What kills me is when I confront students about their plagiarised papers _with proof in hand_ , showing them exactly from where they copied it, and have them deny the charges to my face. One guy copied about 90% of a major technical writing assignment, and had the gall to tell me that I was unfairly condemning him. The scale of the plagiarism is also something I take into consideration. And I usually report them when they show no signs of remorse, but try and argue their way out of a failing grade, and/or when they seem more concerned with calculating the effect of the failed paper on their grade rather than seeming to understand that what they did was far from right.

So yes, the whole process is subjective and sickening, but I try and consider them on a case-by-case basis.

let me give you my first reactions and then digest (only to, most likely, come back for seconds)

i agree with you that extreme leniency seems like a teacher just doesn’t care. (to all extremely lenient teachers, don’t keep your students in the dark! teach them!)

on the other hand, extreme punishment seems like a masochistic way to ruin a life and prevent students from taking risks, asking questions, and making mistakes.

your “punishment” sounds fair and balanced – you taught a valuable lesson and showed you cared by noticing and preventing it from happening again.

it seems like T.C. may have not known what an annotated bibliography is (or, i may simply be projecting…). assuming that is the case, it seems like she is a good example of how students can avoid plagiarism or other potentially lethal academic offenses by asking questions (“hey teacher, what is an annotated bibliography?”) or reviewing their work (“did i forget any quotations?”).

Second point.

In light of the recent news about Facebook’s Terms of Service (evidence), I’m surprised that more students don’t protest their university’s use of those plagiarism programs. creepy.

So how do I go about it? Well, for the first few weeks of the semester, my students do in-class writing and some short assignments that are so unique as they can’t be plagiarized. From this I usually develop a pretty good sense of their writing styles and language. So once their first paper is turned in, it becomes relatively easy to notice if a part of or their whole paper isn’t their writing. Now, this does not mean I’m able to penalize each case that comes across my desk. If I suspect a student of plagiarism, I have to be able to prove it. So I do web searches for verbatim phrasing. The dumbest students usually get caught because they have plagiarized from one of the first 10 search results that come up. The smarter ones cut and paste from a number of sources that make it difficult to acquire beyond-a-reasonable-doubt-type proof of plagiarism. It’s fun and frustrating catching the dumb ones. Fun because we teachers usually gossip about our dumb students and the dumb attempts they made at plagiarism. It’s frustrating, because no matter how cynical I pretend to be, it ultimately disappoints me because I do care about my students. Even the dumb ones.

In the case of T.C. last semester, she plagiarized her annotated bibliography by cutting pasting a section of the abstract of one her sources. A no-no and easily detectable.

So, at my university, as teachers, we have full authority to assess whatever type of punishment we deem appropriate for plagiarism. The department recommends at the very least, failing the assignment and reporting the student to the Dean’s office. If we do so, he or she will have an official statement on their record. If they receive one more plagiarism infraction, they are expelled. The student may appeal, but most cases that go as far as that are pretty clear cut.

My policy is that if a student is caught plagiarizing, they fail the assignment automatically, no ifs ands or buts. Depending on the severity of the infraction (how much they plagiarized, whether or not they appeared remorseful, etc.) I may or may not fail them for the course. If I just fail the assignment, there’s no need to tell my supervisor.

Regardless, I usually talk to the student before I even accuse them of anything. I ask them to tell me about their paper. If plagiarized, the student usually has a difficult time talking about the paper without reading it first. If it’s apparent, I’ll then say to them I that I found sections of their paper verbatim from other sources and then ask them what went wrong. If they apologize, appear remorseful, I give them a failing grade for the assignment and tell them not to worry too much, that my opinion of them has not lowered, and that they just need to buck up and work hard for the rest of the semester. This usually works pretty well. If not, their grade at the end of the semester will reflect it.

If they have no excuse, don’t seem to care that they’ve been caught, etc., I tell them that I need to speak with my supervisor and that I’ll call them back in when the matter is resolved. Then I tell my supervisor that I want to fail the student from the class. Supervisor either agrees or disagrees and things progress from there. If I fail them from the class, then I also report them to the Dean.

That’s how I go about it. But at this university, all teachers are pretty free to do as they please. Most are pretty lenient, which I think is kind of a problem. Sure, its difficult to potentially end a student’s academic career or significantly lower their G.P.A., but I think about my other students who haven’t plagiarized and how hard they are working and it only seems fair to them.

But really, yeah, it’s usually just that obvious. It’s usually the dumb ones who plagiarize. And they usually aren’t even good at that. Idiots.

is it just that obvious or are there systems?

also, do you tell the student first or your supervisor?

i think that j.z. is unfortunate to share his name with a member of nsync. the curly haired one who was always too tall and too eastern-european looking to be in a sensational boyband.