The 'P' Word

Today's ENG 120 quiz is as follows:

1. What is plagiarism?
2. What can one do to avoid plagiarism?
3. Who one the Superbowl last night?
4. What is one of the three purposed for which one might write a research paper?

Clearly number 3 was facetious (or was it?), but it did help me to gauge how many of my students were committed to watching a game in which they had no conceivable "hometown" connection. (Remember, we live on a Caribbean island--the only connection my students have to Superbowl XLVI is Giants' defensive tackle Linval Joseph, a St. Croix native).

Without going over the quiz, I asked the class to group itself into pods of three-four people and consider the following:

How do I define plagiarism?
Should there be a penalty for plagiarism? Why or why not?

I suggested that they keep in mind the article by Gillian Silverman entitled, "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Plagiarism Buster!" at the beginning of The Confident Writer's Ch. 7: Researching for Writing. (I will post the article in a separate post, for those interested in reading it; I think it is a fairly accurate representation of the process professors go through when dealing with plagiarism).

After discussing the questions, overwhelmingly, students said that if someone plagiarizes "only a little," he or she should not be penalized, and if he or she plagiarizes "like half the paper, or a whole page," he or she should get a zero on the paper. I asked if copying from Wikipedia counted as plagiarism. Begrudgingly, they admitted that yes, this is plagiarism, but perhaps it shouldn't be counted against a student because if he or she is dumb enough to copy from Wikipedia, there is another issue. (I have to say that I was a little attracted to this logic, mostly because I was happy that my students realized that Wikipedia is NOT a valid, reliable, academic source!)

After listening to their side of the story, I explained my thoughts on plagiarism. I explained to them that in most U.S. institutions, one instance of plagiarism is enough for a student to fail a class, and in many, to be expelled from the college or university. At our University, the policy is a bit more lenient, leaving more room for the professor to levy the punishment, but also more wiggle room for the student:


"Penalties: For a first offense, the penalty levied will be at the discretion of the professor and
can include, for example, the options of:

1) Giving a student a zero on the assignment or portion of the assignment in which the event occurred.
2) Giving the student a reduced grade for the assignment and requiring the student to redo the work correctly.
3) Giving the student an “F” in the course. IF the infraction occurs after midterm, and IF the student decides to appeal, an Incomplete (“I”) will be recorded and subsequently changed to an “F” if the appeal is denied.

For a second offense, the penalty will be a grade of “F” in a credit course, or an “NP” in a skills course. If the infraction occurs after midterm, and if the student decides to appeal, an Incomplete (“I”) will be recorded and subsequently changed to an “F” if the appeal is denied.

For any third offense reported to the Office of the Provost, the penalty will be a grade of “F” in the course and suspension from the University for an academic year. The Office of the Provost will notify the Registrar of the suspension.

The penalty for a fourth offense will be dismissal from the University. The Office of the Provost will notify the Registrar of the dismissal, which will then be noted on the student’s academic record."

(The full Academic Integrity Policy is in the PDF of the 2011-2012 Catalog).

I very plainly told my students that I think this is far too lenient: For a first offense, if it is only a few lines, I will require the student to rewrite the essay, but they can only earn a maximum of 60% on the assignment. If the first offense is a significant portion of the paper, they receive a neatly stapled packet from me including their essay, all plagiarized portions highlighted, a hard copy of the appropriate section of the Academic Integrity Policy, and a printed copy of the website from where they plagiarized, all relevant material highlighted--oh, and a zero for the assignment. If it is a major assignment, such as the course research paper, I will fail them for the course. For a second offense, I fail the plagiarist in the course and ask that the infraction be recorded on the student's permanent record. I do not look kindly upon cheaters.

My students took this in stride, doubly so because on the first day of class, I mentioned that I had nine students fail either major course assignments or the courses themselves last semester because the students plagiarized.

We covered all this because today marked the beginning of their research project, which will culminate in a 5-page research paper, complete with properly formatted research prospectus, sentence outline, working bibliography and Works Cited. I wrote the three purposes for writing on the board:

1. Inform
2. Persuade
3. Analyze

and told the students that I am limiting them only to the first two types of writing. We discussed that their audience will reflect either: 1) the people to whom the information will be most valuable and relevant, or 2) the people the student wishes to persuade to his or her argument.

I then asked the students to discuss their interests in their small groups for three minutes, ultimately to attempt to create individual topics of interest. Usually, once students come up with general topics they are interested in, I can group the topics under a few "Focus Groups" (such as technology, entertainment, etc.). This morning's class did not quite turn out this way:



They gave me a few HUGE topics like music, technology and science, and a few smaller topics that could actually be useful, such as "How will the world end?" and "Mysteries/Folktales/Superstitions." I pointed out that "How will the world end?" would be a great informative research paper, so long as the author narrowed her topic down to perhaps a specific theory (ie: the Mayans). Armed with this "aha" moment, I tasked my students with the following for Wednesday's class:

1. Come up with a topic
2. Narrow said topic to something manageable (in the student's eyes) in 5 pages
3. READ the chapters on research (little boogers are getting lazy and we aren't even halfway through the semester!)