Warning to students/request for advice: Turning in plagiarized work from another semester no longer works (what should I do?)

[dfitzo53]

I was caught blatantly cheating once in middle school. The teacher met with me and my parents, and I really had no way to deny it. I mean, it was flagrant. My parents hit the roof.

My school said they would put a note in my file, and as long as there were no more incidents they would throw away the note and it wouldn't be part of any permanent record. The whole incident left a pretty big impression on me at the time. I can't recall cheating in high school for my own gain, although I did allow friends to copy homework assignments from me. Simple worksheets, not essays or projects.

Now I'm a teacher, and I've had to handle the issue of plagiarism from a published source or website a number of times. My first step is always a conversation with the student. At the age level I deal with (middle school) they don't always fully understand the issue. If that doesn't do it, then I move to discussing it with the parents.

In the case of copying from peers I usually move more quickly to contacting the parents.

[bcl05]

Cheating is cheating. Crush them.

I'm assuming you are teaching adults - college or graduate students. Middle schoolers should get a warning/break. Adults should know better.

[JMS]

when I went to school I had a close aquantance who wrote the anti plagerize software for the english teacher.... He then wrote the software to defeat the anti plagerize software which would take a paper and make the changes such that the plagerize system wouldn't pick it up. He made money from the english department but he made a lot more money for the second program which would re-order sentences, subsitute for synonyms, and change masculine to feminine.. Don't know if they ever caught him..

[PeterMP]

Wasn't aware OP was an educator.

What about having other people online write your works

Friend once stated his dream job was to write college papers for other people online

Saw on news that this is the latest craze nowadays and the teachers are helpless to stop it

I have a younger brother that actually does that.

Though, I think many under estimate the ability of teachers to stop it IF the teacher and the institution care to stop it. People have writing styles. Getting writing samples from in class and out of class make that sort of thing not difficult to detect.

Previously, I was at an institution were reporting was mandatory and it was in a lab where the students had to do a lot of out of "lab" writing, but also some in lab writing. It wasn't even that much in lab writing. Most of the writing was being done out of lab. After a month, I was pretty sure that the person was cheating. After 6 weeks, I took the case to the proper administrator (an Assistant Dean of Students). When the next out of lab report was due, the administrator came to the lab, told the student that she wanted to talk to her, and had me prior to that come up w/ a list of questions to ask the student on the report.

The student was clueless on the topic. I didn't witness the interview (the Chair of the Dept was there for it and the Assistant Dean of Students "administred" it based on the questions I'd given her), but even though the administrator wasn't in science she said even for her it was clear the student hadn't written the report. The student denied it, but the administrator decided to go forward and presented the "evidence" to a panel that was in charge of making such decisions. The student was given an F in the course and warned they'd be expelled her from the University if there was another issue.

I guess you could go ahead and learn the information well enough that you could answer questions on it, but at that point in time it would probably be just as easy to write it yourself.

When I hear we are helpless to stop such things, I have to laugh. What it really means, is they don't want to take the time or effort to do so.

[balki1867]

I busted two of my students cheating on their final lab reports when I TAed in college. Generally I was very accommodating with my students because after all, they'd had the same hypotheses, came to the same conclusions and formed the same resultant experiments because they were lab partners, but these two just weren't very bright when it came to how to cheat.

The first paragraph of the respective lab reports each conveyed the same message on a sentence by sentence basis which I thought was weird. By the end of the second paragraph this pattern was still intact, but now certain phrases within sentences matched word-for-word. By the end of the first page it was exactly the same lab report, but they used different MS-Word style templates. I'm sure they thought they were geniuses. They were two of my better students, so I know the cheating just came out of laziness as they knew their stuff. But I was little insulted they thought they could get this one by me. Ultimately I was nice, graded one paper and split the score.

---------- Post added November-30th-2012 at 09:19 PM ----------

The student was clueless on the topic. I didn't witness the interview (the Chair of the Dept was there for it and the Assistant Dean of Students "administred" it based on the questions I'd given her), but even though the administrator wasn't in science she said even for her it was clear the student hadn't written the report. The student denied it, but the administrator decided to go forward and presented the "evidence" to a panel that was in charge of making such decisions. The student was given an F in the course and warned they'd be expelled her from the University if there was another issue.

I'm actually impressed the university did this in your situation. Typically academia is such a consumerist culture now that schools are terrified to do anything that resembles being tough on students. That's why we have grade inflation and dorms that resemble luxury hotels.

(I'm only 32 but I sound really old).

[Vilandil Tasardur]

I think we're all missing one key aspect of this: Is the class an "elective" for the student, or part of their major's core requirements.

Allow me to preface this by saying that we ALL know it doesn't actually matter...but to thi student it sure as hell does. In your original example, Peter, you're discussing people you knew using the same essay for an art course. I'm assuming this was an art course that they all took as part of their Gen Ed requirements. Many college students would think twice about plagiarizing in a class that was "important" or "mattered" to their future, but would have no qualms about plagiarizing in "Poetry 101" or "History of Jazz". These are classes that many young adults see as pointless requirements that are a means for the University to squeeze extra semesters and extra tuition out of them.

I do not believe that the student is is right for thinking that way, but I do believe it affects how I (when I'm a teacher) would handle the situation. A student taking Environmental Science to satisfy their science credit may not know or care about the rigors of scientific ethics. They may not understand or care to understand things like the scientific method and thus likely will have no misgivings about lifting information to "get through this bull**** report on global warming". However, a science major in Organic Chemistry or Biochemistry or Human Anatomy not only knows damn well what they're doing, but they're choosing purposefully to shortchange their education in their own field of study. There is no claim of ignorance, and there is no arguing (however misguided) that the material is irrelevant to their career.

[PeterMP]

I'm actually impressed the university did this in your situation. Typically academia is such a consumerist culture now that schools are terrified to do anything that resembles being tough on students. That's why we have grade inflation and dorms that resemble luxury hotels.

(I'm only 32 but I sound really old).

My experience has been that universities as an institution treat these things seriously.

The issue becomes the person in charge of it. Same institution, but with a different Assistant Dean (even w/ the same upper administration, just the one person changed), I had a student leave their calculator in the class after a test. Thinking nothing about it I picked it up to return the student.

Happened to look inside. Inside the case, there was a small piece of paper in it with answers for the test. I reported it and nothing happened to the student. The administrator in charge decided to not to "prosecute" it.

I have no real doubt that if he had pushed it forward, there would have been serious consequences for the student.


---------- Post added November-30th-2012 at 11:08 PM ----------

I think we're all missing one key aspect of this: Is the class an "elective" for the student, or part of their major's core requirements.

Allow me to preface this by saying that we ALL know it doesn't actually matter...but to thi student it sure as hell does. In your original example, Peter, you're discussing people you knew using the same essay for an art course. I'm assuming this was an art course that they all took as part of their Gen Ed requirements. Many college students would think twice about plagiarizing in a class that was "important" or "mattered" to their future, but would have no qualms about plagiarizing in "Poetry 101" or "History of Jazz". These are classes that many young adults see as pointless requirements that are a means for the University to squeeze extra semesters and extra tuition out of them.

I do not believe that the student is is right for thinking that way, but I do believe it affects how I (when I'm a teacher) would handle the situation. A student taking Environmental Science to satisfy their science credit may not know or care about the rigors of scientific ethics. They may not understand or care to understand things like the scientific method and thus likely will have no misgivings about lifting information to "get through this bull**** report on global warming". However, a science major in Organic Chemistry or Biochemistry or Human Anatomy not only knows damn well what they're doing, but they're choosing purposefully to shortchange their education in their own field of study. There is no claim of ignorance, and there is no arguing (however misguided) that the material is irrelevant to their career.

Junior or senior level students. They all have to have credit for at least 4 semesters of college level science (though many do get AP for the first semester or two).

Most are bio, chem, or engineering majors. Some aren't, but many of those are pre-med (med schools actually like people that are non-science majors, but still require them to take a bunch of science so I'll have people that are things like history majors, but still taking advanced science classes).

I haven't looked at this particular student.

[Special K]

Dang, I would have been screwed in grad school! Half my projects were manipulations of projects I had worked on in similar classes. They were pretty much rewritten, but a lot of the same ideas and formulas, just some tweaks for the project objectives...

Anyway, for this case, tough call. Does s/he have a history of this type of behavior? Or is this an isolated incident? If s/he has a history and you have discussed stuff similar to this with the student before, I would probably turn them in.

However, if this is the first time you've had to deal with this with this particular student, and you are not "required" to turn this kid in, I would be hesitant to. I've found in my life, when teachers and professors have shown me grace (not really with cheating, but with taking time to convince me not to withdraw, or being flexible with due dates so I could pass the course), I took away much more valuable of a lesson than had I just gotten the book thrown at me. Essentially, there have been times in my education where a professor could have thrown the book at me and given me a grade where I might not have passed, or would have wasted money withdrawing from a course. It would have been easier for the professor to just not deal with me and let me flounder (although I realize these are different circumstances than outright cheating). But, I will never forget the professors who put in the extra effort to teach me some life lessons on top of the academic material they were required to. I think this could be a very teachable moment for this student. I might think about pulling the student aside and talking to him or her to see 1) what were they thinking and 2) what they think you should do. I think it would be pretty insightful to see what this student thinks you should do for punishment, or if s/he pleads for some grace. Depending on how the conversation went, if I felt like this student was truly remorseful or just didn't understand the magnitude of the infraction, I would make sure they understand that they really messed up, but you aren't in your position to punish students, but to teeach them and even sometimes guide them through the maturation process. I would maybe give the student an alotted amount of time to correct the mistakes and turn in an authentic project.

I don't know, I just think the lines between being a professor and being a mentor in a student's life are sometimes blurred and gently mentoring certain students through academia might sometimes be more beneficial than just enacting severe punishment...

Good luck, that's a tough situation

And disclaimer: I'm not a professor...or parent...or even an adult who is trusted taking care of kids But I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night

[Dan T.]

Why is this even an issue? Cheaters should pay the consequences. Schools have honor codes for a reason. Honesty and integrity should be part of the educational process. Those who cheat diminish themselves, and they're also screwing over those students competing with them for grades who didn't take shortcuts.

The only question should be the severity of the punishment.

[Special K]

Why is this even an issue? Cheaters should pay the consequences. Schools have honor codes for a reason. Honesty and integrity should be part of the educational process. Those who cheat diminish themselves, and they're also screwing over those students competing with them for grades who didn't take shortcuts.

The only question should be the severity of the punishment.

This is exactly why I could not be a professor. Ultimately, you're (and all the others saying to slam this student) are right.

I would be way too easily manipulated by students

[Destino]

This is exactly why I could not be a professor. Ultimately, you're (and all the others saying to slam this student) are right.

I would be way too easily manipulated by students

I'd play favorites and help some while burning the ones I didn't like. Probably would feel entirely justified the entire time too.

[Zazzaro703]

I'd sit the student down and talk to them about it. Why did they do it? Why insult your intelligence and think you couldnt discover a plagerised paper? Why rob themselves of the education they are paying for? Depending on their answers I would A) turn them in and/or give a 0 or B) give them a chance to turn in a real paper at a significantly reduced score. After all school is about learning and if they are worthy of a chance to correct their mistakes while learning a lesson in cheating and also completing the assignment, that's the best possible outcome in my eyes.

[SpringfieldSkins]

I blatantly cheated on a paper when I was taking AP European History while I was a senior in high school. I copied the exact same paper as another student who was taking the class (but in a different period) as well. He was a friend of mine and, since I didn't write the paper, he let me use his paper. The teacher confronted both of us about it and I confessed that my friend wrote the paper and I copied him. He ended up giving me a D on the paper because I was forthcoming with him.

I didn't copy any more papers but I can't say that was my last time cheating...

In college, my micro and macro economics professor would give the same tests every semester. Every single question was the same. A buddy of mine got the tests (and answers) from his frat and he passed them along to me the week of the tests. That said, I attended every single class and took notes on the subject matter. I didn't memorize the tests because I knew the subject but I was also prepared to exactly what the questions would be. Those two economics classes were my favorite classes that I ever took when I attended college. His classes were notoriously hard but I learned a lot in them.

[bcl05]

I teach in medical schools, and maybe it's because the tests are multiple choice and closer to knowledge directly related to ones profession, but I haven't seen anyone caught for cheating. More likely, really, they're just harder to catch. Its also entirely possible that the deans know stuff I don't. The places I've worked have all had extremely harsh, and appropriate (in my mind) punishments for cheating. Someone who takes on shortcuts tests in training will also do the wrong thing for their patients. There are plenty of not-great docs out there. If you don't learn some of the basics in medical school you won't have time to down the road, will never catch up, and patients will suffer.

[KingGibbs]

Wow. Talk about disingenuous, fraudulent, LAZY, etc, etc. I'd be embarassed to even bring it up.