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

When I was in college, I had two older brothers I over lapped w/. My oldest brother took an Art Appreciation class and as part of that class you had to write a semester ending essay. His best friend then took the class another semester and handed in the same essay. My older brother (younger than my oldest brother) tried to turn in the same essay in yet another semester. Unfortunately for him, the third time was not the charm and the Prof realized after the 3rd time that he'd seen it before and there were consequences.

(Obviously, when I took art appreciation, I wrote my own essay.)

These days that no longer works in many cases. Every project I have students hand is handed in electroncially and goes into a database system that then compares them to every other document that has ever been entered into the system as well things like common web pages.

So for those of you that are students or are considering being students when handing things like semester ending projects, you might want to keep that in mind.

Due to the nature of the project I give out, you can't just hand in somebody else's project as your own. Parts of it are unique to the student based on something they are assigned. But much of it can be changed pretty easily by only modifying a few words that are unique to the students.

I appear to have a student that has done that at least for most of it.

I hate handeling situations like this and I do have some flexibility (if I report it, I have to go with the official judgement, but we aren't FORCED (or even really strongly encouraged) to report it.)

So I'm also hoping to get some input.

Has anybody ever been on the cheating side of this and had an experience that they felt long term really benefited them?

I find it ironic in the business world you are encouraged to leverage previous work from other clients, proposals, reports etc. but in the school world utilizing other work is a severe punishment.

I never plagiarized work in hs, college etc. I did however love to mess with margins, font sizes etc. The papers must've looked so ridiculous to our teacher now thinking about it.

I find it ironic in the business world you are encouraged to leverage previous work from other clients, proposals, reports etc. but in the school world utilizing other work is a severe punishment.

I never plagiarized work in hs, college etc. I did however love to mess with margins, font sizes etc. The papers must've looked so ridiculous to our teacher now thinking about it.

I agree. I see nothing wrong with "borrowing" a friends paper and using some of it to help on my own essay. No just turning the whole thing in unaltered, but when I was in college, last year, I did all the time. And BTW, **** standarized tests. They don't test knowledge, they test memorization. Open book/open ended tests are the way to go.

If you hate the idea of simply turning them in, meet with them and find out why they did it. You might come to a decision more easily if you hear what they have to say for themselves. I've known people that got a break a made the most of it and those that kept on repeating the same mistake. Ultimately while people can argue right and wrong you are the one that has to sleep at night.

I find it ironic in the business world you are encouraged to leverage previous work from other clients, proposals, reports etc. but in the school world utilizing other work is a severe punishment.

I never plagiarized work in hs, college etc. I did however love to mess with margins, font sizes etc. The papers must've looked so ridiculous to our teacher now thinking about it.

Because school is supposed to teach you to think and research on your own, whereas in the work world anything that works and makes the company money is acceptable.

It's like being in the military.. in basic training, if you stop and think, you really wonder why they have you do half the stuff they have you do,, until it's realized that they do it to teach you certain habits that may not actually have anything to do with your underpants being folded absolutely perfectly.

~Bang

Because school is supposed to teach you to think and research on your own, whereas in the work world anything that works and makes the company money is acceptable.

I suspect in most fields, but especially science learning how to find/search, read, understand, and correctly and suscintly paraphrase primary sources (e.g. the peer reviewed literature) is an important part of the process and an important part of obtaining an education.

If you started from your friends work (and not primary sources), then you really did miss out on much of the educational objective of the work.

I suspect in most fields, but especially science learning how to find/search, read, understand, and correctly and suscintly paraphrase primary sources (e.g. the peer reviewed literature) is an important part of the process and an important part of obtaining an education.

If you started from your friends work (and not primary sources), then you really did miss out on much of the educational objective of the work.

exactly,, unless you've made a new discovery, everything you're going to write is going to be an amalgam of what you've learned from others anyway.

part of the drilling it in process is to have you think of it in your own terms and write it.

Drives the message home.

even now, if I need to recall something, I write it down.

I may never look at it to remind me, but it makes me remember. It solidifies the thought.

~Bang

I agree with Destino,with the addition of requiring a supplemental paper IF you decide to let it slide

as has been mentioned, it is a learning process

School is to teach students to think independently and come to their own conclusions and then communicate such. Plagarizing something is not thinking, learning and communicating independently.

In the business world, reuse is the word for recycling past written documents and only those without a clue don't make it relevant to the subject at hand. I work frequently with a woman who is a proposal coordinator and we took an assignment for a new client (company was new, the BDer was not) and we were given some past proposals to work with. She started reading before me and said, "Take a look at the management plan and tell me what you think." So I did, and lo and behold, it was some text from my own boilerplate library! Obviously, someone had lifted it from somewhere, but not the BDer because I asked him. So, I took it as a complement and that it was a good plan if someone else lifted it.

BTW, I find very few really good proposal writers coming from the younger ranks, their language skills aren't up to snuff and they continually look for something to plagarize. And sometimes you just have to sit down and start writing from scratch. If all one knows is how to plagarize, they can't really communicate. Granted some jobs don't require any writing, but I think the exercises in expanding one's vocabulary, correct grammar usage and so on are invaluable skills no matter one's occupation.

I would never hand in the same paper. Especially if it is word for word. If I was to do something like that, I would put it in my own words.

Now as for test, I will admit, I cheated on those. Now that I am in college it is harder to cheat on test.... but I still do it. Thank God for cell phones :doh:

I would let them know that I know they cheated if I caught them. And tell them if they don't turn in a original assignment I will blow the whistle.

Personally I think in most classes the grade should be just a few exams/timed essays anyway. Then you can be sure its the students work.

OP - I can't speak to a specific cheating experience, but I certainly made many mistakes as a kid that, if the letter of the law was followed, I would have been in BIG trouble. Thankfully I was surrounded by parents, teachers, and faculty who knew better. They saw that a harsh punishment wasn't what I needed, what I needed was to learn a lesson and understand that there are consequences in life that sometimes you have to face, but sometimes if you take responsibility for your actions those consequences can change.

Follow your instinct on what this kid truly needs to grow into a good person. Don't just take what the rules are and apply them. If you feel the kid needs serious discipline, go for it. I personally feel people often don't realize that discipline can put a kid in a situation where they find it easier to continue being "bad" because they are never shown the alternative. When you focus on the consequence, the lesson is often lost.

If you think the lesson of compassion, critical thinking, and empathy is more important than discipline for bad behavior (which I would think is 9x out of 10) then follow your gut, don't report it.

Good luck!!!

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

Umm most teachers and school system has access to web engines that scan the entire internet for plagerize. I graduated college in 2008 and one of the criteria for the teachers was that if you got more than 15%, then you would fail that paper.

I never cheated in high school or college, and it still is a point of pride for me to say that.

I did, however, lie in 7th grade. I claimed I had finished a paper and turned it in, but I did not. My teacher, instead of confronting me, gave me an "Incomplete" as a grade. I felt guilty at the time, and I still have regrets some 20-25 years later. To this day, I wish he had made me own up to my lie.

So I'd say, confront him about it and have him make it right.

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.

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.

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..

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.

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).

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.

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.

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

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.

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