My tutee has plagiarised my work! AIBU to have sent this email?

[DissertationDrama]

I have been privately tutoring a third year university student through the dissertation process. This has included face to face sessions and proofreading. Some months ago I gave this student a copy of my (first class) undergraduate dissertation with the express instruction not to copy it, to use it purely for structuring guidance. During my degree my university provided every student with copies of ex-students' dissertations to use for the same purpose, so I assumed this was a generous, but fairly normal action on my part. How I regret it now! This evening the student has sent me the latest chapter of their dissertation, and it is identical to the same chapter of my dissertation, with perhaps one word in every twenty changed to match the topic their dissertation concerns. WIBU to have sent the following email?

Dear Student,

This is is plagiarism.

You have completely copied my X chapter, changing odd words to make it relevant to your topic. On a personal level this is unfair, but from an academic point of view this is completely unacceptable. You absolutely must not submit this - you will be caught. Your university will scan every piece of work submitted for plagiarism and this will definitely be picked up, particularly because it was originally written by a student of this university only twelve months ago. If you are caught you could loose your degree, there are also consequences for me as the original author of the work. Again, I will reiterate: you absolutely cannot submitthis as part of your dissertation.

I sent you a copy of my work as guidance, in the same way that the university gave everyone copies of previous students' work last year. It's fine to follow the rough structure of another person's work, but I did not and do not give you permission to copy it.

As you haven't actually attempted to submit my work as your own (only sent it to me) I'm going to give you a chance to change this. For reasurance I want to see a completely new version of this chapter that bares no resemblance to my work by X date. If you send this to me by then, then I'll continue to look at your subsequent work if you still want me to. We all make mistakes after all. However, if you don't send me a totally new methods chapter, I will be forced to report this to the university to protect both of us.

Let me know which it is going to be.

From,
Dissertation Drama.

One person plagiarised our external examiner's work. Only noticed when sent to external examiner for adjudication. They then went through all his other work and found other examples of plagerism. If he has done it once he most probably has done it a few times. Maybe warn him it's not acceptable and he will get caught out.

Ah. Ok.

Relieved this isn’t a thing.

If it's submitted via Turnitin then it will be picked up on when handed in because it stores copies of previous students' work.

I agree re the spelling errors- hopefully there weren't any like that in the dissertation!

Finally, if your dissertation was on a different topic, surely he would have to change a lot more than every 20th word? Unless it was a very general chapter. But hopefully he will get the message now.

It absolutely will get picked up. The software compares assessments within and between universities as well as published work and websites. My experience at at least two universities anyway. Good email and glad you are on the case.

Lecturer here. Plagiarism, imo, gets worse each year; so many students seem simply incapable of putting others' words into their own. Your email is perfect. Hope it puts the shits right up em.

It was quite a general chapter - but it still made absolutely no sense in the context of their topic, as it was based specifically on my topic.

This university doesn't use TurnItIn.

No there were not spelling mistakes in my dissertation I've been at work all day, and I wrote that email in the heat of the moment, that's why there are spelling mistakes. We all make them, let's move on.

Handing over to DrJudgemental:

This is plagiarism - end of. The software used will pick it up. It is a serious academic offence and will jeopardise their degree and will most likely be noted in any references written for them. If you can’t do the work, then don’t pretend.

Excellent email apart from a couple of spelling errors. 'Loose' should be 'lose' and 'bare' should be 'bear'.

@redressblueshoes - the OPs original work doesn’t have to have been published. The plagiarism checker also examines all student work globally for matches, if the Work had been submitted electronically either by the OP as a student or by the department.

OP your email was fine. The consequences for both of you could have been serious. The student may have been disqualified from the course and you could have had your degree overturned for collusion. (These are worst case scenarios, but possible).

I’m a senior lecturer with added responsibility for assessing and compiling cases of academic misconduct so I do know about the topic.

My advice is never share your work, even with your tutees.

They are obviously a bit dim. Expect the revised version to be the same only with a few more words changed. Report to the uni if they do submit it. They will get zero and possibly worse punishment

you could have had your degree overturned for collusion

This is what I'm worried about. Particularly as I only graduated last year.

The email was rather long winded and dramatic. You could have said the same in three sentences.

I was going to say the same about turnitin because every essay I submitted it showed me my plagiarism score and also which parts of the essay matched and which university the one it was matched to was from. Most systems used by universities these day will have similar. I'm not sure if they all have access to work from other places but they will certainly have their own students works to match against and that obviously includes yours. I would be raging - you work so hard for your degree and then whilst trying to help someone they do this. Has she replied to you?

Good emai lOP. Completely reasonable and fair given the circumstances. To the PP who said that OP's work will not have been published, that will make no difference at all if the university uses a programme such as Turnitin or similar.

Turnitin checks all submissions against previous essays, whether published or not. In my dissertation, I quoted previous research work that I had carried out in earlier modules of my degree. Even properly referenced, they were flagged up in Turnitin, as if I was plagurising myself! Thankfully the referencing made it ok.

sonjadog

I know, fair enough.

Far too OK ersonal. Remove the last paragraph altogether. You are their tutor not their mother. The bit about it being unfair and your not giving permission to copy ate also both unnecessary ad they ate completely irrelevant. Your relationship is strictly professional so keep it professional.

Your credibility and your Work has been copied and reproduced as the work of someone else.. Hell girl ... my EMAIL would have been much longer and much harsher... what an Idiot...

well done for Kicking ASS .. and yes they check this stuff...

Have you been paid for the work you’ve done with the student? If not I’d get your bill in now before they hand it in, as if they get caught at plagiarising anything else then you probably won’t get paid!

Are you a postgraduate student rather than a member of staff? Very unusual to be teaching university students without having a higher degree and without a full knowledge of the university's existing protocols around plagiarism.
Or is this a reverse?

You must contact the student's university. This is a very serious example of academic misconduct.

At my institution, the student would be investigated and the student would very likely have to repeat the assessment task, with the mark possible to achieve capped at 40% (ie not an Honours mark).

Postgraduate student. I don't teach, only tutor. I do work at the university, but part time, in sonething completely unrelated to teaching.

Definitely not a reverse. 100% genuine.

This happened to me, I let another student look at my completed essay for the structure, and they plagiarized large chunks of it. I've also sat on university plagiarism committees, and it's not that rare to have cases like this. One year a boyfriend submitted the same dissertation as his girlfriend the year before, he was ejected without a degree.

I wouldn't continue to work with this student, as they clearly have no intention of doing the work themselves. They will just go online and 'borrow' someone else's work or even pay someone else to write it.

About 18 months ago, one of my assignments was given to a bunch of students to use as a reference point for an assignment they were working on (I left the University about three years ago). One of the students submitted what was essentially my assignment, with a few words changed here and there. Their biggest mistake (apart from this) was not even changing the name of the location that the assignment was about - mine was location A, theirs was supposed to be about location B.
They were expelled.

You must contact the student's university. This is a very serious example of academic misconduct

The student has not submitted the work yet. As long as the work submitted is not plagiarized, how they got there won't be the concern of the university.