What is a fair penalty for plagiarism?

Parents Forum
41

<p>

</p>

<p>If it’s not attributed, it’s plagiarism every time.</p>

<p>If it is attributed, it is plagiarism when the grammatical shape of the sentence is maintained, but synonyms are inserted in for some words. That’s how I teach it.</p>

<p>Most, if not all, freshman comp classes address these issues in excruciating detail. It’s dismaying, as a professor, to hear parents trying to figure out how close to the line their kids can get.</p>

<p>Like Cardinal FAng said, we don’t go to bat over one overlooked citation. But—it might affect the grade. In academia, you do not overlook citations. if he supposition is that small mistakes are fine, they become bigger ones.</p>

<p>A story–I was meeting with a student over a draft of her paper. I questioned some of her points that did not sound like her words. An instructor in the next cubicle overheard the conversation. After the student left, she told me she’d had the student before, and the student had handed her the exact same paper as a final draft. and yes, the student had plagiarized the whole paper. She failed the class. When I turned her in, she was charged twice --once for the plagiarism–again, and secondly for handing in the same paper to two classes.</p>

<p>Not only did she fail my class for this, she was expelled from school for a year, with many stipulations before she could be re-instated.</p>

<p>Plagiarism had become a way of life for her. She was learning nothing.</p>

42

<p>I guess, what I’m asking is when does writing ones ideas become paraphrasing. I was a Very good paraphraser. Do it so automatically, that I have to be very careful in writing things when using sources and reading up on things. As a student, many years ago, having a very good memory, abillity to “mix it up”, it was very difficult not to paraphrase. I was horrified in college to find out that what I was doing was plagiarising by the specific definitions they gave. It was a very difficult first year for me as I skipped the freshman comp classes due to my AP English scores, so went right into the upper level humanities courses that assumed the students well knew the rules. In my case, being a stickler about the rules forced me to learn to write differently, but to this day, I can do a mix of about a half dozen sources that could probably pass muster, but is strictly speaking plagiarism. In my prime I could mix 20 or more sources to churn out something that would be difficult if not impossible to catch as plagiarism. But I know. And I could not afford to be so designated. But I wonder how many others do this.</p>

43

<p>I think i was quoting another poster, but to answer your question–if the ideas came from someone else, they need to be cited. We don’t catch all of those. But as you said, it’s a matter of personal integrity. Being a stickler matters.</p>

44

<p>

</p>

<p>Yep, illegal borrowing of structure. My favorite instance of this? A student change “trickle down economics” to “dribble down economics” and left everything else the same. Really? Dribble down? </p>

45

<p>I’m trying to prepare my high schooler to avoid plagiarism, and I can’t find any really great sources for learning this stuff in the detail needed. Please — any recommendations of books, online, or any kind of material that teaches about this? </p>

46

<p>This is a good site:
<a href=“Cornell University Web Login”>http://plagiarism.arts.cornell.edu/tutorial/index.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I haven’t used this one, but it looks good:
<a href=“Indiana University Bloomington”>Indiana University Bloomington;

<p>I often find good material at university websites, either their first-year writing programs or tutorial centers (and I always credit them when I use them! :slight_smile: )</p>

47

<p>@ dylu13 -
Our high school required students to produce research papers and submit photocopies of all sources with the final paper. But, along the way, students met with a teacher on a regular basis and showed note cars, outlines, etc. Students were instructed to do all proof reading and editing on their own.</p>

<p>My kids hated this, but it did give them a good idea of how to turn research into a finished product while giving proper citations. Still, they worried all the time about being accused of stealing intellectual property, since they would read from multiple sources to get an overview of a topic before beginning to take notes and organizing their thoughts. </p>

<p>Many colleges will put their students through a freshman composition class that goes over the basics, and then require students to take one or more classes at a higher level (usually in the major) that will address the mechanics of putting a paper together and avoiding plagiarism.</p>

<p>Nonetheless, my kids found out that each professor and class will have their own expectations for research papers, not just to avoid plagiarism but to avoid accusations of recycling old work. </p>

<p>In the best cases, these will be spelled out on the very first day of class, and students will be instructed to clear topics and submit rough drafts. Rules for submission of completed work will also be spelled out in detail - including penalties for late work (these can range from mild to severe), whether work is to be submitted in hard copy or elecfronically, or in both formats, etc. </p>

<p>Expectations can and do differ among classes. In some classes, students are instructed to avoid topics that they have researched or written about for other classes, while in other classes students are encouraged to re-visit these topics and avoid topics that are completely unfamiliar. Sometimes a student can do either, but must be upfront about their background and describe how they plan to increase their knowledge of a particular topic they have explored in previous contexts. </p>

<p>Sometimes students are instructed or encouraged to choose a topic that is related to the course description, but was not covered in class, especially if there is a presentation that will go along with the paper. It will not matter if the paper does not reference material covered in class. In other classes, students are permitted to do this, but must ALSO work information covered in course readings or class discussions into the paper, demonstrating how information learned in the classroom has enhanced their understanding of the material. </p>

<p>While I agree that most professors will hesitate to drag a student in for an honors violation, many will give a student a low grade if the paper turns out not to be what was expected for any of these reasons, even if expectations were not explicit, as well as for what might seem to be excessive paraphrasing and the like. </p>

<p>It is best to know upfront what is expected, and I would encourage your high school student to learn to read course expectations over very carefully and match their work against these, and not to be embarrassed to ask questions ahead of time (and expect answers) if expectations seem vague and do not cover these bases. </p>

48

<p>Most universities have policies that clearly distinguish between minor and major plagiarism. If you use Turnitin, it comes back with a percentage of the paper that matches other sources. Universities would treat a paper which scored 12 percent (which is usually a missing footnote) and one which scored 70 percent (whole chunks of text lilfted from an online source like wikipedia) very differently depending on those guidelines. (Minor might get you anything from a rewrite to an F on that assignment, while major might very well get you thrown out of that class.)</p>

49

<p>I teach a few courses online as an adjunct. I have found two students over the years who completely lifted an essays and a paper from an online source. The language didn’t jive with what they had written before and it was unbelievably easy to find it. Turnitin is recommended but google does just fine. I confronted the students and turned them over to the Academic Standards Committee which is the protocol for such offenses. One student was dismissed form the program; it was a first offense for the other student. I gave her a zero for the assignment - it definitely impacted her grade and I’m sure she did not get the typical reimbursement from her employer.</p>

<p>Academic standards regarding sources, etc are clearly defined in my course outline, student handbook, etc.</p>

<p>I feel with the perceived lower standards for online courses, I have to be especially alert to any transgressions. My program is a professional one (RN to BSN) and I feel the integrity of the program itself would be greatly harmed if I did not take the steps I did.</p>

50

<p>

I suspect this gets a lot of kids. I was always a stickler about footnoting, but I am not sure I was stickler for making sure I wasn’t paraphrasing. Though back in the old days of handwritten notes, I think it was less likely.</p>

51

<p>When i called a repeat offender on this ^, she replied “but they say it better than I can.” yeah, I’m sure that’s true…that’s why they’re not in freshman comp and you are.</p>

52

<p>I think many cases of freshmen transgressions are done by students who don’t know better. A local parent whose daughter is finishing her freshman year at a large university recently told me that most of her daughter’s English 101 class spent the first several weeks doing rewrites until the professor was satisfied the work was entirely their own. I think they lost a letter grade for every rewrite, but this was a case of unintentional errors on the part of the students, not willful plagiarism.</p>

<p>However, not all cases are unintentional. I know another mom whose child is a high school junior. He recently had a report due for a class neither feels is important because it’s not counted in his GPA. She said he copy and pasted whole chunks directly from the internet without identifying his sources. Their only concern was that when he plugged his USB into the school printer to get a hard copy to turn in, the print out highlighted all those sections. Apparently, nobody at the school knows what that printer feature means, because the student got an A. </p>

53

<p>elite students that should know better: fail class with mark on transcript.
dumb slackers: doesn’t bother me or the profile of the class, so who really cares.</p>

54

<p>fyi, high schools do not care. they’re just worried about flushing kids out, both public and private. especially if the kid is elite, they aren’t going to jeopardize the chance to brag about where the elite cheater goes to college. nor do they want that territory recruiter to ever get word that they have a cheating culture at the high school. these things blow over and students rarely if ever get punished.</p>

55

<p>In theory, there should be a clear distinction between a proofreader (which I think should always be allowed) and an editor (which should not). In practice, perhaps this isn’t so simple.</p>

<p>@ordinarylives‌ - “Dribble down economics”. Now that made me laugh.</p>

56

<p>When I was teaching an online class, I gave assignments that would have been very difficult to plagiarize…but there was no protection at all from just getting another person to do the work. That would also be true of a lot of what we’re talking about. So, I guess, if you’re going to cheat, don’t be cheap.</p>

57

<p>

</p>

<p>People who cheat are not “elite.” They’re stupid and unethical.</p>

58

<p>My experience teaching English Composition is that most students no longer come out of high school knowing how to paraphrase and summarize. Excellent students typically pick this up on their own, but poor and even average students need a lot of guidance and practice. Lacking these skills, or only having a partial mastery, puts students at a serious disadvantage. So one reason many students copy and paste their way through research papers is that they don’t know any other way to get information from Point A to Point B.</p>

<p>I have no idea if the Common Core will address this. If it doesn’t, I predict the situation will get worse before it gets better.</p>

<p>As to penalties, I usually give my writing students the benefit of the doubt for the first offense. That means they fail the assignment, but the issue goes no further. After that, or on any occasion when I am certain the violation is willful, I send it to Academic Standards, who will convene a hearing as a matter of policy.</p>

<p>My school recognizes different degrees of dishonesty. Consider the student who panics in the middle of a test and copies off his neighbor’s paper. That’s a poor choice, but it’s fairly spontaneous. Now consider the typical plagiarist. This student makes a deliberate decision to go out on the Internet to find something to copy. He may examine a number of possible documents before settling on the final ones. Then there is usually a period of several hours or even days in which the student can change his mind before submitting the paper. Dishonesty of this kind is not spontaneous. I have little patience for this sort of thing, and giving the student an F for the class is a distinct possibility. (We have a system in place that ensures a student cannot withdraw from the class instead of earning the F. I don’t know how common that is.)</p>

<p>The difficult part of my involvement is trying to decide if a student’s behavior is naive or consciously dishonest. A lot of the time I’ll have a meeting with the student before making up my mind how to proceed. The consciously dishonest student usually begins the discussion in complete denial, where the naive student is usually quite confused and sometimes even grateful for the clarification.</p>

<p>I want to add that the process of identifying plagiarism and working through the various penalties is always depressing. I’m sure there are students who think professors go looking for it with an evil gleam in our eyes and happily exclaim “Gotcha!” when we find it. My personal reaction is more like, “Aw, dude. Why did you put me in this position?”</p>

59

<p>^excellent post, Wasatch. I have the same reaction, exactly.</p>

60

<p>I learned to write in the days before “cut and paste.” Paraphrasing and summarizing came sort of naturally. When you’re writing on a typewriter, you think about something before you take the time to type it out. It’s easier to read three or four paragraphs, pull a line or two of direct quotes and citation, and summarize the rest in your own words than it is to tediously copy something out word-for-word. You learned the skill because there wasn’t an easy alternative. Now, it’s just “select-control/c-control/p.” There’s little incentive for many students to learn the skills of selective quotation, paraphrasing, and summarzing…other than a moral compass and good teachers like @WasatchWriter. </p>

<p>Edited to add: @garland, too. :)</p>