Teachers and Professors - Plagerism (minor)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké]
Are you this guy ?
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I’m a regular reader of Rate Your Students, and that was one of the more horrifying posts i’ve ever seen on that blog.

In the classes i’ve taught over the past few years (college-level history), i’ve learned that plagiarism is something you can really only deal with on a case-by-case basis. There is a very long continuum, from blatant and inexcusable copying that comprises virtually the whole paper, to a single instance where the student clearly makes an honest mistake.

I would place the OP’s example very near to the latter end of the spectrum. If that were the only instance in the paper, i would mark it and point out to the student that s/he should be more careful with citation, but would probably not make any change in the grade.

I believe that real plagiarism, the sort that is intended to deceive and to pass off another person’s work as the student’s own, should be heavily punished. But i also accept that students make honest mistakes, and we, as teachers, should use those occasions as teaching opportunities rather than reaching straight for the most punitive measures at the least possible excuse.

Just MHO.

22

That’s a good faith error. The source is cited, but incorrectly. In other words, it isn’t reprehensible plagiarism and should be discussed with the student as an error but not as cheating. Granted, I am not a teacher, but I’m a librarian and a lot of the respnsibility for teaching appropriate research skills has mysteriously fallen on my profession.

23

Not a teacher or prof Two and a Half Inches of Fun, just curious and a little confused.

Plagiarizing, according to M-W is “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own : use (another’s production) without crediting the source”.

If the hypothetical student had simply written: American steel production increased 25% from 1975 to 1995, that would seem to be clear cut plagiarism.

But writing that: According to Steven Jones, American steel production increased…, does credit the source. It may violate the MLA style guide, and it may not be the best form, but there does not appear to be an intent to deceive the reader into thinking this is original scholarship, and the original author is noted. How is this plagiarism?

24

[QUOTE=Apollyon]
Not a teacher or prof Two and a Half Inches of Fun, just curious and a little confused.

Plagiarizing, according to M-W is “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own : use (another’s production) without crediting the source”.

If the hypothetical student had simply written: American steel production increased 25% from 1975 to 1995, that would seem to be clear cut plagiarism.

But writing that: According to Steven Jones, American steel production increased…, does credit the source. It may violate the MLA style guide, and it may not be the best form, but there does not appear to be an intent to deceive the reader into thinking this is original scholarship, and the original author is noted. How is this plagiarism?
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It’s plagiarism because it passes Jones’ exact words off as the student’s work. By failing to place quotation marks around the sentence, the student is making a tacit claim that the phrasing is original.

If you imagine that the student had copied an entire paragraph from an article by Jones, adding only “According to Jones” at the beginning and a citation at the end but no quotation marks, the problem with the student’s approach should become much clearer.

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[QUOTE=Fretful Porpentine]
It’s plagiarism because it passes Jones’ exact words off as the student’s work. By failing to place quotation marks around the sentence, the student is making a tacit claim that the phrasing is original.

If you imagine that the student had copied an entire paragraph from an article by Jones, adding only “According to Jones” at the beginning and a citation at the end but no quotation marks, the problem with the student’s approach should become much clearer.
[/QUOTE]
Right, but therein lies the issue of judgment that i referred to in my previous post.

In the OP’s example, we are only given four words:

“American steel production increased…”

Sure, the ellipses placed after the words indicate that the sentence (and, thus, the pilfered section) continues, but we have no way of knowing how far it continues. If the student did, indeed, take a whole paragraph and merely add “According to Jones…” at the front of it, this would be a problem.

But if the sum total of the lifted words were, for example:

(bolding indicates hypothetical lifted words)

then this really isn’t much of a problem. Because if American steel production did increase 23 percent in the 1970s, and this is part of the argument you want to make, then there’s only so many ways to write that sentence. And even if the bolded words are exactly the same as those appearing in Jones’ work, it’s clear that the student has no intention to deceive or to pass someone else’s work off and his or her own. Also, the lifted section is short enough that it doesn’t constitute any appreciable appropriation of the source’s writing style and ability.

If the OP wants a clearer answer, he needs to provide a full example, rather than an ellipsis that leaves open the very issue we’re trying to adjudicate—the extent of the copying, and whether or not it constitutes plagiarism.

26

Plus, two points off for the spelling “plagerism” in the title.

27

[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
A question for the teachers and professors - how do you handle cases of minor plagiarism? What do you do if a student fails to enclose a source’s exact phrase in quotation marks? For example, if a student were to write:

According to Steven Jones, American steel production increased…

instead of

According to Steven Jones, “American steel production increased…”

What would the punishment (if any) be for this? Would this be an automatic fail for the class?

Could you please include the subject and the (grade) level you teach.
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Okay, this is a simply error in citation.

I would pencil in the quotation marks and remind the student that direct quotes need… quotation marks, a year, and a page number. (We use APA 5th in my field.) If the rubric for the assignment had points for not formatting cites correctly, that’s the penalty. On a class memo, I’m not sure if there would be points off at all.

Part of my job is to teach students what’s correct. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any courses required at the university where the students are explicitly taught correct citation rules… it seems to happen by osmosis. The student clearly is not trying to pass off the work as his/her own. This isn’t plagiarism.

I teach research methods at the graduate level.

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[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
Are you telling me half of your (college-level) students do not know to put a direct quote of a source in quotation marks? That is just sad; this does not even seem like something that really should have to be taught. It is just common sense. What exactly are students being taught in high school English?
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Is this the point you’re trying to make? If not, why are you asking a question you already have your own answer for?

29

Man, I’m glad that 2.5 isn’t one of my professors or I would have been kicked out long ago! Really, I never cited a single paper in High School. Even looking back through my old work, my entire college career passed with me doing the above infraction, and not one professor ever said a word. It was not until recently (when I started grad school, actually) that a T.A. explained to me that this form of quasi-quote is technically plagarism. I’m still struggling with it.

I think the problem lies in the artificial restrictions placed on papers. For example, the last paper I wrote was to be five pages, using only course materials (so about four essays that pertained), and only two direct quotes were allowed. I’m sorry, but only two? Look, if I am completely restricted on the number of sources I can use, and have to come up with something of significant length, it is damn near impossible to stay on topic and insert the necessary information without using more than two quotes and not committing this infraction.

30

Geez…I teach college and WISH that were the least of my problems.
Every quarter I have at least one student pawning off an entire paper that is plagiarized and thinks I am too stupid to notice he/she is suddenly using French/Greek/Latin phrases when they can’t even write a short memo in English without dozens of spelling and grammar errors.

31

He is citing the source. It’s just a style error (it’s not even grammatically wrong). As long as there were a reference at some point, I wouldn’t count it as wrong.

He clearly states “According to Stephen Jones” That eliminates any plagiarism, since he’s clearly attributing what is said to Jones. Whether it’s a paraphrase or a quote is irrelevant; he is not claiming it for himself.

32

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
He clearly states “According to Stephen Jones” That eliminates any plagiarism, since he’s clearly attributing what is said to Jones. Whether it’s a paraphrase or a quote is irrelevant; he is not claiming it for himself.
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The student probably did not have the intent to plagiarize, but technically they did. It IS relevant as to whether it’s presented as a paraphrase or a quote. That’s what a lot of students don’t understand, and why a lot of them end up plagiarizing without meaning to.

33

[QUOTE=mhendo]
Right, but therein lies the issue of judgment that i referred to in my previous post.

In the OP’s example, we are only given four words:

“American steel production increased…”

Sure, the ellipses placed after the words indicate that the sentence (and, thus, the pilfered section) continues, but we have no way of knowing how far it continues. If the student did, indeed, take a whole paragraph and merely add “According to Jones…” at the front of it, this would be a problem.

[/QUOTE]

Let’s say Jones wrote (and the student quoted without quotation marks):

American steel production increased 14 percent in 1990, when the federal government increased the import tariff, and production had increased 67 percent by 1994.

34

I’m not even sure its plagerism. Something like the increase in American steel production from year X to year Y can be found in dozens of sources…Steven Jones is himself certainly not going to be the original source for that data, unless he works for whatever division of the government measures steel production or the U.S. Steel Industry. The proper thing to do is look at Jones’ cite and go check that until you get to the original source and cite that. Something your average Freshman Comp student isn’t going to do. Plus a phrase like “American steel prodction increased…” is not exactly an original idea for Jones or the author of the paper.

Now, according to Dr. Jones, “this increase in steel production had a wide ranging impact on the transportation infrastructure of the Eastern seaboard” is at least a marginally original idea.

There are other valid styles than MLA as well.

35

Dang. Susan beat me to the punch. I’d like to add to that, though, that your argument that someone should be learning the correct method of citing in 4th grade…
CITE?
Also, plagiarism IS something that is included in 7th grade vocabulary, so maybe you should know how to spell it before you go all stupid on the topic.
A teacher’s job is to teach the correct method. Not treat a minor mistake as a crime.

36

[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
But there is no error of grammar. Grammar is about structural relationships in language.

What you seem to be describing is students who have no ability to understand and use information. How does a student who cannot understand something that should be learned before 4th grade get into college (even a junior college)?
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Simple: relaxed standards. Dumbing down. Call it anything you want.
Besides being a C.C. professor, I score assessment test placement essays. The majority of incoming students place into the writing fundamentals class (two classes below freshman comp), although the number of remedial students is rising rapidly. (That’s a separate class entirely. And then there are the ESL students, but again, that is another area; they can be highly skilled or not the slightest bit conversant in English.)
As for the OP: it’s half wrong but I wouldn’t fail the student for it. I would remind him/her to put in the parenthetical documentation. Hey, at least they bothered to say that it originated with someone else.
Also, as someone mentioned upthread, if you’ve already mentioned Jones’ name somewhere, you don’t need to put it in the parentheses again. That would be redundant. It only has to be mentioned once in the sentence in question.
99% of the time, in my experience, the students who commit flagrant acts of copy-and-paste plagiarism (usually cobbling together bits and pieces of text from various websites) are international students who really shouldn’t be in regular English classes yet. But I can’t control that. If some bleeding heart passed them out of ESL or they just barely squeaked by in it, they can take my paragraph class or comp. class if they choose to do so. I can tell them I have concerns, but I can’t boot them out just because their skills are poor.

37

Two and a Half Inches of Fun, you know it isn’t plagiarism in either intent or act. If you don’t, especially after the posts so far, you are horribly unqualified and should immediately resign from any position of trust, responsibility, or authority you now hold.

38

[QUOTE=Fretful Porpentine]
If you imagine that the student had copied an entire paragraph from an article by Jones, adding only “According to Jones” at the beginning and a citation at the end but no quotation marks, the problem with the student’s approach should become much clearer.
[/QUOTE]
Sure. Or indeed the whole essay. :slight_smile: And leaving out the quotes makes it hard for the teacher to tell how much of the material is from Jones and how much from other sources.

mhendo has the right of it in that case; it depends.

It depends on the amount of material copied and incorrectly cited. It depends on whether other cites in the same paper are incorrect. It depends on whether this student has a history of careful citation, or conversely of blatant plagiarism (is the inclusion of the authors name a half-hearted response to earlier criticisms, and the teacher still feels the student is trying to get away with wholesale copying). Extenuating or aggravating circumstances could continue ad nauseam.

The way I read the OP, and the way they later confirmed, is that a single sentence was used without quotes, but with attribution.

Unless there is a student history of plagiarism – unless the teacher has good reason to believe the student is attempting deception – then I think a minor marking down for incorrect method of citation is the most penalty that should be imposed (with the student being shown what they did wrong and advised what to do in future).

39

I find it interesting that my college professor friend (and many posters here) get so upset about plagiarism.

But in my field of computer programming, I have to spend a lot of time with new programmers right out of school, teaching them that they must plagiarize out here in the real world. Programmers still laboring under the school mentality always try to do silly thing like write their own date edits in a program, instead of using the standard shop date processing subroutines. And every shop I’ve worked at had such shopwide subroutines. They will waste time writing their own routines for phone number or SSN’s, when those too have standard subroutines.

You see the same things in web designers: some will write their own methods for drop-down menus or checkboxes, which not only wastes their coding time but disturbs users when these don’t work the normal way on those websites.

In the real work world, most projects are done by teams of people working together, and building on the work of previous projects. Even geniuses like Isaac Newton did so: “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”* It is expected, and required that you will make use of such previous work. Not doing so is derided as ‘reinventing the wheel’.

Yet in the academic world, they call this plagiarism and think it is a major sin. Quite a difference in outlook.

  • Also a subtle dig at his major competitor, who happened to be a man of very short stature.
40

[QUOTE=t-bonham@scc.net]
In the real work world, most projects are done by teams of people working together, and building on the work of previous projects. Even geniuses like Isaac Newton did so: “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”
[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, he blatantly plagiarized the phrase from Bernard of Chartres. F for the course, Newton!