Teachers: School Policy on Plagiarism

[disney junky]

Teachers. (or anyone else who knows) What is your school's policy on plagiarism? We are seeing more and more of it in our school, and I think the policy is pretty tough. Last incident in my class resulted in the student receiving a zero on the assignment and 3 days in-school suspension plus 3 days off the athletic team. Yet today, I discovered another incident, different kid, who plagiarised an assignment for my class and another assignment for a different class.

We have budgeted for a program for next year that will require all written work to be submitted through it. I'm not sure of all the details, but I know other schools use it and it has reduced plagiarism dramatically. The kids know anything will be kicked out as plagiarism if they submit the work using the program.

I think our policy is tough, but apparently not tough enough to scare the kids into doing their own work. These are minor assignments, also. Not big deals. Just one page reflections on their reading. Unfortunately, the reading is the part that doesn't get done, so how can they reflect.....

How do your schools handle this?

 

[GEM]

I can't speak for how other schools handle it, but I applaud your school for trying to teach the kids something about the consequences.

I teach at a university, and on our campus (and most others) plagarism results in an automatic failure of the class - no questions asked. This is (and probably always has been) a real problem.

Good for your school for standing up for accademic integrity!

 

[tar heel]

I don't think the punishment is too severe.

Unless it's changed, at UNC Chapel Hill, you almost always get a F in the class AND a one-year suspension from the university. The Honor Court decides, but it's not known for its leniency.

I never knew anyone convicted when I was in school, but knew two younger kids from my high school who were when I worked for the university. One of them was a student assistant in our office, and she claimed that she didn't understand how to do citations. I actually testified for her - told them she had been a responsible and honest worker for us and that, since I went to the same high school and had the same English teachers as her, I believed she didn't know how to do citations. She lost anyway, though.

 

[golfgal]

I spent a lot of time talking about plagiarism before assigning reports, etc. When I was teacher each teacher had his/her own policy. Mine was an automatic F on the assignment. We didn't have any kind of suspension options but if a student had an F at any marking period, midterm or quarter they were automatically off ANY extra curricular.

When I was in college any plagiarism resulted in an automatic expulsion from the college.

 

[Pigeon]

I'm also faculty at a university. I don't believe in programs like Turnitin, as I think they violate the student's copyright.

I guess I think the punishment should depend on the type of plagiarism. I teach information literacy. It is unbelievable to me how many kids come to college and know nothing about citing sources, quoting and generating bibliographies. It is mind boggling how many of them genuinely think that it is perfectly OK to cut and paste a bunch of crap from the internet and call it a paper. Colleges shouldn't have to teach them rudimentary citation skills, but it seems that the majority of high schools don't seem to cover it.

If they are making a good faith effort and cite stuff incorrectly, I think they should have to redo the paper or take a bad grade. If it is deliberate turing in of somebody else's assignment, the penalty should be stiffer.

What really blows my mind are the kids who buy papers from term paper mills. The papers they buy are almost always crap!

 

[Sonya]

At the high school I each at each teacher gets to do their own thing, but once it reaches the office it is delt with pretty much the same.

I give the student an F for the paper and an office referal.

The principal USED to call home and tell the student and parent that if they do it once more they will be given an F for the assignment and if they do it again they will be dropped from the class with an F and put in study hall.

Now, since we don't have study hall they get the F and the 2nd time they get suspended for 3 days. But they have to stay in your class.

 

[paigevz]

Well, I only teach second grade, so we just explain it to them, and it's fairly easy to catch them when they are trying to quote without references, and we just have them correct it.

Yes, they do research papers with bibliographies and note cards, 2 in our grade level, 3 in 3rd, 4 in 4th and none in 5th, if that makes any sense, but the 5ths I teach in our after school program had to do one in my science class.

Our second graders' very first lesson on writing the paper is about plagiarism. The way we do it is fairly painless, and the kids are excited to write a "real" paper.

3rd grade, I know, also just corrects as needed. I am not sure what 4th grade does EXACTLY..........I do know it's at least points off, and it's handled on a case by case basis.

I don't know how the middle schools and high schools handle it.

 

[barkley]

my kids attend a k-8th private school and they had such a problem with it (mostly 6-8th graders) that any writing assignment that can conceivably utilize the internet or a written source may be called upon to have the website utilized or the book utilized available for teacher review (some kids will go ahead and print up or photocopy their source material in advance to have if needed). if the teacher feels the writing is not at the students written or verbal standard they can request the written material for review. a determination of plagerism may result in expulsion based on the school's code of conduct.

they've also started to have the kids do more of their research paperwork in class-and submit portions (in class) so that the teacher can see the paper as it evolves. an example would be a recent paper dd (5th) did on africa-each day a portion was due which the kids would research at home and bring reference cards to class on the next day-they then did their rough draft in class and submitted it to the teacher with the cards. when the time came to put everything together the teacher would give them the cards and the rough drafts to prepare the final product at home. in this way she could determine if there was a dramatic change in the rough and the final product.

i had a prof in college (pre internet but there were still those who bought term papers on books required for reading) who purposly did reading based reports only in class. he always asked questions for response that had no basis in fact (if you had read the book)-if you b.s.'d your way on a question like "explain how the author supported his positon for x" it was easily apparant you had not read the written materials.

 

[becjlek]

A student in my son's advanced writing class got caught. He got a code of conduct violation which means, no extra curricular activities for 3 weeks, then he must miss the next game, concert, etc after that... one event and a zero for the project. A code of conduct violation also means you are no longer eligible for National Honor Society or if you are already in NHS you are kicked out.