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.

If the student does submit my work as their own and gets caught, what are the consequences for me?

Yes, almost everywhere I’ve studied at university and graduate school has used plagiarism software. I used to compete with myself to keep my scores low

One classmate was repeatedly spoken to about his plagiarism but never punished - empty threats. It actually tarnished my degree as I wondered why I’d pushed myself so hard when he could copy and paste his way through...

I also paid for private tutoring throughout one year. The modules were technical mathematics type modules, which weren’t the focus of my degree but still compulsory. I was full time employed, studying part time so no tutorials, only lectures, and across the course of the year we have multiple lecturers which made the classes challenging as some things were rehashed and others were skipped. They were also all non native English speakers so spoke English with very strong accents. I looked at it as a ‘cost v sanity’ investment. I came in the top 5%, so it paid off

TheRagingGirl nope, that's incorrect and poor advice. The University wouldn't be able to do anything at this stage as the student had simply sent a draft to someone not involved in examining his/her work, asking for feedback.
OP The email you sent is fine and hopefully, the student will take note and fully revise the chapter.

I cannot say for sure, but a) they may not get caught if Turnitin isn't used and b) given this is a private arrangement, then I think the consequences are all on them and not on you. They could be asked to leave/resubmit/fail, but I don't see what the university would be doing bringing you into it as presumably you wouldn't be condoning them submitting plagiarized work. The consequences of submitting plagiarized or fake (written by someone else) work are all on the student, surely?

I don't know what the policies are on plagiarism, nor the consequences of it. I've never done it or until now known anyone who has.

OP Don't worry, you haven't done anything wrong so the University has no grounds to rescind your degree.

Spot on reply.

corcaithecat

But I had given them my dissertation for guidance, does that count as collusion?

Not really sure why you are asking as you’ve already sent it and it’s obviously not ok for him to plagiarize your work.

I think its fine if a bit pompous sounding. Short and straightforward is usually the best way to go with these things. (No spag mistakes help too 😂)

None of my DC have wanted or needed private tutoring at Uni but I don’t why it’s so dissaproved of. If a student is struggling with something and hasn’t been able to get help. from their Uni tutors or course mates then why shouldn’t they get outside help (assuming cost isn’t an issue)

You should have returned it with an F and said, "If you're going to plagiarise someone's work, don't choose mine!"

that's incorrect and poor advice.

Not from my point of view - as an academic who convenes my department's dissertation module. If a tutor came to me with this issue of plagiarism in a piece of draft work, I would have the student in to see me, and read them the riot act. It is very bad academic practice and needs dealing with very quickly and sternly.

If this were discovered in submitted work, the student would be required to resubmit, minus the plagiarism, and the mark available capped at 40%.

The OP's email is rather too lenient and personal, and doesn't refer the student to their university's plagiarism policy and the policy on academic misconduct. If the OP is a graduate of the same university, and a recent graduate, notwithstanding that s/he is doing private tutoring WTF? s/he should know the plagiarism policies.

Stealing someone else's work is just that - stealing.

No, I'd argue that collusion has to involve some kind of intention on your part. It wouldn't be in the interests of the University to pursue you. (I'm not going to say much publicly for fear of outing but I used to work in this field for a 'good' University.

I think the best thing to do if you think they have submitted it (whenever deadline is) is to email their dissertation supervisor. It’s not on. You’ve done nothing wrong and you have this email to prove you told them to stop immediately. Giving someone your dissertation to read is not saying “copy this” and is a fairly normal practice I thought? Please try not to worry as you aren’t in the wrong at all

People are so nit picky. It's an excellent email OP and should put the fear of God into the little cheater. Well done.

you only graduated your first degree last year? and are being paid to tutor someone privately?

On what grounds? You wont have had time to complete a masters or a PhD...is it ethical to privately tutor in these circs?

The tutoring arrangement was recommended and set up by a current lecturer, so the university are aware of it. I don't think it's that odd for postgraduate students to tutor students at a lower level to themselves. Many tutor for A Level and GSCE.

My current degree is not at this same university.

I just typed out a response, which showed, and now I've refreshed the page I can't see it. Can anyone else, before I repeat myself?

The student approached the head of department asking for recommendations for a postgraduate tutor - that is specifically what they wanted. The head of department recommended me, and suggested a pricing structure.

People are so nit picky. It's an excellent email OP and should put the fear of God into the little cheater. Well done

agreed

I think if you sent a shorter email they might not have taken it that seriously. This is a message that needs bludgeoning into their silly head.

But the methodology should be reflected throughout the whole piece. As opposed to just the chapter on it, it needs to be clear to the reader that the methods employed are correlated to the outcome of the research and are robust.
The whole dissertation will not work if they've merely paraphrased your chapter apart from the odd word. I don't understand what the student was hoping to achieve. It doesn't sound like they're up to it tbh

What standard of student needs private tuition as a third year undergraduate?
I sincerely hope it's not a discipline where they'll need to have any responsibility for others.

MarklahMarklah, I can see a post from you at 19:42:58 starting "about 18 months ago, one of my assignments was given to a bunch of students..." If that's the one, it's there all right!

"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."

"The tutoring arrangement was recommended and set up by a current lecturer, so the university are aware of it. I don't think it's that odd for postgraduate students to tutor students at a lower level to themselves. Many tutor for A Level and GSCE.

My current degree is not at this same university."

Which is it? The degree is submitted to the same university a year ago, or the degree is not at this same university???

Not sure why we use 'plagiarism' in academia instead of 'cheating' or, if we want to be more sophisticated with language 'academic misconduct'. This is copying someone else's work that is not protected by any copyright/intellectual rights.
It is not the same when a student cheats than someone trying to make a commercial profit by copying and pasted a database for selling. There is a full mystification of this reflected in the terminology.
My most hated one is 'unintentional plagiarism' and we also have training courses with titles such as: 'how to avoid plagiarism' as if 'plagiarim' was the flu and you could catch it by mistake.
This student cheated. You were more than generous by pointing it out so he can redress the problem.