If you were a college professor and a student lifted most of page two of a two-page paper from Wikipedia...?

Question

What would you do besides give an "F" on that paper? The other four papers were mostly A-'s and topics that weren't plagiarizable. The student is playing dumb that he didn't cite his paper properly, bit his whole page two is verbatim from Wikipedia.

I normally get one student like this a semester in my freshman class, despite my speeches against plagiarizing and grade-grubbing, but I have yet to put these students through an academic dishonesty committee where they would likely be kicked out of school.

I always take the student aside and tell them the seriousness of their offense, and their odds of a decent grade in the course now are greatly reduced. Am I being too soft?

Answer 1

Our faculty follow the same plagiarism policy, but the penalties are at their own discretion. Sometimes, it's difficult to tell whether a student understands proper citations, but if the paper is half cited, and half plagiarized, I'd at the very least give him a zero on the paper.



Remember that if you're on a points system, a zero is far more detrimental than just an F. An F can garner up to 69 points on a 1-100 grading scale. Take a look at your grading policy, as well. If you have a tendency to throw out the lowest score, you're inviting the temptation to either plagiarize or just plain blow off a paper.

Answer 2

Fail them. You are being too soft. I had teachers in college who would not stand for any sort of plagiarism and had no issues with sending students to the dean, even if it meant that they would be expelled from the university. How are they going to learn if there are no consequences to their actions? The working world is not forgiving of stunts like this, and college is supposed to help prepare students for their professional lives. An employer would not blink an eye about firing an employee for behavior such as this and you should not either. If the entire page has been plagiarized, then the student should, at minimum, receive a failing grade for the course and have to take it over again next semester. Additionally, whoever the student takes the class with in the future should be notified of the problem. That teacher should not allow the student to use any of the same work that was submitted for this class. All of the work should have to be new and properly cited. This will teach the kid that you can not cheat the system because eventually you will get caught and it is easier to do the work right the first time than to do it all over again from scratch a second time.

Answer 3

From the problem we know that: x * y = 1640 Where x left page and y = right page. We also know that: x+1 = y Substituting x + 1 for y in the first equation gives us: x * (x+1) = 1640 Do math on left side: x^2 + x = 1640 Put in quadratic form x^2 + x -1640 = 0 Using the quadratic equation we get: (-1 +/- sqr(1^2 - 4 * 1 * -1640)/2 * 1 or (-1 +/- sqrt(6561))/2 or (-1 +/- 81) / 2 Which gives us two answers: (-1 - 81)/2 or - 42 which we can ignore as you cant have negative page numbers We also get: (-1+81)/2 = 40 Which gives us the value of x the first page. Adding 1 to that we get 41, the second page. Long answer for a simple question.

Answer 4

I would fail the student on the paper, warning them that what I should be doing is putting them in front of the committee. So, I think that you are doing exactly what I would do. A situation like that should be enough to straighten out a student who is still learning the ropes but has the capacity to write a paper on their own. A student who can only plagiarize won't last too long anyhow.

Answer 5

The issue is he's a freshman. Did he know that what he was doing was wrong? And I think you, as the professor, can tell from how he responded to you that he knew. If he knew, then I'm sorry - he's gone. And this kid knew.



And it's not like he was even clever in his plagiarism! He stole a page from Wiki. Duh!



He has a chance to defend himself before the committee. That's his second chance.



In my own policy, it comes down to intent. If a student intended to plagiarize - if he stole an entire page from Wiki - and then he lied to me about it, I'd report him to the dean. If, however, a student didn't know better, and that was obvious from the look on their face and how they responded to my accusation, then I would not report them. In that case, I'd fail them for the paper, and teach them about plagiarism.



But for any of this to work, you need to be sure that your students knew what was considered plagiarism, and knew your expectations, up front.



You need to do what you feel is right. At a minimum, though, you must do what you've been doing - you must fail him for the paper.



Do you have a faculty mentor? This might be a good topic to discuss with him.

Answer 6

I think you're being way to soft. I would send them straight to the honor committee. Alternatively, you could give them an Fin the whole class.



I don't think it matters what school you're teaching at or whether the person understands plagiarism. No person in college should get away with plagiarism and they shouldn't be in college if they "don't get it." Letting them get away really sets them up for a string of bad science, bad research, or a life of cheating.



Honestly, I have to say, a teachers response to honor policy is one of the things that makes the difference between a great school and a mediocre school.

Answer 7

You could go over plagiarism again. Let them know that if they do plagiarize its an automatic failure. Fail the student and note on the paper to see you after class. Then show him/her the site and have them explain the paper compared to the site reference. Then ask them again do they fully understand plagiarism. If they apologize then have them write a new paper with a automatic one letter grade deduction. If they deny it then nothing else to do then fail them and cite how disappointed you are.

Answer 8

No, I don't think you're being too soft. Give them another chance to get it right. If they do it again after that, then let them know it will be a lot more serious and exactly what consequences they might expect. Let them know now that they can't cheat and plagiarize their way through college. There are too many dishonest people out in the workforce and society today already. Look at Blagojevich - there's someone who probably every dishonest and underhanded thing in the book to get through college.

Answer 9

Remember, when you get the students in for their first year, they are new to how the REAL world works...Prior to adult life it is possible they could cheat and squirm their way out or into any given situation...While its not our place nor position to make "honest men or women" out of these rare few that seem to be impervious to the consequences, I'd have to say your fine for the 1st offense, if its caught again, I'd get tougher. If the caught outside the safety net of your care, you know the end result with that...and the law does not wink at the offense. Some kids really don't realize what a consequence is...Don't envy you there...its like a raising a whole society of kids...Hats off to ya!!! Take care. : )

Answer 10

I think this depends on what school you are teaching at. If you teach at Harvard then yea you are being too soft. You should ask other teachers at your school what to do.

Answer 11

Sounds about right to me.. Only so much you can do. They can't get anywhere if you keep failing them and maybe they will eventually stop.