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[larryc]

I've never plagiarized, but I am about to.  We were ordered to write a departmental assessment plan, due January 30.  It is a hugely bogus requirement from our accreditation agency and our academic veep. When I google "history department assessment plan" I find tons of inspiration. I may just print one out and hand it to the veep.  Anyone have a bottle of white out I could borrow?

[wordswords]

This is my all time hall of fame plagiarism story and it just happened this semester. In my short story class, I assign a reading journal. For each story we read, students write a brief summary and response in their journals along with a couple of questions and comments for discussion. This is mostly to help them study for the tests and to have some thinking going on before class discussion.  I don't take them up every day--but probably should--so students tend to procrastinate until they know they are due and then try to catch up. Usually, they just summarize class discussion and I call them on it.  However, this semester, one student decided that since summaries of most of the stories we read were available on line that she would just copy them off the web (her journal was hand-written.)  For Anton Chekhov's short story "Misery," she copied a really detailed summary of Stephen King's novel Misery off the web.  This was done AFTER we had discussed the story in class and she didn't notice the differences. When I sat her down to discuss this with her (we'd already had a long conversation about a previous cut and pasted draft of a paper and using other's ideas ethically), she really wanted to know if the entries she didn't copy were any good.  F in the course, sent her off to the Dean, phone call from her mother, and the saga will probably continue. Neither she or her mother could understand why copying things off the internet was a problem; she'd done it all the time at her previous institution with no problems.  Stephen King, Anton Chekhov--same thing!

[csguy]

I've never plagiarized, but I am about to.  We were ordered to write a departmental assessment plan, due January 30.  It is a hugely bogus requirement from our accreditation agency and our academic veep. When I google "history department assessment plan" I find tons of inspiration. I may just print one out and hand it to the veep.  Anyone have a bottle of white out I could borrow?

You have my sincere sympathies. We've also got one of those nasties due rsn. Recommend you plagiarize from a similar discipline (harder to detect).

We had a long discussion of assessment in an "In the Classroom" thread awhile back.

[estresada]

When I was in high school, an English teacher accused me of plagiarizing on an essay.  She wrote "Is this all you?" on my paper.  After class I told her that of course it was "all me," as I had just written the damn essay in the band hall right before her class (and had several witnesses to prove it).   

I just had my first plagiarism case a few weeks ago.  One sentence was stolen from Wikipedia and the rest was from a scholarly article online.  The student thought Wikipedia was "public domain."  I also found out that the student's addiction to online gaming cut into his/her paper writing time.   

[snape]

Okay...on the final, three of my students sat next to each other, and all three managed to give the same incorrect answer to one of the questions. This was an open book/open notes exam, and all three managed to find a small blurp in the book about a related topic. None of the other students came up with this answer. I emailed them letting them know that I was suspicious, and that I would be taking the appropriate steps. One of them called me and explained where hu had found the answer hu gave (Up to this point, I had no idea where these three found this wording). I explained that I would take this into consideration, and that I was glad to see that hu wanted to take care of this issue. I then spoke to a more seasoned professor in my department and was told that at our SLAC, irrefutable evidence of cheating was needed to penalize a student and that although these three probably did point out the answer to each other in the text, it wasn't going to be upheld. I sent out an apology to the students, explaining that the issue was resolved and that none of their grades would suffer from this incident. Now, I am left with conflicting feelings. Have I just justified their cheating (which I am sure occurred), or did I possibly scare the bejesus out of them so that they won't try it again?

About 10 years ago a professor told me a story of a number of students who had almost identical answers to an exam. In the enquiry that followed it was revealed that the students had colluded before the exam to write essays based on possible exam topics. Then they remembered the essays (in their heads) and reproduced them verbatim in the exam.

[jinxed]

Not Hall of Fame material, but I got one today that used the 1-1-1 model: 1 sentence from Wikipedia, 1 sentence from Sparknotes, 1 sentence of his own, repeat.  He gets an F for the course and a visit to the dean of students.  Merry Christmas you little weasel.

[maugham]

My personal favorite came in a Holocaust class where the student in question complained vociferously about the German terminology that occasionally turned up in the class.  When I read her final paper, much of which was incoherent, I was stunned to see long, explanatory footnotes entirely in German.  When I called her in to discuss the paper and explain what was going to happen she denied vehemently that she had copied the paper until I asked her to read and explain some of her footnotes.  At that point she turned on her heel and fled never to darken my door again!

Maugham

[case_insensitive]

the 1-1-1 model: 1 sentence from Wikipedia, 1 sentence from Sparknotes, 1 sentence of his own, repeat. 

Sheesh, that sounds almost like work. He should have just written the dern paper.

[snape]

My personal favorite came in a Holocaust class where the student in question complained vociferously about the German terminology that occasionally turned up in the class.  When I read her final paper, much of which was incoherent, I was stunned to see long, explanatory footnotes entirely in German.  When I called her in to discuss the paper and explain what was going to happen she denied vehemently that she had copied the paper until I asked her to read and explain some of her footnotes.  At that point she turned on her heel and fled never to darken my door again!

Maugham

I think this is up there with Declaration of Independence guy.

[case_insensitive]

At that point she turned on her heel and fled never to darken my door again!

I wish i could inspire this reaction in some students...

[mchap11]

Once upon a time a student turned a paper for a composition class.  The paper read oddly.  The syntax was extremely peculiar and the ideas were  too advanced for the student's level of thought.  Being a suspicious sort I tried all of my usually excellent methods of uncovering plagiarism, all to no avail.  After reconsidering the garbled syntax, I took the paper to a friend of mine who is a translator.  Working together we found the original.   What this student had done was to find a scholarly paper written in Spanish and hu then did a machine translation of the published work and submitted it to me as hu's own work.
Sort of clever, no?  Ah, you should have see hu's face when confronted with the evidence in both Spanish & English. 

[csguy]

When I was in high school, an English teacher accused me of plagiarizing on an essay.  She wrote "Is this all you?" on my paper.  After class I told her that of course it was "all me," as I had just written the damn essay in the band hall right before her class (and had several witnesses to prove it).   

A very good point. We really need to bend over backwards to avoid false accusations.

Most of my cases are students turning in other students' work. While I don't assign many papers per se when I have I've had several cases which were obvious when I looked at the document properties.

There are a number of fairly sophisticated computer programs for detecting copied computer code but I generally have been able to get by with diff (utility that detects changed lines). If the only difference between the files is the students name ...

[larryc]

the students had colluded before the exam to write essays based on possible exam topics. Then they remembered the essays (in their heads) and reproduced them verbatim in the exam.

That isn't cheating, that is studying together.

[spirosdarlotts]

Here are some great ones from RateYourStudents:

http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2006/11/where-baseballs-inviolate-rules-take.html

http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2006/10/on-dropping-p-bomb-have-your-tissues.html

http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2006/04/some-people-just-wont-save-themselves.html

[nickf]

My all time favorite came in 1991.  I was directing a production of "The Music Man."  As is the case with most Theatre Arts programs.  My students were required to turn in a critique of the performance.  One student simply copied "The New York Times" review from 1957.  The tip off, "Barbara Cook" was outstanding in the role of Marian the Librarian.  Unfortunately for the student Ms. Cook was not a part of our production, and by this time in her career might have been a little long in the tooth for it.  The student receive an F for the assignment.

We have currently developed and distributed forms with respect to academic dishonesty.  I have had to use them twice this semester as I had two students turn in critiques without ever seeing the production.