that.”
He’s your kid, and you will have to figure out the appropriate punishment for yourself. If it was my kid, I would figure out a way to teach him a lesson without nuking his future.
If I’m completely honest, as a parent I couldn’t and wouldn’t turn in my own child. Or force him to do it himself. Tough question. I’d probably look at some form of penance.
Right, did he copy someone else’s work, or write summaries directly copied from cliffs notes or whatever? Or was this writing about the book his own writing?
Agree that there is a big difference between reading outside sources/summaries (and skipping the original material) about a book and then doing your own work vs plagiarizing/reworking someone else’s work and turning it in as your original. Yes, your child should have read/attempted to read the original, but there is nothing wrong with using study aides on very difficult material as a supplement. The Bloomsday Book was part of our reading list when we tackled Ulysses in my college freshmen literature class. There were days when I felt like I needed Cliff Notes for the Bloomsday Book, lol.
Before I type more - let me say I would be very mad.
But… I don’t think it is plagiarism. I understand that plagiarism is when you take someone else’s work as your own. I think what your son did was take the lazy way out. There are a lot of students who turn in papers over books they didn’t read. That doesn’t make it right, but I don’t think it is plagiarism unless he copied someone else’s essay.
I would NOT go to the school or have him turn himself in. I think that opens a big fat investigation that you probably don’t want. If it were my kid, I would go with your options #2 and #3 and make sure he knows this is completely unacceptable.
I don’t think I would risk getting him kicked out of the program unless this is a repeated behavior.