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[commcycle]

I gave half of my master's students Fs this week on a writing assignment. It was a reflection, in which they were supposed to look up some data and then write about how they saw it reflected (or not) in their particular setting. I gave them directions on where to look for the relevant information. I discussed (and included in my syllabus and on the assignment sheet) the fact that they are required to use APA citation for all assignments. I provided a link to the Purdue OWL APA site. I explained (in class and in writing on the syllabus and the assignment sheet) that while errors in APA citation would be assessed a small penalty (similar to grammatical, organizational, and editing errors), failure to cite is academic dishonesty and would be treated accordingly.

Five students failed to cite--at all. Seven more indicated in some way that they had gotten the information from some source, but made no attempt to use APA. They didn't use any other standard form of citation either--it was completely random and made-up stuff. 

This is the fifth year I have taught this course--and some years I have taught it twice. I have never, ever seen anything like this.

I taught a class earlier this year where the same thing happened. About half of a class of MA students was baffled by APA citations. Some put random in-text cites, others didn't understand the point of a references section. One student was entirely unable to understand why a citation for a quote had a page number in it, and how to apply it. She repeatedly asked about the difference between a citation and one with a page number. By the end, I ran out of ways to explain such a simple concept... I provided example papers, recommended the APA manual, linked to the Purdue OWL site, powerpoint slides, and had them peer review their own papers. I have no idea why it was so difficult for them to understand the format.

[reslifeguy]

I was accused of plagiarism twice when I attended my local CC, and my writing style can often be "florid and evocative." Having survived the accusations of plagiarism, I resolved never to become a plagiarist.

I was dismayed when a colleague in graduate school received a C- in the course as a penalty for plagiarism and was then allowed to continue in the program by the chair. This could be one of many examples why I am not fond of my profession.

[llanfair]

About half of a class of MA students was baffled by APA citations. Some put random in-text cites, others didn't understand the point of a references section. One student was entirely unable to understand why a citation for a quote had a page number in it, and how to apply it. She repeatedly asked about the difference between a citation and one with a page number. By the end, I ran out of ways to explain such a simple concept... I provided example papers, recommended the APA manual, linked to the Purdue OWL site, powerpoint slides, and had them peer review their own papers. I have no idea why it was so difficult for them to understand the format.

I've just graded an assignment that checked their ability to handle Chicago Manual of Style format - an easy ten points, right?

I've worn out my hollow laugh and my bitter smile - and I'll need both for tomorrow's class when these sorry messes get returned.  You'll be able to smell the brimstone, if you open your windows, about 10:30 Eastern Time.

[mountainguy]

I've worn out my hollow laugh and my bitter smile - and I'll need both for tomorrow's class when these sorry messes get returned.  You'll be able to smell the brimstone, if you open your windows, about 10:30 Eastern Time.

Well, I'll be looking forward to that smell :).

Incidentally, I've been tempted to require Chicago/Turabian style, but I've never done it. They should have already learned MLA if they took freshman composition at PepsiU. "Should have" is the operative phrase in that sentence, but I can at least portray myself as not being the style bad guy.

[llanfair]

Worst part is: if they can't do this - and I gave them a template sheet with all the possible permutations! - what sort of stuff will I be ploughing through when the term papers come in?

Sheesh.

[missemily]

I just caught my first plagiarist of the semester. It's also my first plagiarist at my new school. Paper topic? Cheating. It's about cheating in relationships, but still....

[msparticularity]

Since fully 50% of my class was affected, I have ended up deciding that I will drop the lowest score for the short papers in figuring their final grades. Oddly enough, though, "lowering the boom" seems to have had a really beneficial effect. I have not finished grading their next short paper, but the ones I have reviewed (by people who claimed to be completely unable to understand what I was talking about and why their lack of citation as a problem) actually look okay this time. I may be well on my way to becoming a militant. 

[llanfair]

Since fully 50% of my class was affected, I have ended up deciding that I will drop the lowest score for the short papers in figuring their final grades. Oddly enough, though, "lowering the boom" seems to have had a really beneficial effect. I have not finished grading their next short paper, but the ones I have reviewed (by people who claimed to be completely unable to understand what I was talking about and why their lack of citation as a problem) actually look okay this time. I may be well on my way to becoming a militant. 

Tough love, MsP.  Let us know if it works.

[goldfinch]

So, this student of mine who has literally managed to ignore all directions [when class is, the fact that our discussion classes are required, what kinds of issues merit an extension, how to avoid plagiarism] sent me this email last night.  The paper [this is an upper level humanities class] had no citations and most of it was not actually interpreting the assigned reading and making an argument about it relevant to our field but a philosophical digression [this is not a philosophy class] that used almost a page of the exact words of random author outside of our field.  My syllabus is cut and dried r.e. plagiarism, minimum automatic zero.  The fact that s/he didn't actually perform the assigned task just made things worse.  Here is the email:

Dr G,

I'm just writing you with regards to my first paper. I'm slightly confused, and the remarks on your paper were not too specific. Where does this leave me? Is there some way you can allow me a chance to alter it and resubmit or complete a different assignment instead?
I didn't feel that I failed to comply with the assignment criteria. I answered several of the questions on the assignment template, and referred to the [field's] significance with regards to [group].
Please advise me with your remarks.

Thanks,
I cannot read the directions

I will spare you the full response I gave, but I just reiterated all of the above, pointed to the fact that the assignment reads that they must use footnotes.  It seemed student wanted to redirect the discussion to the secondary comments that the paper also didn't do what the assignment asked them to do.  Nope.  I guess I'm only adding this to the thread because I want to rant about how mad it makes me that students who plagiarize expect that they should get a chance to redo their work or do some extra credit BS.  Nope.  Maybe at the first year level, but not after several years of college.  I did restrain myself from using the phrase "no do-overs!" 

end of rant. 

[grasshopper]

First plagiarist - check.

What's worse? He plagiarized from the textbook. Uh, sweetie? Did you not think I would notice? Oh, it was artful, too! He wove together textbook text with internet sources with such delicacy.


At least it's not as bad as the student I TAed once who plagiarized from the prof's own article. Which the prof had used in the coursepack.

[spork]

Three cases of Wikipedia plagiarism.  The stupid part about it is that each student could have simply included a  "Dr. Spork, lecture notes" citation, because it's the same damn information.

[amlithist]

Godlfinch, I had one very similar to yours a couple of years back; you handled it better than I.  (Somewhere in the course of my correspondence with my student over the extra credit issue, I wrote something like, "What?  You want to do extra credit, so you can plagiarize that, too?  Really?"  Thankfully, my chair and dean had a sense of humor and have both taught in this field much longer than I have. . . . )

[llanfair]

Three cases of Wikipedia plagiarism.  The stupid part about it is that each student could have simply included a  "Dr. Spork, lecture notes" citation, because it's the same damn information.

Wouldn't have helped my kidlings, since I don't allow using lecture notes as a citable reference.  Just showing up for class does not research make.

(And I bet they'll do it anyway, even tho' I've told them not to.)

[peppergal]

First plagiarist - check.

What's worse? He plagiarized from the textbook. Uh, sweetie? Did you not think I would notice? Oh, it was artful, too! He wove together textbook text with internet sources with such delicacy.


At least it's not as bad as the student I TAed once who plagiarized from the prof's own article. Which the prof had used in the coursepack.

I had a student plagiarize me once.  The conversation went like this:

PepperGal:  I know you didn't write this paper.
Filthy Plagiarist:  Yes, I did.
PG:  No, you didn't.
FP:  Well, you can't prove that.
PG:  Actually, I can.  See, here is the paper you turned in.  Here is the printout from a webjournal.  As you can see, except for the author's name and the formatting, they are identical.
FP:  Well, you can't prove that I didn't write it first, and the journal plagiarized me.
PG:  Since it was published two years ago, I think that's unlikely.
FP:  You still can't prove anything.
PG:  Look at the author's name again.  I still have the original, and earlier drafts, with date stamps, on my harddrive.

[spork]

Three cases of Wikipedia plagiarism.  The stupid part about it is that each student could have simply included a  "Dr. Spork, lecture notes" citation, because it's the same damn information.

Wouldn't have helped my kidlings, since I don't allow using lecture notes as a citable reference.  Just showing up for class does not research make.

(And I bet they'll do it anyway, even tho' I've told them not to.)

It wasn't a research paper per se.  The source material was information I gave them and events that occurred during a simulation.