Grex Scruples Conference

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Grex Scruples Item 36: Plagiarism (#1)
Entered by davel on Sun Jul 17 05:40:21 UTC 1994:

You are a graduate student, a TA responsible for the discussion section of
a large lecture course.  For the last term paper of the term, one student
turns in a surprising paper.  In style it is far beyond his previous work,
much more polished.  Its offhand references to a wide variety of published
work on the topic makes it clear that it's not likely to be written by
anyone taking this fairly introductory course - to say the least.  There
are apparent internal references to points not actually made anywhere in
the paper, indicating that a fairly clumsy job of extraction from a longer
work has been performed.

A couple of hours in the university library fails to turn up the source.
You have no proof of anything beyond what has been mentioned above.  What
do you do?

10 responses total.

#1 of 10 by wish on Sun Jul 17 06:46:42 1994:

I would ask the student directly if the paper had been plagiarized. If I
had a strong feeling that the paper actually had been lifted and condensed,
I would mark down heavily for the poor references without having to fail
the student simply on a hunch.

#2 of 10 by chelsea on Sun Jul 17 15:18:08 1994:

If I couldn't prove it I'd say nothing and wait until next time
when maybe I could.

#3 of 10 by aruba on Sun Jul 17 16:08:07 1994:

I'd consult with colleagues, to see if they knew the source, then I'd
interview the student to see if s/he did know the material in the paper.

#4 of 10 by flem on Sun Jul 17 23:44:06 1994:

Yes, I'd consult with more experienced Professors or TA's and see if they 
knew a source.  Failing that, I think I would mark down for bad references,
but could't really justify doing anything more drastic.

#5 of 10 by popcorn on Mon Jul 18 04:47:20 1994:

This response has been erased.

#6 of 10 by scg on Mon Jul 18 05:38:09 1994:

I would consult with others, and see if any of them knew the source.  If
nobody could figure out what it was from, I would consult as to what to do
next.  I would always be very careful about accusing somebody of
plagarism, since that's the last thing I would want to say to a student
who had finally decided to actually work on things for the class, but
something would have to be done in that situation.  Somebody I know (I
won't say who, for obvious reasons) got a paper like that a while ago.  I
think the solution she decided on was to pass back the paper saying how
wonderful it was, covered with comments such as "Unbelievable!," "I can't
believe you wrote this," and "Too good to be true!"

#7 of 10 by davel on Mon Jul 18 10:33:18 1994:

Well, I can say what I actually *did*.  I checked with a couple of profs,
who also didn't recognize the source off hand.  I then talked to the student,
but I didn't ask or comment directly about plagiarism.  As I said, the thing
was loaded with off-hand references to things in the literature, so I asked
questions about the books & papers referred to.  After about 2 or 3
questions' worth of squirming, the student confessed.  I didn't give any
credit for that paper, but took no further action.

I was also told by a professor that it's very hard to deal with plagiarism
cases; even at a higher level (say, someone's doctoral dissertation) where
the source is known, it can be hard to get the university to take action.
(Obviously, at that level it's pretty much impossible to prove anything
without having the source - the student's supposed to be able to generate
work of professional quality.)  In a lower-level course like this one, he
said, *I* would have been in a sticky position if the student had decided
to contest the failing grade even after confessing to me privately, since
I didn't have the source.

#8 of 10 by davel on Mon Jul 18 10:38:54 1994:

I should add that I didn't exactly *say* to the student that I hadn't found
his source, and that my goal (at this level) really was to convince him so
thoroughly that detection was likely that he wouldn't be tempted in the
future.  I view plagiarism as a very serious problem - but at the level in
question, students typically don't come in with much clue about what's
acceptable in other ways, and education is the goal.  It would be *nice*
if high schools produced students who didn't need remedial training in
logic & composition as well as in ethics.

#9 of 10 by ewhisam on Thu Dec 28 00:07:19 1995:

refer matter to Professor

#10 of 10 by diznave on Sun Nov 9 07:23:46 1997:

Learn as many jazz dance steps in one hour as possible.

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