Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Plagiarism/citations

Question for you folcs who know this stuff...

If you copy a whole paragraph from a website and stick the address in parenthases at the end of the paragraph and do this for about 450 words of a 550 word essay, would that count as plagiarism in your mind? The student isn't being flunked or anything like that, but if it happens again will be.

Example [since I happen to have this open]:

Virtual seasons happen after the show is over. Every effort is made to reproduce and carry on the details of the program as professionally as possible. One of the first virtual seasons was for the TV series Forever Knight, which was canceled in 1996 and followed by a virtual fourth season ('V4S'). Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which was canceled in 1997, spawned several virtual seasons, continuing the trend. The Unaired Fifth Season ('TUFS') and Season 5 ('S5') each "aired" on Sunday nights during the 1997/98 television season, while 'Season 6' followed during the 1998/99 season. Millennium was canceled in 1999, six months short of its millennial climax, so a Virtual Season 4 completed the storyline for fans. Voyager Virtual Season Project ran for 2 years, starting in 2001 and ending in 2003, extending Star Trek Voyager's story an extra two years and into yet another "Lost in Space" adventure. The most dedicated of these virtual season teams sometimes produce fan films like Star Trek, New Voyages. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_fan_fiction_terms#Virtual_seasons). I am a big fan of virtual seasons.

Okay the first and last sentences are kind of stupid, but go with it. The whole essay is like that. I gave this student a 0 and told her that it was plagiarism [no quotation marks anywhere] and told her not to do it again or she'd flunk the course. She emailed me back saying I didn't know what I was talking about and I'm falsely accusing her and she'd gladly send me the title of her book that she uses [manual/whatever] so that I can get a copy and not falsely accuse other students and she's dropping because she doesn't understand me.

I could see the argument if she said she forgot to put " in it [the essay would stink because so little was her own work but that's a different issue]. The way I was always taught was that the () notation at the end of the paragraph meant that the information came from there but was put into the author's own words and perhaps combined with other information etc. NOT that it was a direct quote and by not putting " the author is attempting to pass it off as his/her own work.

I really believe I'm in the right here [and this is a 0 and a warning, not a flunking] but I'm having issues with my bosses over a couple other things and want another opinion and the people I would normally IM about this aren't on tonight so... you guys are it . At least for now...

Thoughts?
Thanks.
Carol

If it's a direct quote, you need the quotation marks followed by the citation information in parantheses or in a footnote/endnote. If it's a paraphrase, you don't need the quotation marks but you still need the citation. There are different ways when it comes to the details (e.g. MLA style, Harvard Style etc.) but in general that's it.

IMO you are in the right.

/Beth toddles over from paper-land herself where she really should be finishing the one due tomorrow...

You're right, Carol. Even if it was an honest mistake, your student should know to be careful when using sources. As a student myself, there is no way I'd risk an F by improperly citing something. IMO, quotation marks aren't something you can just casually "forget" to put in. For an entire essay.

Ditto to C_A. I had one major writing class in grad school and would have gotten the boot if I forgot to put in quotations. It's a hard and fast rule that if there are no quotes, but there's a citation, you're claiming to have written that paragraph/essay/whatever in your own words. There just isn't an excuse in my mind for forgetting to properly cite things that aren't yours in any way, and to have that much work improperly cited is a pretty big offense in my mind. What level of school do you teach?

JD

I agree with C_A. Sorry I don't have time to add more.

Ann

I'm not a teacher, but I work in education and have some idea of the sort of standards the UK system expects from essays.

In that case I wouldn't call it plagiarism provided it was made clear that it was a quote, but at a minimum I would expect to see some supporting evidence from other sources, and some reasoning from the student as to why the conclusions are accurate - Wikipedia is not an authoritative source, entries are often factually inaccurate or biased to a particular viewpoint.

At a minimum it needs multiple cites from other sources and some material by the person writing the essay - anyone can do a cut and paste job, it's the reasoning behind the material that links the quotes and the thoroughness of the research that should get the marks.

I realise you've asked only about the plagiarism issue, but there's another issue here: the originality of the student's work.

We graded papers using several criteria, only one of which was research. Papers were also graded for thesis statement, expansion of his/her argument throughout the paper, use of evidence to support those arguments, and grammar and style. If the paper is mostly that one quote, then the student has provided precious little for you to grade. In each of those categories, the student would fail.

We also required that evidence of at least 3 rsearch sources be used in the paper if it were a short one, and it looks like here, that criteria hasn't been met either.

c.

It's not plagiarism because she's citing the source of the work she's used and not trying to pass it off as her own thoughts. I think the technical term for what you have here is cheating.

Because you're absolutely right, Carol. The point of an essay is to write it yourself, expressing your own ideas and opinions. If you use a reference source, you use it in the way you set out above.

This isn't an essay, it's a wholesale copying and pasting of a reference source. Heck, a two-year-old could do that. Where's the work to be marked? She hasn't provided any, so she gets none. If you were going to mark anyone, it would be the writer of the reference source, who did the work.

LabRat

*puts on former university professor and head of degree course hat*

This is plagiarism. I don't care if she's shown the source. No quotation marks to indicate what isn't her own words = plagiarism. It's as clear-cut as that. I would have failed the essay too, and I would have called the student in for a conversation with me and with the head of department.

I would add that, even had the words been enclosed in quotes I still would have failed the essay. What we look for from students is analysis: the ability to take information from a variety of sources, synthesise it, consider variation in opinions and then present the information and argument in their own words with quotes and references as appropriate. There is a balance to be struck between the student's own words and words from other sources: between 10% and 20% quoted from other sources is reasonable, and anything more is excessive as the student is not demonstrating an ability to form his/her own argument and analysis.

Though, Carol, the bottom line is what is your own institution's policy? There should be a written plagiarism policy somewhere, available for students (because they have to know what it is), and that's what counts, not whatever manual the student him/herself tries to show you to defend the lack of adequate referencing. Check that first, and then refer the matter to your head of course - you should always CYA and make sure that you're following procedures correctly and that your head of course is behind you.

IMO, this is an incredibly lazy student who thinks s/he can get a free pass simply by quoting from a book and adding a few words of his/her own. S/he may even have assumed you wouldn't check the source to see whether it was word for word or merely paraphrased. My reaction would have, as I said, been a fail grade and a warning.


Wendy

Thanks guys.

Wendy - I was hoping to hear from you as we had an IRC discussion or two in the very distant past about this topic.

The school policy is 'don't do it'. It's up to the instructor what the penalty is. Mine is 0 for one, F for the class for 2. I wish there were much more clear cut guidelines, but there's not. I give a strict warning at the beginning of the semester, give a few links to websites that go into great detail about what is and isn't plagiarism and tell them that direct quotes should be used SPARINGLY and only when they can't say it another way [General discussion of the Declaration v. "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", etc.].

This is an online class, I don't have office hours and I have no idea where this particular student lives. It's a 100 level, freshman Intro to American Government class.

If she did come back with [whine]I forgot "[/whine], I'd either give her a 0 for it anyway or allow her to rewrite it depending on the exact situation [this student, probably a 0].

I forget who asked, but I teach at a community college. I tell them [and DH tells his students too] not to bother trying because I WILL find out [what do I have STUPID stamped on my forehead?! I teach online, do you really think I've never heard of Google?!]. I wish our school would use turnitin.com or something similar but they don't. What's even more funny is that I graded two essays in a row later that evening that pulled from the same website with no citations of any kind. I mean seriously, do I look stupid?!

I'm having other issues with my bosses right now [apparently, the one page a week writing assignment is too much even though it's similar to the workload I've had for years and am being [literally] ordered to significantly reduce the workload THIS WEEK because 'they' came to a 'consensus' about what the assignments I give would be [how can they reach a consensus about MY classes without ME involved?!?] but that's a different issue, but I really don't want to rock the boat. I literally have no job security - if they choose not to give me classes this summer/next fall, there's not a thing I can do about it. Because of all that, I wanted other opinions about whether I was in the right or not.

Thanks all .
Carol

I hate seeing things like this happen. It seems, among higher education managers everywhere, that the response to student failure (or student laziness) is to dumb down.

So what if most students can't get As with academic standards at a decent level? Not all students are supposed to get As! And degrees/diplomas aren't supposed to be easy to earn. Otherwise you might as well pay one of these scamming companies a hundred bucks and get a fake degree, for all your real one will be worth.

Good luck, Carol.


Wendy

Not really so clear-cut, Wendy, as we've obviously been taught different definitions of plagiarism. Or perhaps you're talking about an academic definition and I'm talking about a lay definition. Not being a university professor I don't tend to follow academic definitions. But it matters not. The point is that Carol was right.

LabRat

Well, from my layman's perspective, it's plagiarism.

As part of a non-academic work, I'd probably go with you Labby [though I have no idea what kind of non-academic work }.

Wendy - I agree with you whole-heartedly. I had the same thing happen when I taught a course at another school - the bosses made me change stuff midsemester to make the course significantly easier [and I didn't think it was that hard in the first place, I certainly had much harder as a freshman IMO], but then students accused me of violation of contract because I changed the syllabus [I do put a note in there that it is subject to change but still]. A friend later told me that the school's informal motto was 'pay your fee, get your B' - it was my alma mater and I always had to work hard.

Oh well. It's going to reduce my work load by probably 95% which will make writing fic a much less guilt-ridden activity [because there was always SOMETHING I should/could have been doing instead, even if those things weren't 'behind'].

Back to the grindstone...
Carol

Well, I think we're getting side-tracked by semantics here. Cheating...plagiarism...however you define it - and we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one :rolleyes: - I don't think any of us are in disagreement about the important issue here. That the student in question hasn't done the required work, is using someone else's work instead, and doesn't deserve credit for it.

Although, having just come to the realisation of where, in part, I'm getting my strictly non-academic definition from:

Maybe something submitted to the Archive, Carol (From the Archive FAQ)

Or the mbs, as I believe we use the same criteria for stories posted here. I can't recall who exactly it was that penned the above definition, but I do know that it was the result of much group thought in the fandom after the big plagiarism incidents of the past and pretty much agreed on as the definition at the time by all concerned. At the time, we wanted to pin it down absolutely, so the wording was very, very carefully considered, drafted and redrafted when making up the FAQ, until we had it exact.


LabRat