Today I failed a student for plagiarism

I think you've made the right decision. How long will the appeals process take? I mean, isn't being expelled for plagiarism one of the biggest policies colleges have?

Appeals process depends on how fast the committee wants to meet. Could be this week, though they won't normally meet. Usually it's all resolved in three weeks, but we're almost at the end of term, so I don't know.

To the best of my knowledge, the committee in question has never overturned a faculty decision, so that's on my side. Still, it's an annoyance and a burden and I'm a new teacher (no tenure or anything) so I'm not sure what kind of hoops they might want me to jump through to break me in.

Can you please start failing people on JoeUser? 

Okay. I'll go check your page right now....

I'm thrilled to hear that you took the hard right over the easy wrong. (it may not have seemed 'hard' to you, but for many people it would have been)...

it's good to know that there are still honest people out there

Yeah, well, I'm young and idealistic, if just a wee bit cynical.

I'm hoping to be a college professor one day, so...


the difference is, i'm gonna wait til i'm old and gray... hmmmm

The best professors I ever had were the ones with keen senses of humor and a good knowledge of their stuff. That combination actually makes people learn.

And BTW, if you start out early as a prof, you get grey pretty fast.

i have this vision of being old and gray, with a beer gut and glasses... oh, and a long beard. I want to challenge students above all else... and I want them to challenge me.

I'll have to work on the sense of humor bit...

Very funny, imajinit. Angloesque, I think you are very brave and smart to have done what you did. Plagarism is a very serious problem for a student. One of my professors committed plagarism and it changed him from being arrogant, to having some humility. He went on to be a great Bible scholar, but he didn't take anymore shortcuts. Btw, he was failed and kicked out of school, also.

Do you go threw and check every students report for plagarism? A lot of my teachers say they do but students keep getting away with it. Or do you just randomly check them? I'm just wandering because it doesn't seem like my teachers really do check them all.

Capt. over and out!

I check when it grabs my attention. I try to have a good handle on each student's voice and knowledge, and when they deviate from that even a little, I check. I also do spot checks and periodic checks. But every time I've seen plagiarism it's been because their writing voice changes from what I am used to.

--T.

School is weird. In the workplace - you can copy all you want. In fact it is encouraged. Well.. up to a point right ? And law is actually *based* on precedent. I suppose it would have been different if she had cited the work - then you would have failed her not for plagarism, but for lack of effort ? heh

This is such a tough issue. I teach third grade, and already it's something I have to explain and warn my students about. The scary thing is, this whole bend-the-rules-until-they-break thing is getting way out of hand. My students push every time they are given a directive - they want exception after exception after exception. They've mastered this, and they're only eight. What is going to happen with these kids hit college?

I can't quote which issue, but I think I remember an article in Reader's Digest? (Ugh, long-term memory..) In the article a whole class had been failed in English due to prevalent and rampant plagarism..And the kids all whined to their parents, who in turn put pressure on the school board..who in turn leaned on the teacher and forced her to reverse her grade decision and passed the children. Now, where I live we're trying to catch every child before they fall through the cracks..How is letting them get away with plagarism "saving" them from falling through the system? Seems to me they already fell somewhere to have tried it. I think it's crap. Maybe schoolkids (even the younger ones) should be taken to civil court over plagarism when it occurs and restitution be demanded to the third-party who had written the durn thing originally.. (Or something along those lines, I'm sleepy ^_^)

All of these articles tie in some way to the fact that people do not want to be held responsible for making poor decisions. "Ooops, I made a bad mistake..I knew better..MY BAD..How dare you punish me for it!!!"

Sure, punish the student for plagiarism but expulsion, little harsh don`t you think, no! I guess you don`t think so because the student is gone right! hope you don`t find yourself in a
bad spot someday and need someone to cut you some slack and instead cut the rope on ya.

As a sceintist I have to admit that plagiarism really disgusts me. I think people need to be very clear though on the differences between referencing or referring to another persons work and copying something almost verbatim and presenting it as your thoughts. The first shows a knowledge of the topic and the previous work and discussions in this area. It is to be applauded and encouraged. The second shows laziness and disregard for the intellectual property of others. It should be punished.

As for expulsion, plagiarism is cheating. If a university gets a name for allowing students to pass by cheating then their diplomas and degres will become worthless. Universities must act. I would assume an initial offense should result in serious disciplinary action (formal reprimand, failure of exam and having to repeat that exam). Any furtehr offense should results in immediate expulsion.

Paul.

As one teacher to another, I have to say good for you Angloesque. Dont give it a second's thought. Apart from anything else, if you didn't fail this cheater you would've been cheating all the other students who did their own work.

As for the whole expulsion issue, if this student realised that expulsion was the price of plagarism and still plagarised then I say fair enough. I hope it seves as a warning to others. God, I sound really right-wing.

Regarding the expulsion, this incident alone did not expel her. It was simply the straw that broke the camel's back, though I think there'd be less plagiarism if students knew their college careers were riding on their honesty. At any rate, the events leading up to this had nothing to do with me or my class.

-T.

I'm just curious, how you find out that they're copying it from the internet? Do you go to google and put in quotes a few sentences from their essay or what?

That's one way. But I'd hate to tip off any students reading this....

Sure, punish the student for plagiarism but expulsion, little harsh don`t you think, no! I guess you don`t think so because the student is gone right! hope you don`t find yourself in a bad spot someday and need someone to cut you some slack and instead cut the rope on ya.

This is happening in college. In college, you shouldn't plagiarize at all, and if you do, you should be expelled.
Also, how is purposely cheating the system the same as being in a bad spot? Nobody forced her to plagiarize.
Expulsion is a common and appropriate punishment for plagiarism. I remember my biology teacher always telling the class that if he caught one of us plagiarizing not only would he fail us, but he would do all he can to get us kicked out of the school, and I can't help but agree that he's doing the right thing.

Actually, he told us that he would fail us and try to get us kicked out for cheating before each test, but plagiarism and cheating are pretty much the same thing anyway.

Rock on sista! You hit the nail right on the head. This is about so much more than plagarism. This student needs to take responsibility for her actions and start playing by the rules. Hopefully she'll learn from this, get her act together and go to another school and be successful. You've done your part. Now she has to do hers. If she's lucky, her parents will butt out and let her "do her time" so to speak. Unfortunately, I find all to often that students like this came from a family of enablers; parents that felt that it was their job to support and fight for their child no matter what, even when the child had clearly done something wrong. That isn't preparing the child for the real world and it's not good parenting.

She said in her post that this was the last of MANY offenses. If this student hadn't been expelled because of this last error in judgement, she would have made another one and forced someone else to be the bad guy. Maybe she just doesn't really want to be in school, considering that she repeatedly refuses to play by the rules.