Today I failed a student for plagiarism

Published on March 9, 2004 By Angloesque In Misc

It was coming. You can't copy and paste from the Internet and get away with it in my class.

I talked to her and gave her a letter, the "official" documentation, of which copies were sent to several prominant campus people. She tried to convince me to do anything but fail her, because failing this class means she's out of the college. So not only have I bummed her out, I've kicked her out, too. Excellent. You know what she said to me before she left? "I just want to know you don't think I'm a bad person."

God, no. You're not a bad person. You did something stupid, and you knew my policy on it and did it anyway. You're not bad; it was a bad decision.

Compounding the issue is the fact that now I'll be facing an appeals process since she thinks that her blatant plagiarism shouldn't result in either (a) an F or (

expulsion from the college, which is apparently due to other things; this is simply the straw that broke the camel's back.

But students have to learn to be responsible. They should not be coddled and their egregious errors glossed over so that we can rake in the tuition dollars (that go anywhere but my paycheck, it seems). What kind of education do we provide when we let students get away with this? It's like teaching them slick political moves: Threaten your teacher with an appeal or a lawsuit, and they'll just give you an A- instead of an A when you plagiarize your paper. They don't want the hassle. That's how you get out of this one!

Comments (Page 5)

Praveen S

on Apr 20, 2004

You really break the "thou shalt not steal commandment" when plagiarism and therefore you will very likely face God's wrath on judgement day and might even be sent to eternal damnation (in other words the pit down in the center of the earth)!

Praveen

on Apr 20, 2004

Dude are you crazy? If you in fact didn't plagariaze when didn't you appeal and try to prove your case? How utterly stupid to accept an "F" if you in fact worked harded to do the work! It sounds to be like you indeed plagiarized and are trying to hide your sin!

GreenReaper

on Sep 08, 2004

One day my mum (then an English teacher) brought home a piece of coursework she found suspiciously good for me to have a look at. I studied it for a minute or so, reached over to my shelf and handed her a book. Case closed.

The book? The Warcraft II manual.

The guy had copied the entire Orc back-story word for word.

on Sep 08, 2004

People do need to consider the various levels of Plagiarism. A student who quotes from other work and either forgets or purposely fails to reference the quotations is usually given a warning. It's when students copy large segments of work in a cut and paste fashion than serious consequences occur. No student is unaware of the seriousness of this offense in university. It's cheating and if done in an exam situation should be strongly punished.

Clark College policy on plagiarism:

First time: person that did that gets F in class he or she stole other's work in.

Second time: Person gets F in all classes he or she is currently attending, and he or she cannot take any more classes at Clark college for life.

Clark College have a very strict outlook on plagiarism and I agree with the policy.

Gideon MacLeish

on Sep 08, 2004

I will confess to times of plagiarism when I was in high school. But I at least did it creatively.

When I found a piece I liked but was too lazy to analyse it, I simply reached for my thesaurus and rewrote it. While what I did was still plagiarism, at least there was a semblance of effort to originality rather than a blatant cut and paste. Unfortunately, in the case of myself and many of my peers, many teachers actually ENCOURAGED it; hell, it was a sixth grade teacher that taught me to do it!

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