Thoughts on student plagiarism

Does your school have a Conduct Court or Judicial Board? Sometimes it may be better to step aside and present the facts of the case to individuals who have no personal involvement in the matter. In fact, at my school, if a student plagiarizes a second time, the matter _must_ be brought to the attention of the Conduct Court. It turns out that a student who plagiarizes in one course is likely to plagiarize in another, but the individual teachers would have no way of knowing whether this were the case. Without the matter being brought before the Court, a student could repeatedly talk her way out of trouble, perhaps by pleading ignorance. The Conduct Court serves as a central clearing house, as it were, to prevent that sort of thing from happening.

Just curious: does this person happen to be an international student? I've seen both local and international students cheat and plagiarize, and I often wonder if the motivation/thought process/whatever is slightly different in the two cases.

I've worked in two different contexts. One was in a very poor country in africa, and cheating / plagiarism was rampant. (Rampant to the point that probably 50% of the first assignments turned in for a given class were obviously plagiarised, and the other 50% might have been also but just more subtle...).

In the US, I seem to get one or two major cases every other year or so, depending on the level.

In the former case, I had to just chalk it up to culture, a need (often literally for survival of a family) to get ahead at whatever cost, etc. I was never particularly harsh in any of these cases -- usually just discard the assignment, and try to get it through to them that I would not accept plagiarized work. I certainly don't imagine that my efforts translated into any long-lasting effect, just rather yet another hurdle for them to get past.

In the US I have always been harsh -- immediate referral to the student judicial body, and these have often resulted in suspension. I figure they should know better. But just for the possible sake of the rare international student that might not yet know better, I try to make it dead clear on the first day of 1st and 2nd year classes.

Kevin's cultural point might have validity; I know one tutor of distance learning working in Greece for a U.K. institution who found that she had to hold her marked assignments back until she had all of them in because the students would simply share the first marked copy they got back and later submissions would be implausibly good, regardless of what she said about not doing that. Greece had (has?) a boring education system focused on listening to teacher and cramming in facts and that behaviour was the norm. Rules, imprecations, warnings... no effect. It's not because they were evil students, it's because that's the way they had grown up.

On a personal level, I got into trouble because I let another student on a taught post-grad course have a look at a chunk of my assignment because "try this..." hints weren't helping and he plagiarized my work (with no attribution but with cosmetic changes). It was entirely my fault for doing it, it was wrong and against the rules, I should have been in more trouble than I was. But it seems inexplicable when I take into account the fact that I had been responsible for explaining and implementing plagiarism policies to my own students the previous few years! I believed in those policies, yet when push came to shove, I didn't really care.

So, in some places (I don't know about the U.S.), the difficulty is that it doesn't matter how much the teachers scream and shout about it, the students just don't and won't take plagiarism seriously.

Mind control, that's the thing!

Repeat offender? That is your problem. Slam them hard make them cry. Give them a zero on the first assignment. Expel them the next time. it ticks me off when you profs give breaks to cheaters. Why shouldn't they cheat if you let it go?

My son is a guitar teacher, and writes his own music. I mean, he literally sits at a table with music score and fountain pen and neatly writes his own music for his students to use in practice. (He copyrights and keeps the originals of course) When his students learn that he actually created the materials, they're shocked, amazed. A person who actually did something and didn't just buy something!

What is the place of originality in a culture where everything is a copy of everything else?

My guess is that laziness is at the core of all the "why"s here... Try not to take it too personally!

Elf Eye, the case is working its way through the proper student government/administrative channels. Unfortunately I am an old pro at this point in dealing with plagiarism cases---I joke that I have the dean on speed dial. :) But at some point in the process I will have to confront the student, or at least be present while the powers that be confront the student...and that is always hard.

Kevin and Sam, your point about international students/cultural differences is a good one, and I have encountered that before. This particular case does not fit that mold, but I am aware of it and I do spend class time talking about honesty and integrity as it relates to class work, partly for that reason. (Sam, interesting personal story---thanks for sharing!)

Monson, I'm not sure what in my story gave you the idea that I let that person off easy the first time. I've found, in my experience, that for some students it doesn't matter if you come down hard on them---they will do it again, or at least try to. How do we "fix" this? Great question. I wish I knew.

decrepitoldfool, what a cool story about your son! I do wonder sometimes how much of the plagiarism problem is laziness vs. lack of imagination/creativity (or lack of confidence in engaging with challenging material?). That might just be the subject of another post!

ScienceMama, I agree that laziness most likely explains part if not all of the issue here. But it's still hard not to take it personally! :)

Are you sure about the "too good to need to cheat" aspect? Perhaps she's been cheating like a fiend and that's the reasons her grades are otherwise so high.

I was recently confronted with students copying each other and sending their assignements in 15 min apart! When that happens, you can't help but wonder "do they think we're that stupid we won't notice some bits are word by word and mistake by mistake the same?". The TA and myself confronted them, and we couldn't believe how long they denied the obvious for so long... and then questioned why they should give a new version of it if they wanted to get marked...

SDS, good point. But I've observed enough of this person's performance in classroom activities and on (in-class) tests and such that I'm confident in saying that she doesn't need to cheat.

Stepwise girl, I've been there too. You do have to wonder what they're thinking and how naive they think we are!

I'm curious as to what your institution's policies are. At the college I went to (admittedly many years ago) the penalty for *any* demonstrable plagiarism was a failing grade in the course *and* suspension from the school for a minimum of one semester (and for a whole academic year for major plagiarism).

chezjake, there are "policies" and then there's "what actually happens to the students". Sometimes these are one and the same, sometimes not.