Is it fair some teachers report minor unintentional plagiarism and some not?

Parents Forum
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<p>Listen, if you accidentally kill someone, you can still be held responsible for it in a court. </p>

<p>It’s ridiculous that you’re making up excuses “accidentally paraphrased” (What, word for word?) and “had a time crunch” (The paper was take home, and not in class, I’m guessing. If it was take home, you had time to budget time.) but either way, you broke the rules- doesn’t matter why or how purposeful it was.</p>

<p>I’ll spare you the “Life’s not fair” bit, but give you this instead:</p>

<p>In ancient sparta, young men were trained to become adult soliders. They were never fed very well- and they were told that stealing food for themselves would be okay. However, if they were caught stealing, they would be severly punished for being caught. </p>

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-[Greek</a> Education](<a href=“http://www.crystalinks.com/greekeducation.html]Greek”>Education in Ancient Greece) </p>

<p>This isn’t Sparta. So just admit you have a fox of plagarism on your hands, and you’ve learned a big lesson about stealing.</p>

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<p>“The student is genuine and has inadvertantly, under time pressure paraphrased 4 lines in a written paper.”</p>

<p>That’s rich. “The student procrastinated for too long, then copied part of his paper from a book, making minor edits to hide the fact that he was plagiarizing, but he got caught anyway” is more like it. Don’t compound your cheating by lying. No sympathy here. If you don’t like what you see as inconsistencies in how cheating is handled at your school, then DON’T CHEAT. Or, in your own words, “don’t inadvertantly copy four lines from a textbook into your paper under time pressure.”</p>

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<p>I had a teacher–in college–who liked us to look at Wikipedia, due to Wikipedia being updated constantly and not having “publisher’s lag” like books do. There are certainly many of teachers who won’t allow students to use Wikipedia, but even this point is by no means universal. When in doubt, ask the teacher.</p>

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<p>Plagarism is a serious problem. Why it happened, how it happened, is for you to discuss with them and they can decide whether they believe you or not and what the consequences will be. It is sometimes very difficult to separate out purposeful plagarism (which amounts to cheating and claiming others’ work as their own) from forgetting to cite or citing inappropriately. We can’t possibly know the details of your situation. I would hope they would go far lighter than suspension or cut you slack with a first offense and make it educational rather than punitive, but that is just my personal opinion. </p>

<p>If you ask me, I think whether or not the consequences for plagarism is consistently applied across teachers is not remotely relevant to your argument. If they have taught you the rules, tell you there will be consequences and you subsequently break the rules, you are responsible. People do things all the time- purposefully and inadvertently- that violate particular rules. Sometimes you get caught and have a consequence, sometimes you do not. It just goes like that.</p>

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<p>What’s with all these “well life isn’t fair so get over it” reponses? Is high school supposed to be training for accepting arbirary and capricious actions of authority? Someone could be wronlgy convicted and sit on death row, and there will be CC types saying ‘well life isn’t fair’.</p>

<p>Plagiarism is a difficult issue to deal with fairly and consistently. A high school student is not expected to be producing original knowledge. Paraphrasing is not the same as just copying. Four lines is not the same as a page. Missing out one citation is not the same as missing out many. I would say that a disciplinary hearing or a punisment for the case as described is over the top. The teacher could warn (advise) the student to be more careful.</p>

<p>As for Wiki, I think it is a great source of information. Textbooks and encyclopedias, etc., are not inerrant sources of information. On most topic that I know very well, I don’t have big problems with the wiki account. If I am teaching and need the students to know some background on some slightly peripheral, I just tell them to look it up on Wiki.</p>

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<p>^^^ IDEALLY, it should be adressed fairly and consistently, but it’s not, that’s life.</p>

<p>And life isn’t fair. ;)</p>

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<p>Uh…getting a crackdown for breaking the rules is warranted. As for that question in general…well, come on now! You’ve been to a HS before!</p>

<p>(and it is REALLY hard to “accidentally plagarise”) And for that matter wiki is only as good a source as ITS sources. I would never cite wiki directly, it looks sloppy and lazy.</p>

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<p>sorghum and i interpret the “life isn’t fair” comments differently. Most of what I have seen here using that phrase is meant to say the phrase cannot be used as a defense. I don’t think it has been used here only to mean- <em>too bad kid</em>. If it is true some teachers are less strict, less caring, or less observant, that may not be fair, but it isn’t a defense to cheating.</p>

<p>So sorghum gives permission to use Wiki as a source, but some teachers don’t? Is that fair?</p>

<p>Perhaps if this student wants to do his part to make things more fair, then after his hearing, he can lobby the school/school board to set up specific, written regulations. Then he can be proud to say he did something to make what he sees as an unjust circumstance fair for all.</p>

<p>Having a disciplinary meeting is where both sides present their case and then the punishment is meted out, if any is justified.</p>

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<p>It may be a hard lesson learned but had the situation happened while he was in college the situation could be worse. Some colleges will academically dismiss you for plagiarism and there are no parent -teacher, going to talk to the principal conferences.</p>

<p>At Dartmouth the academic honor code works, because if you are found in violation of it, you are “Parked” (suspended) for a minimum of 3 terms. My D says Dartmouth will not hesitate to suspend you for an academic violation of the honor code and know quite a few people who have been parked.
This is the story about my D’s friend who got parked senior year.</p>

<p>From The Dartmouth</p>

<p>On trial: the committee on standards

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<p>I’ve read about the Obaseki case before, and it makes absolutely no sense to me that he would be given the same penalty as someone who deliberately plagiarized. Everyone acknowledged that he had simply forgotten to add his planned citations, and that the paper itself made clear that he was not claiming the thoughts/words as his own. In effect, everyone acknowledged that he had NOT committed an “honor” violation, but a major mistake due to carelessness. Refusing to accept the paper, which might well have resulted in an F in the course, would make a lot more sense in that case.</p>

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<p>As you know or your son has already told you, they live and die by that honor code. You could probably get away with murder easier than violating thier code. They are straight up about it.</p>

<p>[Standards</a> of Conduct](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~deancoll/student-handbook/standards.html]Standards”>Home | Dartmouth Student Affairs)</p>

<p>[Copyright</a> Information](<a href=“Scholarly Communication, Copyright, and Publishing | Dartmouth Library”>Scholarly Communication, Copyright, and Publishing | Dartmouth Library)</p>

<p>[Sources</a> and Citations at Dartmouth](<a href=“Home | Writing”>Home | Writing)</p>

<p>But the net-net is the student still got parked, could not graduate with his class, attended graduation and got his degree the next year.</p>

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<p>“And for that matter wiki is only as good a source as ITS sources. I would never cite wiki directly, it looks sloppy and lazy.”</p>

<p>That’s why I made the suggestion about Wiki - its sources could be Uncle Louie and Aunt Jane down the street. I’ve found that the majority of teachers at the college where I work do not want to see Wiki as a reference. There are so many other sources that are more legitimate that can be used just as easily - print and electronic alike. Just go to your school or public library! :)</p>

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<p>I understand the need to handle wikipedia carefully as a source, since it isn’t a fixed product, and since at any particular point it can be dead on for 100 issues and dead wrong for another 100. But using wikipedia as part of a discussion, with full disclosure, simply cannot be considered plagiarism. I think there’s a huge difference between the offense of plagiarism and the offense of violating your teacher’s censorship policies about sources. And combining the two works only to undermine the plagiarism prohibition.</p>

<p>Ditto for citation form errors. In my world, it would be next to impossible to have “unintended plagiarism”, and I am stunned to learn that Dartmouth mashes real plagiarism together with nondeceptive citation errors. I suppose this is teaching me why young people don’t seem to take plagiarism seriously as an offense – because their elders have trivialized the term and turned it from a serious moral failing to a symbol of authoritarian arbitrariness.</p>

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<p>The “inadvertent” paraphrasing of others work without citation is unfortunately a big deal, as it should be. I think at the HS level the proper corrective action should address the grade assigned with some type of “punitive” additional work so that the point is made. I hate to call additional educational work punitive, but the better word fails me right now.</p>

<p>I personally was flabbergasted when an assistant of mine, a graduate of a top college, handed me a draft of a paper that we were working on for publication which contained writing essentially lifted from another source without citation. It was all I could do to keep my volatile temper from going nuclear! How did I know that the words were lifted? When I asked what the writing meant (it was not clear at all), my assistant HAD NO IDEA! Obviously, if if had been from assistant’s own head, assistant would have known what it meant. The assistant did confess, but what lousy work. I couldn’t believe that this was the level of education that was present upon graduation. What a bad impression this left.</p>

<p>As to wikipedia or any encyclopedia, this is not generally a good source for scholarly work. (It’s better to learn this early on.)</p>

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<p>JHS - no one is saying that using Wiki with full dislosure is plagarism - I’m just saying that there are far better and more legitimate sources out there to use for a research paper, essay, speech, etc. But that’s my opinion and the opinion of many of the professors that I have come in contact with in my job.</p>

<p>As for plagarism, if you put information from a source in a paper and don’t cite the source, no matter where it comes from, it’s plagarism, plain and simple, in my book. </p>

<p>Many of our teachers here are having the students submit their papers to websites that evalute the papers for % plagarism before they submit a final draft.</p>

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<p>Or, Hell, scroll down to the bottom of the Wikipedia article and use those sources in a citation. It takes barely any effort to cover this unless the article is unsourced / poorly sourced (in which case you shouldn’t use it either way!)</p>