<p>I think recycling a paper is considered academic dishonesty everywhere. I think the consequences should be fairly severe - if there is substantial plagiarism, I think the paper should get a zero. If it happens again, I think expulsion. </p>
<p>Many years ago, when I started college in 1987, I had a friend who plagiarized for a paper, and he was expelled. First offense. I have a sense that schools are not that harsh anymore.</p>
<p>I think it depends on:</p>
<p>What grade/year the student is in
What training they have had to avoid plagiarism
How egregious the plagiarism is</p>
<p>If you are a freshman with minimal training then perhaps redoing the paper is the way to learn
If you are a junior and have forgotten to quote some items but have done others then failing the paper is reasonable
If you are a senior and the teacher/professor googled some phrases that seemed unlike the student’s writing and came across a completely plagarized paper then failing the class is reasonable.</p>
<p>But @frazzled2thecore, if your student enters their paper in turnitin.com, and then a teacher/professor then does the same thing, would it get a hit saying the whole paper matches? I would check into that. </p>
<p>I agree that for a paper that is properly cited except the student missed one, it would be absurd to call that plagiarism. It essence that is no different than a student that correctly uses some math function correctly three times in a problem set but in the fourth case simply did something silly like incorrectly add two numbers together in the course of a complex solve. They clearly know how to do it, they just made an error. I know the analogy is not perfect because there is no cheating involved in any sense, but the nature of the error seems similar to me.</p>
<p>One thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet as far as assessing the penalty is what, if anything, the prof said at the start of the semester regarding the whole issue. especially what the consequences would be. If they clearly announced at the start that the penalty would be failure in the course, then that penalty would be fair. If they said that paper would get an F then that is fair. There is no absolute on the concept of “fair”. But certainly it should be every professor’s responsibility, especially in classes that involve original papers like English and history, to make their policy clear at the start.</p>
<p>I think Cardinal Fang makes a good point. While I think it is nuts that some policies will equate “plagiarism” of the “I left off a footnote” variety with cutting and pasting a paper, in practice I suspect that there are very, very few cases in which students are being hauled up on plagiarism charges for a little bit of sloppy citation or a couple gray area cases in which the information is somewhere on the line between “common knowledge” and “needs a citation.” </p>
<p>I spend some time on the Chronicle of Higher Education forums. At most schools, accusing a student of academic dishonesty is going to require a certain, and sometimes substantial, amount of work on the part of the prof (ie, preparing documentation for a college judicial hearing). It might raise questions from department heads and administrators with different priorities, especially in places with a student s consumer mentality.</p>
<p>Beyond that, though, most professors take no pleasure in making charges that might derail a student’s academic career, and won’t do so frivolously. In the vast majority of cases in which students are assigned serious penalties for plagiarism, I’m betting that, while we could debate the severity of the penalty, most reasonable people would also identify the paper as guilty of legitimate academic dishonesty. </p>
<p>@bopper, yes, I can see your point. </p>
<p>I could imagine either of my own being absent minded enough to miss a citation or two. They have told me that they have often agonized over what is “common knowledge” and what will need citation, especially if they are very familiar with the subject matter at hand. In high school, their English teacher asked for printed copies of all sources used for a research paper, to advise students on whether they were making proper citations, or not.</p>
<p>While most professors would probably let this sort of thing go, I can nonetheless imagine that a few would throw the book at a particular unlucky student.</p>
<p>Anyway, my kids do tell me that when students want to get credit for work that is not entirely their own, they will often bypass the professor, TA, or Writing Center and go to a peer, a graduate student, or even a parent, to ask for help in writing a paper, and will not mention that they had used these sources for help when submitting a finished product. Both were shocked at the numbers of students who admitted turning to parents for help in discussing and even editing research papers.</p>
<p>@Cardinal Fang - years ago, in another life, I also TA’d some classes in which international students used to multiple choice and short answer type exams were not aware of how a research paper is written for an American university. I would have a private talk with them after a first offense, and that was enough. </p>
<p>S and D have told me that in graduate classes with large numbers of international students (virtually all STEM classes) professors tend to be explicit at the beginning of the semester about the types of sources that will be appropriate, and how citations need to be managed. </p>
<p>Yes, the consequences are inconsistent, but so they are for any number of things. Plagiarism is a big problem; so wide spread This is a great question, for which there is no answer across the board. The problem is that there are degrees of plagiarism, and it gets so that trying to differentiate among them is like slicing through water. </p>
<p>Off the top of my head, if I ran (If I were Queen!) a high school, college ,etc, I would take the first offense and keep it in the student’s record, the actual piece of work and allow it to be purged upon graduation. The student would get a zero on the paper. The second offense would then set into movement a disciplinary process and notation on the permanent record with both the first and second offense works kept on file for anyone so authorized to see what exactly what the student did. I would not go after clear mistakes and omissions, but teachers would be told to show them to the students and keep the paper in their files for future record in that class, so that a student who continues to be careless that way could be cited. </p>
<p>How this would work in practice, would of course have to be tried and things tweaked as needed to make it a fairly smooth and consistent process. Still, it comes down to the the diligence of the teachers grading the papers and flagging these things, and trying to get any consistency there is like nailing jello to a tree. I’ve seen grades just slapped on papers where i don’t think there were even read. So I’d want something that is not too onerous for the teachers and not so serious a consequence that that some teachers won’t flag, and yet the seriousness of the problem brought to the student’s level. That it is something that will stay on the record with the actual work kept there might catch their attention. </p>
<p>Decades ago, before freshman year, my college gave us a pamphlet about academic dishonesty and showed examples of what plagiarism was. It got my attention, because I concluded that I had plagiarized my way through high school (not exactly, but I can’t say that I was filled with original thoughts). I resolved to be quite careful over the next four years. </p>
<p>Today’s technology changes the game. Cutting and pasting and then “doctoring up” the product to conceal the source is probably quite common. I don’t think that’s the best approach to writing or researching. On the other hand, there are so many “here…teach yourself about this by writing a paper that I can read” assignments, that its understandable that kids are tempted to resort to cut and paste as a first step. In the old days where we answered questions on exams for grades, that didn’t lead to cheating charges as much, I think.</p>
<p>Its funny. Most modern educators condemn the old methods as regurgitation of facts without any understanding…and yet the “report” and “project” methods of teaching are just as prone to the same criticism.</p>
<p>It’s not even just with writing projects, either. I have a friend who teaches Accounting and she has caught students stealing answers from online sources (teacher textbooks that contain all the answers, for example)</p>
<p>At my daughter’s first high school, some students were randomly required to submit their paper thru a software program called Turn It In or something like that before passing it to the teacher. The program checked for plagiarism and the students had a chance to correct any copied material or stuff without proper citation. Not sure how well the program worked, though. I think my daughter only used it once.</p>
<p>@frazzled2thecore, having your paper proofread and edited is not plagiarism. If it was, every published book would be plagiarised.</p>
<p>I agree that the rules of the game are best if they are explicitly stated for each class, in order to avoid unpleasant surprises on both sides. It really does a student no good if professor A will give the benefit of the doubt and allow the student a re-write, and the student becomes careless and sloppy, only to discover that professor B will punish with an F for the assignment or the class, or accuse the student of deliberate dishonesty.</p>
<p>I agree with @apprenticeprof that most professors do not initiate honor council cases lightly. It can be a time-consuming and emotionally draining experience to accuse a student of academic misconduct. At the same time, I am surprised to hear stories of professors determining guilt and punishment. At my institution, as soon as a professor believes that an offense has occurred, he or she is required to file a complaint with the honor council. After that, you are simply a witness. This reduces any possible appearance of favoritism. </p>
<p>As for appropriate punishments, if a college junior or senior submits an essay that is substantially plagiarized, giving an F for the course is rather mild. If I were in charge, not only would the student get an F, he or she would also be suspended or expelled. One reason is that students may get away with several infractions before they are found guilty, so the punishment needs to be severe to affect incentives. </p>
<p>A colleague had a plagiarism case a few years back. After the honor council hearing, he searched for the student on Google. It turned out that the student had written some articles for the student newspaper. My colleague started googling phrases and found that the student had committed plagiarism in the articles as well. </p>
<p>Another colleague served on our honor council. He told the story of hearing a case involving a different student. After finding the student not guilty, my colleague learned that it was the fourth time the student had been charged but found not guilty. (Naturally, previous appearances before the honor council are not admissible as evidence.) </p>
<p>It is expected that a published book or paper will have gone through an editor. It is also expected that anyone who has made substantial (or even minor) contributions will be acknowledged.</p>
<p>It is not necessarily expected that grading standards in a class will be set by the quality of editing that any given student can access, ranging from peer who has not taken the class to parent who is an established expert in the field.</p>
<p>Students are sometimes advised that if they complete a paper early, the professor or TA will go over a rough draft, or that they can take it to the Writing Center to be proofread. In these cases, there would seem to be some control or standard over the amount of assistance that is offered, and the student will not be penalized for asking for help in this way. Some professors also allow students to revise graded work for a higher grade by correcting mistakes, so long as it is done within a permissible time frame.</p>
<p>When I asked frazzled kids how professors handled collaboration on graded homework, they said that they were usually required to add the names of anyone who had helped them with an assignment, or who had proofread the assignment. Also, they were not permitted to collaborate on some types of assignments. </p>
<p>I have always told my kids to have their work proofread. It is very difficult to do this yourself, and seems prudent. I never viewed it as academically dishonest.</p>
<p>This isn’t collaboration, and the work is still 100% the students.</p>
<p>I would advise anyone these days to first check with individual instructors before turning in a paper that has been proofread, especially in a language or writing class, if English is a second language, if there is more than a small amount of improvement in organization, spelling, or grammar after proof reading, or if they will be required to produce writing for the class in a situation that will not allow for proof reading, such as during an exam. </p>
<p>Some will tell students to go ahead and have everything proofread by another person, some will encourage this but advise students that a proof reader is there to correct spelling and grammar rather than revise the paper, some will ask that they name anyone who has been involved in proof reading or editing, and still others will advise students to turn a paper in early to have it proof read by the instructor, so as to avoid any suspicion that the work is 100% by the student. If a college has a Writing Center, sometimes professors will advise students to have their papers proof read at the Writing Center.</p>
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<p>Hardly any class I took had homework from out of a book for this reason. One case of note, there was one case (with one of the few classes I had where homework was out of the book) where the answer key was apparently wrong (correct methodology, some number was accidentally replaced with another somewhere, like “12” became “2” kind of error) and apparently there were some answers handed in with the exact same mistake. </p>
<p>Judgement has to be used, as everyone pointed out here.</p>
<p>There is no way to get cleanse the system of all cheating, theft, collaboration when work is done outside of the classroom. One of my kids’ schools had a Monday of composition each month where the students wrote in the old fashioned blue books about a topic that was discussed or covered in a class but one had no idea what the question or issues would be in advanced. So one had to write on the fly for 45 minutes. Excellent prep for the standardized writing tests, but also forced the student to do his own thinking and writing. Time was given for proofreading as well. A lot of the parents HATED this exercise as this HAD to be the student’s work entirely. Though still, there were kids being tutored in all courses, but this did level the playing field quite a bit.</p>
<p>Most teachers do not like to levy a plagiarism, cheating charge. it’s painful to them too, so except for the few sadomasochists who may have a record of making a lot of such accusation in borderline cases, it’s usually something that cannot be ignored. </p>
<p>It’s difficult to come up with penalities for young people to discourage the practice, make it clear that this is a serious breach and yet not make so hard hitting.</p>
<p>Looking back to my high school days, I was a an unknowing serial plagiarizer according to some of the rules of today that dictate what is plagiarism. I would paraphrase like a demon from a number of sources with wild abandon. The rules were not that clear then. I had one English teacher that was strict about this and clearly showed what was and was not acceptable, and for him I did my papers by those rules. In college, it was made even more clear. But, yes, there was a time I was quite the offender, and a truly did not know better.</p>
<p>Especially In elementary school and middle school, my kids liked to see challenge or bonus problems that most parents would not be able to solve, and that required them to go beyond the usual memorize, practice, regurgitate drill. Most of the time they weren’t able to solve them, either, but solving a problem that had stumped most or all of their peers made up for some of the anguish that came when their best work was being judged against work done by peers with ample adult assistance.</p>