By Ms. Mentor

Question (from "Lydia"): I teach a course (call it "Hittites and Kurds") at a local community college. My department supervisor's wife, "Superette," is enrolled in it this semester. She got a D on her first test. They're all essay tests, so there's some subjectivity, but she obviously hadn't studied and didn't know the material, so I felt that was the grade she deserved. (In general, the class did very poorly, and there were many D's.)

Now the students have turned in their first two-page writing assignment, and I planned to read Superette's essay carefully, with judicious comments and corrections, knowing that her husband would read my remarks. However, by the time I got to the second paragraph, I knew—without a doubt—that she hadn't written it. Her husband ("Dr. Supe") had. It's smooth, eloquent, professional, and way beyond the scope of a first-year student, especially one who got a D on her first test and has never correctly answered anything in class. My course has been canceled for next semester, due to budget cuts, so this won't directly affect my future at the college, but I would like to get a good letter of recommendation from Dr. Supe. What should I do?

Answer: Ms. Mentor imagines you on a white steed, pennants flying, galloping off to right all wrongs and singlehandedly saving academic integrity—by falling on your own sword.

Ms. Mentor trusts your assessment that Superette did not write her paper. Faculty members often find it ridiculously easy to recognize borrowed essays. They're much better written than the student's regular output, and often with off-the-wall curlicues ("akin to Madame Blavatsky's esotericism"). They erupt into high-toned academic discourse ("hegemony," "hybridity"). They never misuse "its" and "it's." They even use "whom" correctly.

The problem is what to do about it.

Was it indeed written by Dr. Supe, for instance? What would it take to prove that? If the paper was simply lifted from the Web ("the paradise of plagiarism"), it will be findable through such sites as Turnitin.com. If it's lifted from a published source, you can give Google.com one of the odder sentences and be wafted to the original.

If Dr. Supe wrote it, you could devote hours to teaching yourself a stylistic analysis program (such as ManyEyes, WordTree, Word Stat, or Digital Research Tools) to show that Superette's new syntax and diction are too much like his to be coincidental. And then you could turn them both in to whatever campus board handles academic dishonesty. Superette would fail the paper or maybe the course; Dr. Supe would be furious; and who would be punished?

And that's the problem, much as Ms. Mentor would like to plump for moral purity over all. The world of academe, like the real world, is not always ready for righteousness. You're not apt to get a good recommendation from Dr. Supe ("She taught my cheatin' wife a lesson. Oh, goody."). He may, in fact, decline to write one at all ("conflict of interest" or "I don't have time for this nonsense"). Or he might write a scathing one. He's unlikely to write that you showed impeccable honesty and decency and are a credit to your profession, and that Hittites and Kurds everywhere would be proud of you.

You can survive, or you can be a martyr.

It may be some comfort that, in a long and illustrious career, this incident will be but a ping of regret on your register. Think of letting it go as a way of ensuring a higher good: your academic future. You may even salvage something by inviting Superette to discuss her paper with you in your office. Ask about her sources, her views on Hittites and Kurds, and how the class "might work better for you." That may embarrass her, but you are being gracious and nonconfrontational. You are being the Caring Teacher.

You are also a spy—and here's where there's something in it for you. You need to figure out why most of the students are getting D's, because that alone could kill your career as an adjunct. Are you fresh from a fierce graduate school, unused to the practical, older, time-stressed students at a community college? Ms. Mentor suggests you read the many columns on community-college work and life written for The Chronicle by Rob Jenkins.

Your students may need tips on finding the main points in their readings, and why they need to cite sources. Maybe they need to be told why and how to look up word meanings. They may not catch your ironic sense of humor. They may need help with concentration (cellphone off!), time management (avoid TV!), and note taking (use a pen rather than a computer?).

Superette can be, however unwittingly, your consultant and mentor. She's an insider, a native informant who can tell you about other classes and the college's culture and expectations. With her, you may also practice how to ask questions—not "Why is everyone's work so godawful?" but "What do you think is most important in the course work so far? What should we expand on?"

Word will certainly get back to Dr. Supe: Lydia is a dedicated teacher. Future students would be lucky to have her.

Ms. Mentor knows that plagiarizing students are rarely wily or malicious. They're most often bewildered, scared, and overworked—just like their teachers. You can lash out, as we are all tempted to do when students don't value the learning and the insights that we cherish. But when you're tactical as well as tactful, you can often do your best teaching.

Question: I have a chance to move to a terrific job, with a salary that is at least $15,000 more than I'm making now (as a full professor). Terrific U is more prestigious, with time to revive my research that's gone under in my current position at Burnout U. Right now I have a crushing workload, lousy pay, substandard facilities, and a hostile administration. But my colleagues and students need me because the situation is so impossible, and they would miss me so much if I left, and so I'm sorely tempted to stay where I am, even though the stress is hurting my health and destroying my private life. Is it good to be a martyr?

Answer: Ugh.

Sage Readers: Much of academic life, Ms. Mentor knows, consists of choosing between survival and martyrdom. She grieves for those who, because of the economy and the stinginess of lawmakers, now have no voice and no choice. She urges tenured faculty members to speak for those who cannot.

Ms. Mentor regrets that she can rarely answer letters personally, and never immediately, but she welcomes rants and queries for future columns. Confidentiality is guaranteed, and identifying details are always veiled, scrambled, or dehydrated.

(c) Emily Toth

Ms. Mentor, who never leaves her ivory tower, channels her mail via Emily Toth in the English department of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. She is the author of the recently published "Ms. Mentor's New and Ever More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia" (University of Pennsylvania Press). Her e-mail address is ms.mentor@chronicle.com.