Student turns in same paper for two classes - What do you think penalty should be?

Parents Forum
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<p>This is silly. It just isn’t how academia works. There’s inevitably some overlap in course coverage. In philosophy, for example, it would be something akin to academic malpractice to teach a course in the history of Western philosophy (or history of Continental philosophy, or history of early modern philosophy) without assigning Descartes’ profoundly influential work, particularly his “cogito” argument; but the same is true in epistemology (theory of knowledge), as it’s no exaggeration to say all subsequent work in the field is at least in part an effort to refute or otherwise respond to Descartes. Philosophy papers are typically open-ended, allowing students freedom to identify their own topic so long as it’s germane to the subject-matter of the course. But any self-respecting philosophy major knows he’s expected to produce original papers for the two classes and is defrauding the professor if he turns in his history of philosophy paper on Descartes a second time for his epistemology class. </p>

<p>I think a lot of people are jumping through hoops here, trying to defend an indefensible and dishonest practice. Oh, there may be the occasional clueless student here or there who just doesn’t get the point of a paper assignment (it’s to make you do the work and THINK, dummy!) That’s why these policies need to be written down. But it should be obvious, if you think about it, WHY your professor wants you to write a paper; it’s so you’ll do the work and actually LEARN something in the process.</p>

<p>It’s the same reason a chemistry professor who gives a lab assignment wants you to ACTUALLY DO THE LAB, and not simply turn in your old write-up of the same lab that you did in your HS AP Chemistry class; it’s not just the result (which you could have predicted if you were paying attention to the material), it’s the process of developing and honing your lab skills, and observational skills, and skills in recording and analyzing and interpreting data and writing up the results. Same for the freshman writing instructor who assigns an essay and expects you to ACTUALLY WRITE AN ESSAY and not simply turn in something you did for another class, or in high school. Or the creative writing instructor who asks you to write a short story and expects you to ACTUALLY WRITE A SHORT STORY and not simply pull something from your file drawer. If the assignment is to write an academic paper, you’re supposed to ACTUALLY WRITE AN ACADEMIC PAPER. D-uh! Could this be more obvious?</p>

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<p>I have taken philosophy classes, but wasn’t a major- I also hadn’t been assigned papers longer than 5 pages( in my phil classes)- I also have had very few classes that the same paper/project even with reworking could have been used for more than one class.</p>

<p>Don’t you think a great deal depends on the course description?
I have used one paper for more than one class, or to be more specific, I used the notes for more than one paper.
I wrote a paper for a genetics class on the generational tendency of premature birth to be repeated. ( if the mother was premature- research indicated her own children would also be premature- increasing the interest in reducing prematurity).</p>

<p>However, I also submitted this paper for my research paper in an English class, I had not finished high school, and I wanted to learn how to do correct in text citations etc & as that was the primary function of the class, the material I used to learn this, was not as important as my ability to correctly format the paper.</p>

<p>Writing a less complex paper, but original to the class, would have made that assignment less beneficial to me, because the objective wasn’t in the subject but in learning the structure of a research paper.</p>

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<p>Would any student be so dumb as to turn in the exact same paper to the same professor twice, in two different classes? I don’t think so, because unless that professor is completely asleep at the switch, he’ll immediately recognize the second submission and say, “Hey, wait a minute, I’ve seen this paper before; did you actually write this paper? If not, it’s plagiarism, and you’re out of here; if so, I can’t give you credit for it, because it’s work you did for a previous class and doesn’t meet the requirement for this class which is that you actually ‘WRITE A PAPER’ (see, it says so right here in your syllabus).”</p>

<p>The fact that this DOESN’T happen (at least I’ve never heard of it) lends credence to the idea that there’s usually an element of fraud involved when students try to submit the same paper to different professors. I suspect a lot of the protests of ignorance are themselves pretty hollow. Or fraudulent, if you will.</p>

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<p>One of the things that some of the teachers in D’s high school did was really go over what students needed to learn to write a good paper.
I remember one parent telling me that Mr- M, had her daughter turn the same paper in about 5 times, throughout the year, making changes in it each time.
I thought that sounded great & really would instill the structure and discipline for success in further education.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the way that the state/federal changed " benchmarks" at the high school level, changed curriculum in the classroom, so that test scores, became more important than learning how to write.</p>

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<p>In my mind, I’m actually not envisioning the exact same paper (as in, nothing changes except the class name on the cover sheet). I’m envisioning something where one paper serves as the jumping-off point for another.</p>

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<p>Oh, sure, I can imagine situations like the one you describe, where the instructor of the composition class doesn’t much care whether the paper submitted was originally produced for that class or not, because the focus is not on the substance of the paper but rather on the technical side of how to write a research paper. In a case like that, it’s easy enough for the instructor to make that (non-standard) expectation clear. But IMO that’s going to be the exception, not the rule. In philosophy, English, history, sociology, political science, psychology, anthropology—pretty much anywhere in the humanities or social sciences–if the assignment is “write a paper,” the standard expectation is going to be that means “actually write an original paper for this class.”</p>

<p>Is this so hard, people?</p>

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<p>And this is not uncommon in undergraduate courses, where in many respects students are still learning to write college-level papers. My D just completed her freshman writing seminar at her fancy LAC. They wrote papers on five different topics, but had to do multiple submissions of each paper, responding to the instructor’s comments and suggestions. A little tedious, but an effective way to improve your writing skills. In many substantive courses, too, professors may require (or allow) students to turn in a first draft for comments and suggestions before submitting the final draft for graded credit. Nothing wrong with that; it’s more work for the professor, but immensely beneficial to the students. But that’s not what we’re talking about on this thread.</p>

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<p>Ah, there’s the rub! Yes, there certainly is a gray area. To some extent all academic work builds on, or jumps off from, previous work, either one’s own or others’. And that’s a good thing, even at the level of undergraduate work. Learning is a cumulative process, and building on a base you already have be very beneficial, and at a certain point becomes unavoidable. So if my hypothetical philosophy student did some interesting work on Descartes’ “cogito” in her history of philosophy class, and wants to carry that work a step (or two, or ten) further in her epistemology class, that might be a very good learning opportunity. But where do we draw the line between double-dipping on the one hand, and a successful paper project that legitimately builds on previous work, on the other? </p>

<p>Academics face this same question with their own work, by the way. There the standard practice is to cite to and briefly summarize the previous work, and then go on to the new stuff. Students can’t really do this because their previous work is likely not published, their current professor typically doesn’t have access to it, and in most cases it would seem a little too pretentious and self-important to do so. But I think most students have a pretty good sense of when they’re doing new and original work, and when they’re just re-shoveling the same manure. And if there’s any question, it’s easy enough to go and see the professor, explain the situation, give the professor a copy of the old paper and discuss the new idea, and get permission. Frankly, most professors are going to be impressed with the level of academic integrity and intellectual seriousness this shows, and they may even have some helpful ideas or suggestions as to research materials or additional ideas or approaches the student hadn’t yet considered.</p>

<p>Really, people, it’s NOT so hard. It becomes a problem when students try to get too cute and clever, and think they can get away with gaming the system. I’m sure many don’t get caught, but those who do may face stiff consequences.</p>

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<p>I was under impression that many schools require work to be submitted to online plagarism sites. Is that not done in some areas?</p>

<p>If the paper had been submitted before, even by same student, wouldn’t it be flagged?</p>

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<p>I think requiring attendance in a class taught by lectures is dumb. Though I have a funny story in that regard. My son was taking a math and physics class. They both were teaching the same math, but the physics teacher explained it much better so my son stopped going to the math class. I have no problem with this. Unfortunately because he wasn’t going to class he forgot to pay attention to the exam schedule and missed a major test. Luckily even with a zero he got a C in the course. Interesting to see my kid making choices like this though - he was on the Dean’s List his first term in college and one of the top ten students in a huge high school. </p>

<p>I also stopped going to lectures in one of my courses (Shakespeare). I’d have liked to have continued to go, but they were unbelievably abysmally bad. A kid actually got up mid lecture and announced to the entire room he was leaving now and never coming back because it was such a colossal waste of time. I followed him out of the room. Luckily the TA for that course was excellent.</p>

<p>emeraldkity4, my older son had a wonderful English teacher who made them keep rewriting their summer reading essays until they were “A” work. He had standards much higher than most of the school’s teachers. I think my son started with a 65 on that first paper.</p>

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What are you talking about? You can get any newspaper or magazine anywhere. Let’s not even talk about the internet. I see articles in multiple places all the time. Same with cartoons. I can hear the same talk radio program on three different stations in my town, not to mention streaming on the internet.</p>

<p>Of course they know. That’s not the point. You asked if a person would sell something to two publications. It happens all the time. Nothing you wrote here contradicts that. You are debating the means by which they sell it. This is all a contractual issue. If you pay for exclusive rights you get exclusive rights. It’s not a morality question.</p>

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<p>Having to rely on a calculator for basic arithmetic is pretty sad–can you imagine if people had to actually whip out their calculator to find out 2X2? Come on, in the “real world” you can do this on your phone–why waste time learning anything? </p>

<p>I don’t get why people are so interested in pointing out why the student SHOULD be able to do this instead of thinking about the student getting an education (jeez–the kid is in high school, not working in a career they have trained years for).</p>

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<p>I totally agree with this.</p>

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<p>To those asking for updates: I will, but it will be a while. For now, the student has incompletes in both classes. The honor council will consider the case early next semester. The fact that the student submitted the same paper for two classes in the same semester makes me wonder whether the student will (or should be) penalized for both classes or only for one. And for those who wonder whether in this case “the same paper” might mean something gray, like using the same research, it does not–the papers were nearly identical–meaning that almost all of the sentences were exactly the same. A few different sentences were thrown in here and there, but he bulk of the paper was the same words in the same order. It is possible to imagine cases where the papers are only slightly similar and then the question is, did the student actually submit the same paper? But in my mind that is not a question in this case.</p>

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<p>emeraldkity4, my older son had a wonderful English teacher who made them keep rewriting their summer reading essays until they were “A” work. He had standards much higher than most of the school’s teachers. I think my son started with a 65 on that first paper.</p>

<p>Thats great- I think too often they forget to even ask for them, let alone evaluate them and hand them back.</p>

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<p>Actually the “kid” is a senior in college. Sorry if I did not make that ckear.</p>

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<p>I submitted the same English paper in two different English classes my junior year of college. There were some differences but not significant ones. It never dawned on me that it was a problem, until I got a call from the teachers to come in and meet with them. I’ll never forget the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I got that call. They were two of my favorite teachers and I felt terrible that I had disappointed them. Perhaps they were on the lookout for it since there was some overlap in the books for the class. I just had not thought it through and felt fortunate that both professors had “Mrs. Dalloway” on the reading list. It happened to be my favorite book at the time. We were able to craft our own topics. The remedy for me was that one of the professors accepted the paper, and I had to write another for the second. It was due before I went home for break so I wrote it during exam period. I was not penalized in the grade at all. In fact, the teacher who accepted the first paper told the class when he handed the papers back that it was one of best papers he had had ever received, and he asked me if he could keep a copy and incorporate my ideas into the class.</p>

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<p>My kid who is in HS informs me that they are not allowed double dipp/recycle. FWIW.</p>

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<p>Seems to me the student did the required work for one of the two classes and should get credit for it. Same as if the student had successfully completed course A in one semester, then tried to double-dip on that work by resubmitting the paper from course A for course B in a subsequent semester; in that case, you wouldn’t go back and retroactively strip the student of credit for course A, you’d just deny credit for course B. I don’t see any principled reason the penalty should be harsher just because the courses were simultaneous. Which course to give credit for is another matter. Flip a coin? Let the student decide? I don’t know.</p>

<p>But denial of course credit may not be a sufficient sanction. If the student violated a clearly stated policy prohibiting double-dipping, then it’s an academic integrity problem on the same level as plagiarism, which at many schools is punishable by sanctions up to and including expulsion.</p>

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Sigh. </p>

<p>I’m not stating that someone should not learn arithmetic. You should learn it in elementary school. It is not something you waste your time on when you are taking an exam in Quantum Mechanics.</p>

<p>Plus, how exactly are you supposed to figure out (e^^(sine(.7367)))^^(1/3) without a calculator? Work it out on your fingers?</p>

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<p>My HS is taking AP Lit this year and took American Lit last year, as AP Comp held no interest. Her current teacher knows this and is encouraging her to read other books when the class book is one from last year. I’m not sure if any of the assignments are the same, but clearly she is benefiting on the exams. (Am Lit was a huge benefit for APUSH last year given the DBQ was on the Puritans and they spent a month of class on Scarlet Letter & related books). </p>

<p>My 8th grader is using his sister’s notes for Social Studies this year and the (same) teacher thinks he is a genius to do so.</p>