teachers & professors come in- plagiarism

[pugz]

Ok the post on CEP about plagiarism is depressing me big time.

What are the consequences for your students if they are caught plagiarizing? Do they get a zero? Get detention? Get kicked out of the class? Get to re-do the paper and earn credit for it?

[katecoop]

The first time they get a 0 on the assignment, parents contacted. The 2nd time they fail the class.

The problem is there is no one keeping track of how often they do it. So if they plagiarize once in my class and once in science class, they can technically get away with it. We have tried to correct this but it never goes anywhere.

I'm surprised at the number of people in education who do not concern themselves with plagiarism.

[80sjunkie]

It depends on a lot of factors, but my guess is that the consequences would be a lot more lenient than I would want them to be.

[katecoop]

Nov 27, 2012 9:32:34 GMT -5 @barefootbarista said:

They get an opportunity to do it again.
Unfortunately, teachers don't have a lot of power in this matter. It is usually a decision that we have to follow based on district guidelines. So, the bigwig district officials make the decisions and we have to follow them.

Likely because enough parents have complained and they don't want their precious to fail.
I've seen it go like this:
English Student plagiarizes, teacher tries to fail them, parents take it waaaaaay over the teachers head and make a complaint with the superintendents office, teacher gets in trouble for not giving them another opportunity to make it right.

Exactly. This is happened several years ago in a town nearby, but this is the reality of plagiarism in high schools today... and this was a dual-credit course offered through Indiana University.

www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/local/hamilton_county/plagiarism-case-threatens-graduation

[StJess80]

Not a teacher/prof, but I work in a law library. Some of our librarians teach legal writing, and a couple of years ago, 4-6 people were caught plagarizing each other. Slap on the hands is all they got.

[Deleted]

Depends on a lot of factors. I have some international students that aren't very fluent, so sometimes things get lost in translation. I also have students with language-based learning disabilities, so it's tough. I try very hard to teach ways to avoid plagiarism. We spend a ton of time paraphrasing when I teach research writing.

My seniors get a zero for the assignment and it gets reported as a level 2 infraction...which means the dean and I decide the consequence together. Usually a second offense is automatic suspension.

[Doggy Mommy]

I teach 4th grade, so my answer probably doesn't count. The kids aren't really given much opportunity to plagiarize since most of what we do is done in class. Sometimes a student will copy a story instead of writing a summary or something like that, so we just have to review that summarize means use your own words. I would re-teach what they are supposed to be doing rather than give a consequence. At this level, the kids pretty much do what they think they're supposed to do. When they copy, usually they think they're just doing a really thorough job of telling you what happened in the story.

[gibbinator]

Not a teacher, but my dh gives them an automatic 0%, they have to do a short essay on plagiarism (no credit, but they get detention every noon hour until it's completed to his satisfaction), parents are contacted. He's the English teacher so it's a pretty big deal in his class.

In uni it was anywhere from an automatic fail on the assignment to expulsion depending on the severity of the plagiarism (ie total rip off vs forget to include bibliography)

[Norticprincess]

Nov 27, 2012 10:05:50 GMT -5 BirdGirl said:

Nov 27, 2012 9:49:29 GMT -5 StJess80 said:

Not a teacher/prof, but I work in a law library. Some of our librarians teach legal writing, and a couple of years ago, 4-6 people were caught plagarizing each other. Slap on the hands is all they got.

I'm surprised by this. I thought there were ethical rules that would prevent them from admission to most bars, and I though the school would have to report. Then again, the school loses the $ if they kick them out.

Do they teach legal writing at a law school or is it for paralegals/undergrads? We had a fundamentals of legal writing and how to use the online sources (westlaw/lexus) and the law library as a course in undergrad. In was taught by adjunct faculty in the CJ department, either a lawyer or law librarian.

[cahabalily]

I'm a PhD Candidate teaching at an R1 university, so plagiarism is a huge no-no here.

I haven't had it happen in any of my classes, but it did happen in a class in our department (by non-major students). They were all 3 sent to the Honor Board and had to testify. One of them was accidental - didn't cite something properly, she just got a written warning.

The other two were plagiarizing off of each other and several websites - they were immediately excused from the University. They received WF (Failure due to Withdrawal) on the transcript for every class that semester, and basically had to transfer to another university.

Shit gets real around here with plagiarism.

[lauralala]

I teach at a community college. If it is a minor assignment, they make a 0 on that assignment and get a warning. If it is a major assignment/research paper, they automatically fail the class. If it is a repeat offense on a minor assignment, they fail the class.

This is probably the one thing I am a hard ass about.

[Deleted]

I'm a middle school teacher. My kids just redo it, there's no penalty. I would like to have a zero tolerance policy (we spend a lot of time discussing what plagiarism is and how to avoid it) but it's not my decision.

I saw a lot of it when I was in high school/college and it disgusts me...I think it would be better if we were able to teach consequences at a younger age (and obviously teach how to avoid it as well).

[shell403b]

A student caught cheating in my class is supposed to receive a 0 on the assignment/test/whatever, but as a PP said, when you try to enforce that, it's taken WAY above the teacher's paygrade and reversed.

I once had a principal tell me that I had to accept for full credit a cheated-on test (it was a writing test in Spanish and the student changed the keyboard/writing program to Spanish and was using the thesaurus/spell-check options--HUGE no no) or else I would be de-staffed (meaning moved to another building). To this day, that STILL chaps my ass.

[mbcdefg]

I'm not a teacher - MH teaches at both a high school and a college.

College: MH gives them a 0, the students complain to the department chair that MH is being mean or disrespectful, department chair tells MH to take it easy on the kids and be nicer to them. Sometimes mH is asked to raise their final grade to reflect the student's complaint.

High school: MH writes them up, administration says they'll look into it, then they do nothing because they don't want to follow up with paperwork. Most parents don't come to Parent-Teacher Night ... the ones called in for individual meetings have either yelled at MH for not respecting their kids' feelings, or shrugged and said, "He's 16, he's an adult. What do you want me to do about it?" From what he's told me, none of his students in situations like this (cheating, failing, mouthing off, etc.) have ever really turned themselves around.

This is why I told my parents that I'd never be a teacher.

[mccallister84]

I think very few people realize how little power/control teachers have. As soon as most things are escalated up the powers that be usually cave to the parents because they don't want to deal with it and it has no effect on them. As a result the teacher looks like a complete fool. I've really learned that there aren't many battles worth fighting after getting burned a few times.

[pugz]

this is just so sad to me that the administration doesn't give a fuck.

[beefjerky]

I'm a professor - my students get an automatic zero for the assignment. No chance to redo. If it happens again they get kicked out of the class and have to retake it.

[auberge]

At my school: (small private school(
first offense-a verbal warning and a zero. (no makeup possible)
second offense- formal written warning, zero and 1 day suspension.
third offense- all of the above plus 3 day suspension
fourth offense- expelled

[sugarbear]

I teach 7th and 8th Grade Humanities.
First time, I do a little investigation-- First I look to see if the information is even in their notes. Sometimes it is, so then I ask what does this word mean, what did you mean by this phrase, can you tell me about this topic? That way, I can tell whether they did it on purpose or if they just don't know how to take notes.

If it seems, at that point, that they have no idea what any of it means, or if the information is not in their notes, they get a zero and an email to parents.

Second time, a zero and probably in school suspension (I've never had a second time).

All the other Middle School teachers will hear about it because we meet weekly to discuss students, so those offenses can occur in any class.

ETA: I've been teaching this research-based 7th Grade Geography class for four years. Every year, at least one kid gets a zero, which usually results in an F for the trimester (depends on how many total points are available). Parents get pissed, but not at me-- they get pissed at their kid. My admin. totally has my back and I am so grateful for it. My take is, I'd rather your kid learn this lesson here, where it's "safe," than let it go and have your kid get expelled from high school.

[Deleted]

Former hs social studies teacher here. If a kid was caught plagarizing, you could try to give them a zero. But if the parents pushed back at all, you'd have to let them re-write. Basically, if a kid ever asked for another chance (re-write, make up test, turn in late work) you had to give it to them.

Before I left, they were moving to a no zeros policy (grades are not a punishment, blah blah blah). This was a wealthy surburban district with a lot of parental involvement. They also majorily frowned on homework and lectures fwiw.

[Deleted]

Not quite plagiarism, but I had a7th grade student cheat on a weekly social studies quiz while I was student teaching. Working with my cooperating teacher, we informed the student that afternoon that she would receive a zero for the quiz. The next day, we spent our 40min lunch break on the phone with the mother who went up one side and down the other because we made her poor child feel so terrible and the child didn't even want to eat dinner last night because she was so upset; how could we possibly do this to a student. The teacher had to give the child a chance to retake the exam with up to 70% credit. Seriously, it was a lousy weekly quiz in 7th grade. If your child is going to test boundaries and cheat academically, this is probably the best situation ever to get caught and realize it's not a good thing.

Including several other experiences student teaching, this was pretty much the nail-in-coffin experience for my desire to work as a 7-12 teacher (I now work in university administration, still dealing with hyperinvolved parents, but to a lesser degree). It is not pretty out there for teachers.

[StJess80]

Nov 27, 2012 10:21:12 GMT -5 Norticprincess said:

Nov 27, 2012 10:05:50 GMT -5 BirdGirl said:

I'm surprised by this. I thought there were ethical rules that would prevent them from admission to most bars, and I though the school would have to report. Then again, the school loses the $ if they kick them out.

Do they teach legal writing at a law school or is it for paralegals/undergrads? We had a fundamentals of legal writing and how to use the online sources (westlaw/lexus) and the law library as a course in undergrad. In was taught by adjunct faculty in the CJ department, either a lawyer or law librarian.

It's a law school, taught by JD'd law librarians.

[Deleted]

a zero.

In college, people were often expelled for cheating. It was taken very seriously.

[dragonfly08]

It depends on how bad it is. A little here and there? They get it back ungraded with a reminder about what plagiarism is and university policy concerning it, and are given the option to rewrite the paper, with a very short turnaround time.

Copying and pasting huge portions and/or submitting someone else's paper as their own? If we really think the student made an honest error (sometimes they do, especially those who are not native English speakers...you can pretty much tell if they meant to plagiarize or not based on prior attitude/work) then we talk to them about it. If it was a blatant attempt to up their grade they get a zero. Haven't yet had one bad enough that the student had to go before a dean and risk expulsion, but they know that's a possibility.

[5thofjuly]

I teach college. They get a zero on the section of the paper they plagiarized. That way the bad paraphrasers don't get too whiney and I don't have to fill out a billion page report about why they got a zero on the whole paper. But, since there are only 100 points in the class and the paper is work 25-40 of those, it still makes a big dent of around a letter grade in the course.

If they plagiarize the whole paper (or almost the whole thing) I take them before the honors council.

80% of my plagiarists are bad paraphrasers, but still include a citation. Even though we go over it. Twice. And I let them use turnitin.com to check their own papers. Can you tell I'm annoyed?

[janetplanet20]

I read that thread last night and was depressed by it.
I teach 7th grade English and history and I have a zero
tolerance policy for plagiarism. If I find that a student has
plagarised, they receive a 0 on the assignment and
do not have the opportunity to redo the work. I once had a
student turn in a research paper that was completely just copied
and pasted from various websites. I showed him the
plagiarism checking site I used and he still tried to deny it!

This is one of my policies I go over at the beginning of the school
year and I have the students and their parents sign off that they understand
the policy. I keep that on file just in case anyone ever wants to
argue that their kid should get to make it up. So far I haven't had any
parents challenge it.

[barefootcontessa]

At my institution, it is considered an honor violation and thus grounds for dismissal. Faculty often do to want the hassle of a trial, so they will fail the student (for the course). If they complain, then there is always an honor charge.

[shell403b]

Another thought--where I went to college, if you were found guilty of plagiarism/cheating, you received an XF on your transcript, which denoted an honor code violation.

I really don't understand why colleges/universities take that so seriously, whereas most secondary institutions do not (at least from my impressions from this thread). That makes me sad, as a member of this profession.

I do agree w/ the PPs that said, "Pick your battles"--that isn't one we're going to win, considering the politics of this job nowadays.