I would make the consequences and punishment very, very miserable and somewhat dragged out, but I would not turn him in. It sounds like you are expecting the school to be somewhat forgiving because he’ll turn himself in on his own, but that may not be the case. How will you feel if he gets a suspension and it goes on his transcript to colleges?
I talked this with my S20, he said the bitter pill might be too bitter, as it could impact his future, which I agree. I would choose option 2 - to read the book, write an essay, get a D and hope that he learns the lesson.
Will he? Probably not. But will he be a dishonest person from now on? Most likely not either.
Sparknote is really an abomination, I would rather my kid not to read anything, than reading the sparknote.
I don’t fully understand what happened, but would be hesitant to be the reason my kid has an academic dishonesty infraction noted on his transcript, GC recommendation and/or college applications.
Sounds like a risk that he would be kicked out of his current program too and having this infraction would necessarily remove certain colleges as potential targets.
What does he say about it? What does he want to do?
If he admitted he didn’t read the book, does he think that’s wrong or just how things are done now? Will he agree to read the books in the future?
I wouldn’t turn him in but I’m make sure he knows that he will be kicked out if discovered. If you discovered it, how hard will it be for the teacher to figure it out?
He may have learned more about the subject by reading all the SparkNotes and articles about the story. He at least learned enough to write the paper. He’s lucky those cheats were correct (sometimes the Sparknotes and Clif Notes are just plain wrong!)
Did your son plagiarize ?
Do you expect your son to turn you in if you take liberties when filing your taxes, run a red light, or, more appropriately, roll through a stop sign ?
So many trust issues. Parent checking up on kid’s work, then questioning child, then turning own child in for what appears to be more laziness than dishonesty or cheating.
If you turned in your own child for suspicion of plagiarism, would you be willing to supply the school with evidence to back up your suspicion / charge ?
In my view, the most appropriate action would be to make sure that he credits SparkNotes & Google sources in his citations.
P.S. As an aside, are you willing to name the “very difficult and dull” assigned book ? (Unlikely to change my opinion, just curious.)
It sounds like he read summaries of the plot and wrote a report based on that. I agree it’s lazy and probably misses a lot of what the book was about, but I don’t think that’s plagiarism. The school may call it that because they don’t want kids to be lazy, but if he didn’t copy someone else’s words or ideas then I don’t see how it qualifies.
I also wouldn’t turn my kid in. But I’d make him do the work the right way. If he’s a senior I’d be talking about a gap year too. High school mistakes don’t necessarily follow you, but the consequences of playing those games in college can be pretty serious.
I agree with this 100%. I also asked my husband, who is a serious rule follower, and he said the same. Lazy work, but not plagiarism!
Sounds like I need to clarify a few things.
My son says he ran it through TurnItIn and it was clean. He is smart. He probably reworded and cobbled enough so that it would pass. I believe he wrote his own words but did not come up with the ideas.
He DID NOT READ the source material (think Plato’s Republic, which it was not, but similar). Not one page. I believe he was assigned excerpts. He had a long time to read these.
The essay required analysis and synthesis, so he must have copied others’ thoughts. His source list only lists the original source and some other historical or basic encyclopedia sources. None of the “and this is what the book is about” stuff is on there.
This EXACT thing is very specifically prohibited in his program honor code.
Gotta say, I’d be super angry, but would I turn him in? No, and I would probably not make him turn himself in. However, I would do my best to make him suffer some kind of pretty annoying consequence.
Had a somewhat related experience with my son when he was in 8th grade. He tried to sneak out of the house one school morning with a poster board presentation that was truly the worst piece of garbage I’ve seen. It was clear that he’d put zero effort into the presentation because he thought it would be more fun to play video games or whatever.
The options were let him get a guaranteed D or worse, let him take a “sick” day (not happening), or torture him by making him re-do it, which is what we did. He had an hour of hell trying to make that trash better before school began, and we informed him there would be more to discuss after school. (The marginally less terrible poster project got a C.) When he got home, we both lectured him for a few hours on the need to take pride in his work, to DO the assignment, not put in minimal effort, etc… We should have charged admission for the motivational speeches we gave that night.
I suppose we could have done nothing, but the issue was that he had been asked about the assignment, and had deliberately tried to hide the facts that 1), he hadn’t put in the necessary work, and 2) the work he had done was insulting to his teacher and to us, because we expect better. Honestly, if we’d let it slide and he had gotten a D, he wouldn’t have cared at that time in his life. It was better to make him suffer our wrath than the teacher’s.
I wouldn’t engage the teacher or school and I’d hope that the teacher recognizes the effort level and assigns a poor grade. For poor academic performance (regardless of what this grade is), there would be some consequences involving loss of privileges for electronics or car use or going out.
It sounds like you want to turn this kid in. Is that the case? If so, what other issues has this student had?
If this is a one off, I agree with others…make the consequences suitable to the deed.
I would have him read some honor codes from some colleges…so he understands the consequences if cheating.
I don’t know how in depth Spark Notes are, but Cliffs notes really do a good job of summarizing the actual book. It wouldn’t be hard to do an analysis based on what they said.
I don’t jump from using book summaries to plagiarism. Similar to watching the movie version and writing an essay from that.
In my experience, teachers know what’s out there and even if it passed the turnitin sniff test he may still have issues after teacher reads it. At the least, the essay will lack depth and be superficial.
I would not turn my child in for this.
I would discuss with my child about dropping to a less rigorous level if the student isn’t engaged in doing the work.
To all those saying “this is not plagiarism” … that’s not what OP said, s/he said it is “academic dishonesty”, and I don’t think it’s too difficult to see why that’s the case, though tbh I also don’t see how it’s much worse than skimming a book rather than reading it properly, which i certainly did once or twice (in high school, and college, and beyond…) Not original thoughts? No, not many high schoolers will be writing totally original book summaries, and most book reviews at this level are some form of synthesis of other people’s thoughts, even if you’ve read the whole thing. In brief : I get that it’s “wrong”, but I also think getting kicked out of the program is a punishment much harsher than the crime requires. I’d agree with keeping the consequences in house, while making sure he will not want to go this route again.
Do I want to turn him in? No. Do I want him to keep doing this crap? I really, really, do not. This is a hot button issue for me. My profession is such that I regularly encounter professional adults, including in academia, who have not yet learned this lesson. It drives me mad. You cheat yourself and others.
I don’t think they’ll really kick him out. I suspect they’d give him an F. I’m fine with that. But it’s true that I just don’t know.
It is also true that this a teen who is known for sometimes pushing the envelope with regard to honesty. But I have never had a concern with academic honesty before, though it’s also true that I never look at his work (this was a bit of a perfect storm). I don’t think this is a frequent thing for him.
FWIW, I have a pretty finely developed sense of plagiarism and I do think this is technical plagiarism. Why? He used thematic ideas from SparkNotes etc without citing them. I’m sure this is done all the time. However, it is not kosher. I don’t think I’d call this out if SN were used alongside having read the material, though. SN and the like create some gray area.
The OP wrote this about her son’s issue.
And this is why we think she thinks it’s plagarism.
BTW! I don’t cheat on my taxes! 
This is times of those times when I would butt-out; your son is old enough, and smart enough to know the difference between right and wrong. Shaming him by turning him in / having him turn himself in etc. will get you nothing but grief, and, IMO, your relationship with him may ultimately suffer irreparable damage, especially if he’s kicked out of the program / suspended / had a notation on his transcript etc.
I’d let him handle it the way he sees fit, and is it really plagiarism?
The plagiarism/not plagiarism discussion is besides the point. Though it is, and this is why: he certainly did not cite the sources for the information about the book that he used and paraphrased. That is textbook plagiarism.
But in any case, he represents himself as having read the book when he hasn’t. That is cheating.
I’ll leave it for everyone else to agree on response, but I think that needed to be clarified.
I would be super upset too, especially since it sounds like your child was dishonest with you as well when questioned. For sure I would make my child read the book and write a thorough paper, and would probably add an additional consequence about lying to me on top of that.
I would also hope that the paper would get a crummy grade. Not sure if I would turn the child in to school but I’d surely consider it…
OP I think you’ve clarified your thoughts and feelings more in post #33. Sounds like you are worried that this will become a habit if he gets away with it, and it’s a hot button issue for you. Perhaps, because of your profession, you also might feel guilty if you do not notify the school or make him do it. It sounds like you’re in a tough situation!
In addition to the “internal” (as in within your household, not involving the school) consequences you have come up with, maybe he has also earned himself some extra oversight from you into his academics for a certain period of time.