EKS Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 Earlier today I discovered that another student in my graduate class submitted a powerpoint slideshow that he had found on the internet (it appears to have come from a high school teacher who actually copied the text on the slides from various websites), recorded his own narration, and then passed it off as his own. It says in my school's rules on academic honesty that "intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another to commit an academic dishonesty" is itself academic dishonesty. Based on this, do I need to report him? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 based om the rule it is not required, but I would report it anyway 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 I agree - not required, but I would report. You can always report anonymously from a different email if you prefer. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 You don't need to, but I would report it anonymously. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3andme Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 I don't think I would report it. The consequences for plagiarism can be quite severe depending on the university. While I don't condone plagiarism, I also wouldn't want to end someone's academic career by reporting it. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 15 minutes ago, 3andme said: I don't think I would report it. The consequences for plagiarism can be quite severe depending on the university. While I don't condone plagiarism, I also wouldn't want to end someone's academic career by reporting it. You wouldn't be ending it. That would be between the school and the individual--and the individual already made his or her choice. I can't imagine a grad student not knowing plagiarism is wrong or not knowing what a school's policies are and the risks they are taking. 10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SanDiegoMom Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 I would report it. Anonymously. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivey Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 Based on that policy, you are not obligated to report him. Do what you feel is right. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 Need? Probably doesn't fall under those guidelines. Should? I probably would, but I'm in a writing heavy graduate program and that would tick me off. We're in week 10 and people in my cohort are stressed, not eating well, not sleeping enough, dealing with life crises, and STILL doing the work required. We're in a midst of one assignment that would be fairly easy to plagiarize because of the breadth of the assignment, yet we've all had it pounded into our heads since undergraduate that plagiarism is intellectual theft. So, yeah, I'd probably report because it disrespects the work that others ARE putting into the class. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Thanks all! (I did end up reporting it.) 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted October 24, 2018 Share Posted October 24, 2018 3 hours ago, EKS said: Thanks all! (I did end up reporting it.) I would too. Whether they do anything about it is ultimately up to them. I reported someone for plagiarism in graduate school, and the chairman of the graduate school investigated and suspended the individual for a year. He did return to the program after that and successfully completed his PhD, so I'm sure that there was some discussion and parameters involved. It was on a single assignment, and he confessed once confront with the facts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 I do not think that you would be obligated under the plagiarism definition listed to report this. However, many schools have an honor code that would obligate one to report this behavior. Or, some graduate programs have a separate code of conduct that would require it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlsdMama Posted November 5, 2018 Share Posted November 5, 2018 Was credit given? If not, it's plagiarism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted November 8, 2018 Share Posted November 8, 2018 Just curious: do you routinely check student work to see if it's plagiarized? Or did you accidentally stumble on it? (It doesn't make a difference to your question; I'm just curious.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 8, 2018 Author Share Posted November 8, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, daijobu said: Just curious: do you routinely check student work to see if it's plagiarized? Or did you accidentally stumble on it? (It doesn't make a difference to your question; I'm just curious.) No--I never have before. I have been taking classes with the same group of people for over a year now, and this particular guy mostly produces rambling, incoherent stuff--except every so often he doesn't. This was one of those times. So, just to see, I lifted a sentence out of the slideshow and searched for it on the internet and bingo--there it was. I ended up going back and looking at some other things of his too. I found one essay that had been entirely copied from something on the internet, and another thing that must have been run through some sort of paraphrasing app that switched every third word out for a wildly inappropriate synonym. Most recently, I found that he did the same thing with something *I* wrote, which is just weird. Anyway, since it goes beyond one class and one assignment, the whole mess has been forwarded to the office that deals with such things. Edited November 8, 2018 by EKS 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted November 8, 2018 Share Posted November 8, 2018 Also: I misunderstood, I thought you were a teacher of the class, not a fellow student. How annoying that plagiarism seems to be more common. (My dd sees it in her online classes as well.) Trouble is, the easier it is to steal, the easier it is to detect by searching on a few key words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 8, 2018 Author Share Posted November 8, 2018 8 hours ago, daijobu said: Also: I misunderstood, I thought you were a teacher of the class, not a fellow student. How annoying that plagiarism seems to be more common. (My dd sees it in her online classes as well.) Trouble is, the easier it is to steal, the easier it is to detect by searching on a few key words. The thing I didn't know until this episode is that there are also apps/online tools to help, like the paraphrasing app I mentioned. There is also a thing that will write an entire essay for you given a few key words. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted November 8, 2018 Share Posted November 8, 2018 It is discouraging if, as a fellow student, you are finding this plagiarism that this was not detected by a professor. If he is turning in work with "poor paraphrasing", that in and of itself should have been questioned simply for the poor quality of the work. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 8, 2018 Author Share Posted November 8, 2018 (edited) 13 minutes ago, jdahlquist said: It is discouraging if, as a fellow student, you are finding this plagiarism that this was not detected by a professor. If he is turning in work with "poor paraphrasing", that in and of itself should have been questioned simply for the poor quality of the work. I totally agree. The first paraphrasing incident should have sent up a whole bunch of red flags because it was about a novel and the paraphraser (who or whatever it was) actually substituted "synonyms" for the names of the characters! I suspect that the professor (and all of the instructors are professors, not glorified graders) never even set eyes on it (it was that obvious). Of course, there is always the possibility that they guy got a zero on that assignment, and I just don't know about it. Edited November 8, 2018 by EKS 1 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted November 8, 2018 Share Posted November 8, 2018 Oh that is terrible! I hope there have been steps taken by the professors that you just weren't aware of due to privacy reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easypeasy Posted November 9, 2018 Share Posted November 9, 2018 Holy cow - this guy goes beyond just the desperate, I'm late for an assignment kind of plagiarism and just dives right in to see how many apps/cheats he can use and get away with it? I'd almost think he was a "secret cheater" (like a secret shopper trying to catch employees goofing off on the job) set up to see if the professors are paying attention... except I doubt anyone bothers to do such things anymore. I'd be livid. I write every single word of my assignments and to have someone else breeze through without even TRYING would infuriate me. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted November 9, 2018 Share Posted November 9, 2018 I would be unhappy to find out that a fellow classmate in a graduate class was plagiarizing. I would be even more unhappy if I were in a graduate program where this was going on in repeated classes and it had not be addressed by the professors. Because you said that one assignment was about a novel, I am assuming that this is some type of English/literature class, which makes it even more problematic that the student's writing skills are so poor and that it has not been address by faculty teaching those classes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted November 9, 2018 Share Posted November 9, 2018 21 hours ago, jdahlquist said: Oh that is terrible! I hope there have been steps taken by the professors that you just weren't aware of due to privacy reasons. I do not see how a fellow student would know what steps have been taken by the professor to address dishonesty. When we have an incident of academic dishonesty, we are required to document it and refer it to a campus office that deals with it. We are not permitted to discipline the student beyond giving a zero on that specific assignment (i.e. we are not permitted to fail the student, or kick them out of the course). We never find out what sanctions are imposed by that office on an individual student. So if the professors themselves don't know, how would another student in the class? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 9, 2018 Author Share Posted November 9, 2018 8 hours ago, easypeasy said: Holy cow - this guy goes beyond just the desperate, I'm late for an assignment kind of plagiarism and just dives right in to see how many apps/cheats he can use and get away with it? I'd almost think he was a "secret cheater" (like a secret shopper trying to catch employees goofing off on the job) set up to see if the professors are paying attention... except I doubt anyone bothers to do such things anymore. I'd be livid. I write every single word of my assignments and to have someone else breeze through without even TRYING would infuriate me. Yes--the bolded is something I've wondered myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 9, 2018 Author Share Posted November 9, 2018 (edited) 9 hours ago, jdahlquist said: I would be unhappy to find out that a fellow classmate in a graduate class was plagiarizing. I would be even more unhappy if I were in a graduate program where this was going on in repeated classes and it had not be addressed by the professors. Because you said that one assignment was about a novel, I am assuming that this is some type of English/literature class, which makes it even more problematic that the student's writing skills are so poor and that it has not been address by faculty teaching those classes. There are several people with terrible writing skills. This particular guy strikes me as being pretty bright (possibly gifted) and having some sort of language-based learning disability. Others have absolutely no idea how to write academic text. And still others haven't heard of proofreading. Then there are the people who can write coherently, but just summarize the readings, never adding their own thoughts to anything, or if they do have thoughts, they are superficial at best. The ones who actually can write well and have something to say comprise maybe a quarter of the class. But yes, it is disturbing that these people continue to pass class after class (a B average is required to stay in the program). Edited November 9, 2018 by EKS 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 9, 2018 Author Share Posted November 9, 2018 1 hour ago, regentrude said: I do not see how a fellow student would know what steps have been taken by the professor to address dishonesty. When we have an incident of academic dishonesty, we are required to document it and refer it to a campus office that deals with it. We are not permitted to discipline the student beyond giving a zero on that specific assignment (i.e. we are not permitted to fail the student, or kick them out of the course). We never find out what sanctions are imposed by that office on an individual student. So if the professors themselves don't know, how would another student in the class? Exactly. The only way I am going to find out whether they did anything is if he gets kicked out of the program or if he is required to delete the posts in question. What's really funny is that his most recent online discussion post goes on and on about how "plagiarism is a crime" (his words)! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted November 9, 2018 Share Posted November 9, 2018 1 hour ago, EKS said: Exactly. The only way I am going to find out whether they did anything is if he gets kicked out of the program or if he is required to delete the posts in question. What's really funny is that his most recent online discussion post goes on and on about how "plagiarism is a crime" (his words)! Are you sure those are his words ?? Where I teach now, there is a graduate honor code. Students are elected to serve on a panel which hears honor code violations brought forward by other students. A report is then sent out to the entire faculty and student body in the graduate program with generic information like, "The panel heard a case and found that the use of unauthorized materials had occurred..." A particular student isn't named. This is a separate process from the university dealing with academic dishonesty. It does not name particular students, and sanctions are fairly limited, but it does let other students know that (at least some) issues are being taken seriously and addressed. The university is fairly limited, however, in what information it can provide. The frustrating thing is that the student can make all types of claims to classmates regarding how they are being mistreated, but the university cannot provide the facts of the situation. You bring up an interesting question, however. It is one thing if a student turns in a plagiarised paper to the professor and only the professor sees it. If it is posted for the rest of the class to see, and the university knows it is plagiarised, does it have an obligation to remove the item from a post? If a student gives a plagiarized speech to the class, is it the duty of the university to let the other students know the source of the speech to provide credit to the person who really wrote the speech? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reefgazer Posted November 10, 2018 Share Posted November 10, 2018 On 10/19/2018 at 4:40 PM, EKS said: Earlier today I discovered that another student in my graduate class submitted a powerpoint slideshow that he had found on the internet (it appears to have come from a high school teacher who actually copied the text on the slides from various websites), recorded his own narration, and then passed it off as his own. It says in my school's rules on academic honesty that "intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another to commit an academic dishonesty" is itself academic dishonesty. Based on this, do I need to report him? The school where I teach would not accept a complaint/report anonymously, and I am guessing most other colleges wouldn't, either. That said, the bar for repercussions when someone cheats is ridiculously high, and the college where I teach won't do a damned thing about it unless the teacher sees it and has evidence of it; the benefit of the doubt in a teacher said-student said situation goes to the student. Consequently, there are few real, actual consequences for a cheater. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted November 10, 2018 Share Posted November 10, 2018 On 11/9/2018 at 10:38 AM, jdahlquist said: Are you sure those are his words ?? LOL, that's what I was thinking! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted November 10, 2018 Share Posted November 10, 2018 On 11/8/2018 at 8:15 AM, EKS said: The thing I didn't know until this episode is that there are also apps/online tools to help, like the paraphrasing app I mentioned. There is also a thing that will write an entire essay for you given a few key words. There are also apps that can catch plagiarism though. They'll do a "percentage" of similar words and even can link you right to the journal, article, site etc.... that is a match. Unless the paraphrase app happens to change all significant words, I bet the plagiarism could still be flagged. On 11/7/2018 at 9:53 PM, EKS said: I found one essay that had been entirely copied from something on the internet, and another thing that must have been run through some sort of paraphrasing app that switched every third word out for a wildly inappropriate synonym. Most recently, I found that he did the same thing with something *I* wrote, which is just weird. You'd think that would have been caught--again, if someone was really reading things. That's so incredibly frustrating! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 10, 2018 Author Share Posted November 10, 2018 1 hour ago, Reefgazer said: The school where I teach would not accept a complaint/report anonymously, and I am guessing most other colleges wouldn't, either. Actually, mine does (major state university). But I didn't report it anonymously. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 5 hours ago, MerryAtHope said: There are also apps that can catch plagiarism though. They'll do a "percentage" of similar words and even can link you right to the journal, article, site etc.... that is a match. Unless the paraphrase app happens to change all significant words, I bet the plagiarism could still be flagged. You'd think that would have been caught--again, if someone was really reading things. That's so incredibly frustrating! I have found that these apps do not catch some significant plagiarism. I had a student this past year that turned in a paper in which she thought she had cleverly hid her plagiarism. She went to the trouble of inserting fake references in the paper. Turn-it-in flagged things like "Wall Street Journal", "Gross Domestic Product", and other commonly used terms in economics, but missed the paragraphs that she took from a blog site in India. 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted November 11, 2018 Share Posted November 11, 2018 On 10/20/2018 at 4:41 PM, 3andme said: I don't think I would report it. The consequences for plagiarism can be quite severe depending on the university. While I don't condone plagiarism, I also wouldn't want to end someone's academic career by reporting it. Exactly what are the odds, at the graduate level, that this is the first and only time they've cheated? I'm okay with ending their academic career. They're the ones who decided to cheat. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted November 14, 2018 Share Posted November 14, 2018 On 11/10/2018 at 10:15 PM, jdahlquist said: I have found that these apps do not catch some significant plagiarism. I had a student this past year that turned in a paper in which she thought she had cleverly hid her plagiarism. She went to the trouble of inserting fake references in the paper. Turn-it-in flagged things like "Wall Street Journal", "Gross Domestic Product", and other commonly used terms in economics, but missed the paragraphs that she took from a blog site in India. Good grief! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easypeasy Posted November 15, 2018 Share Posted November 15, 2018 On 11/10/2018 at 10:15 PM, jdahlquist said: I have found that these apps do not catch some significant plagiarism. I had a student this past year that turned in a paper in which she thought she had cleverly hid her plagiarism. She went to the trouble of inserting fake references in the paper. Turn-it-in flagged things like "Wall Street Journal", "Gross Domestic Product", and other commonly used terms in economics, but missed the paragraphs that she took from a blog site in India. How were you able to catch on then if the apps or programs you're using don't catch it?! That is crazy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted November 15, 2018 Share Posted November 15, 2018 10 hours ago, easypeasy said: How were you able to catch on then if the apps or programs you're using don't catch it?! That is crazy! There are a number of things that will start jumping out in a paper: 1) Inconsistent information from one paragraph to the next. One paragraph has U.S. employment rate as 7.9% and the next paragraph talks about the 8.1% unemployment rate in the US. This often occurs when students have cut-and-pasted a paragraph here and a paragraph there in their papers. Another sign is switching tenses, style, or vocabulary from one paragraph to another. 2) When a paper reads something like "When I started the company..." 3) When the language of the paper uses technical vocabulary that it beyond the student's vocabulary. When there is wording that I know is standard wording in government documents. 4) When the paper is well written, but not quite on topic In this particular instance there was a paragraph about unemployment (that didn't look quite right) and I looked at the citation which was an article about inflation--not unemployment. Just putting a sentence from the paper in google, will often find sources as well, or better, than Turn-it-in, in my experience 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janeway Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 I would report it. Honestly, if he did it this time, he has probably done it many times before. Cheaters cheat. No one cheats just once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 On 11/15/2018 at 12:07 PM, jdahlquist said: There are a number of things that will start jumping out in a paper: 1) Inconsistent information from one paragraph to the next. One paragraph has U.S. employment rate as 7.9% and the next paragraph talks about the 8.1% unemployment rate in the US. This often occurs when students have cut-and-pasted a paragraph here and a paragraph there in their papers. Another sign is switching tenses, style, or vocabulary from one paragraph to another. 2) When a paper reads something like "When I started the company..." 3) When the language of the paper uses technical vocabulary that it beyond the student's vocabulary. When there is wording that I know is standard wording in government documents. 4) When the paper is well written, but not quite on topic In this particular instance there was a paragraph about unemployment (that didn't look quite right) and I looked at the citation which was an article about inflation--not unemployment. Just putting a sentence from the paper in google, will often find sources as well, or better, than Turn-it-in, in my experience Don't forget "student forgot to remove hyperlinks". 😛 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 53 minutes ago, kiana said: Don't forget "student forgot to remove hyperlinks". 😛 Oh yes. And along those lines--the font from one paragraph is different than the next paragraph. I don't know that TurnItIn catches those types of formatting issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 Turnitin will pick up if they copy from a site and just change the verbs. So you can watch for strange wording, like they overused the thesaurus instead of making use of the most logical verb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 On 11/10/2018 at 10:15 PM, jdahlquist said: I have found that these apps do not catch some significant plagiarism. I had a student this past year that turned in a paper in which she thought she had cleverly hid her plagiarism. She went to the trouble of inserting fake references in the paper. Turn-it-in flagged things like "Wall Street Journal", "Gross Domestic Product", and other commonly used terms in economics, but missed the paragraphs that she took from a blog site in India. I'm dealing with a paper like this right now. The student used fake links, switched the citations around so the information was never found at the location the in-text citation referred to. Sometimes it was on another site he had linked, sometimes it was on a more general cite that wouldn't have been acceptable as an academic source. I caught it because Safe Assign flagged one sentence in a way that caught my attention. When I looked that up, the citation was wrong, so I checked the next citation and so on. 8 pages later, not one in-text matched the quoted material. 🙄 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easypeasy Posted November 28, 2018 Share Posted November 28, 2018 This whole thread has been so.... eye-opening! Wow!! Just... WOWWW!!! Students not even changing the font(s) used when they C&P? Just. Wow. I'm a naturally speedy writer, so the thought of going through THAT MUCH trouble to fake-write a paper sounds exhausting to me. I'm going to be teaching again once my homeschooled kids are finished with school... and... so much has changed! 😑 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted November 28, 2018 Share Posted November 28, 2018 5 hours ago, easypeasy said: This whole thread has been so.... eye-opening! Wow!! Just... WOWWW!!! Students not even changing the font(s) used when they C&P? Just. Wow. I'm a naturally speedy writer, so the thought of going through THAT MUCH trouble to fake-write a paper sounds exhausting to me. I'm going to be teaching again once my homeschooled kids are finished with school... and... so much has changed! 😑 A lot of my friends in the humanities have said "If they just put as much effort into passing as they do into cheating they'd have an easy C" 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted November 29, 2018 Share Posted November 29, 2018 16 hours ago, kiana said: A lot of my friends in the humanities have said "If they just put as much effort into passing as they do into cheating they'd have an easy C" I keep thinking that too! Some of the descriptions of the lengths people go to to cheat--seriously, how can that be "easier" than just writing a paper?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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