Help please - Plagiarism

[DizzIzz]

Hi, please can I ask for advice especially from any uni tutors etc....
DD has today received an email from uni asking her to attend a meeting in 3 weeks time about 2 pieces of her work, where she will have to confirm if she has or has not attempted to plagiarise.

She is in her first year and is absolutely distraught. She has read the guidelines and the module in question is not her main subject. She has referenced the percentage of work required but had not included quotation marks, as in her main subject she does not include quotation marks, just reference and footnotes. Surely they will be able to see that the fact she has all of the referencing, she is hardly trying to pass it as her own?

Any idea what the outcome is likely to be? Thanks.

No ATruth it might not - she is working hard now at her dissertation which is a large percentage of the overall degree but still it isn't looking promising. It doesn't matter though - unless she needs funding for a PhD (not likely to go that route) a 2:1 is fine - as I keep telling her...

We hadn't realised at our University how many students were buying essays as well as course books from the year(s) above and submitting them in their entirety until we started using Turnitin. Now that is plagiarism!

Universities don't spend time catching plagiarising students for the fun of it. IME these things are explained over and over again, and students are told the rules

Absolutely right.

And while all parents here may just know that their DCs aren't cheats, I'm afraid I have seen some remarkable examples of cheating. For my sins I occasionally sit on the highest disciplinary committee at my place, and it shocked my idealist soul to see what a number of students thought was appropriate in order to get what they felt was the grade they "needed" or "deserved."

And what was even more shocking was that a number of them maintained frankly incredible (in the true sense of the word) stories even when they were before us.

At that point, the fact that the class of their overall degree was generally dropped (so from a 2, i to a 2, ii, and so on) I felt was actually not enough.

So that is why we jump on plagiarism committed for whatever reason . I assume people want lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers and so on, who actually know their stuff, rather than having cheated. Because in pragmatic terms, that is what all academics are safeguarding.

But we are not talking about a final year dissertation or a PhD here - this is a piece of work done in the first term of a university degree so whether you think the student has been told over and over how not to commit plagiarism they have not had time to learn HOW to write an essay that does not plagiarise. It takes some students a while to get the hang of this particularly if they have been happily submitting A level work that blatantly plagiarises stuff off the web without repercussions. First year work that doesn't count towards a degree is essentially formative.

Moreover, it's all well and good telling people how NOT to do something but that still leaves students with the problem of HOW TO DO their work. Just knowing what NOT to do doesn't mean they know what to do - you've got to fill that void with something! And as another poster says, it is actually quite difficult sometimes to know when and how to reference what you write. I remember going through that learning process myself and in exasperation I decided to put a citation at the end of every sentence to cover myself! I grew out of it but it took me a few years to see the subtle distinctions.

I'm not excusing reproducing quotes without quotation marks or including slightly reworded stuff without references but students need to learn how to do it and so they have to actually have a go at writing essays and getting feedback in order to learn that.

I am a great fan of the method of assessment where the student submits their essay as a formative, I give them constructive feedback, and then they go away and act on that (if they choose to do so and some don't) for the summative submission. They have then had ample opportunity to avoid committing plagiarism - I show them how their own work should be done not just tell them what not to do - it's a much more active learning process and basically mimics academic peer review.

Of course students take a while to learn and need a lot of feedback. And lots of them haven't learned during A Level so it feels quite new. And you can make what looks like an odd mistake to the person marking the essay, but which seems totally logical to you.

I don't think anyone is suggesting anything different?

It's just that the student needs to get her head around this one. It does matter if she comes out of this thinking, as her mum seems to 'oh, it's ok, I don't usually quote for secondary sources but some weirdo lecturer made a fuss for no good reason'.

All chimney did was to explain why plagiarism is taken seriously. There was no need to suggest she was being 'derogatory' when she's clearly trying to help.

And while all parents here may just know that their DCs aren't cheats

Is that aimed at me Upthechimney?

I see your ‘highest disciplinary committee’ sitting and raise you my ' international reputation as a research-scientist-with-the-best-REF-submission-in-my-1st-placed-RAE-department which I will willingly stake on the moral integrity and honesty of DD2 – there’s no-one I’d rather have beside me in a fight.

Crikey, I'd better not post any more, I only submitted my PhD corrections yesterday.

And yes, some of them were incorrect references, so yes, I have a lot of empathy with a first year student who's getting confused over which system to use!

But I don't think it is rude to observe that some students do cheat - surely that's the point, because if they didn't no-one would ever have to worry about quotation marks and references because we'd all simply take every word as gospel without proof?

Sigh - you can tell I should be writing a paper today ...

Yes LRD BUT Turnitin is 'stupid' and its similarity scores can be manipulated by the person setting the assignment options - they need a human being to look at and interpret them. There are many reasons why a 30% similarity can, on investigation, not be anything to worry about if it is made-up of small similarities from a variety of sources (it can actually be a sign of a widely read student) or the assignment is short thus making the bibliography relatively large in comparison. Sometimes things in science - and law as pointed out above - have to be said a specific way and cannot be reworded but Turnitin doesn't know this. Resorting to a thesaurus to paraphrase can be a disaster and sometimes there is no 'source' to cite as such. 0% similarity is rarely 'a good thing'!

I have been using Turnitin for several years now and dealt with many issues of suspected plagiarism brought to me by colleagues many of which turn out to be far from simple. I often recommend they load up one of their own pieces of work before casting stones. I've found it a somewhat sobering experience - all those words I thought were my own!

For example, a student can get flagged for reiterating research aims and objectives submitted earlier in their research design - which is an entirely reasonable form of self-plagiarism. It doesn't even find the 'original' source most of the time - so the match it comes up with may not actually be the one the student took it from. Neither can Turnitin tell in a case of collusion or copying within a cohort which student copied - for example, the 'cheater' can submit an essay they copied from another student first, and get a similarity score of 5% whilst the 'copied' student submits an hour later and gets a high similarity score. Yes, both are culpable but I've had a couple where significant cultural coercion was brought to bear by the copier. Turnitin cannot spot that.

Am sure you know all this but DizzIzz should know that Turnitin is not fallible nor the final word on the subject as not all lecturers in my experience understand its limitations or quirks.

Hmmm, I disagree with chimney's assessment of why plagiarism is A Bad Thing. I'm training people in scholarship not to become lawyers - so if they don't know much law after they leave us, I don't feel implicated (law changes all the time anyway and all lawyers will tell you their law degree was pointless because they only ever use a tiny fraction of what they covered). If they see no reason not to pass off a chunk of someone else's article as their own work in an article they submit to a journal we've obviously screwed up badly.

It is possible that the student won't understand the material they have passed off and will thus gain a mark which does not reflect their underlying comprehension - and that is not good. But that generally happens in the case of massive cheating where the student is completely behind and tries to buy an essay or get answers transmitted to them in an exam. Anxious first years often do understand the material, at least to a level where they would pass. But they are scared of academic terminology, or looking stupid if they choose the wrong form of words (very common in law) so they prefer to pass off other people's work as their own as a safety net. It is not good. We catch them and sanction them but they do generally have a better grasp of the issues afterwards. I've never had to sanction a student twice.

The real issue is integrity. I want to know that every single one of our graduands is the kind of person who understands the moral distinction between presenting their own work, even if it is lousy and committing fraud. If you look at why Pal Schmitt had to resign in Hungary it was not because people thought 'Shit our President does not know enough about the history of the Olympic Games to lead the country' (that was the topic of his dissertation), it was that knowing he was a cheat in that field made them wonder if he was trustworthy elsewhere. And that is the underlying rationale for Germany's current crop of plagiarism hunters in a country where having a hefty doctorate on an irrelevant subject is often a pre-requisite for political office.

So Mytholmroyd is right. Too often our efforts focus on telling students what they should do in an ABC way, but not on why. And it clearly is not intuitive. I've been involved in external panels investigating plagiarised PhDs at other universities. Smart, hard-working people who have devoted several years of their lives to study have destroyed their academic careers because they placed the baubles ahead of integrity.

And if academics such as Chimney and myself can differ even on the wrong of plagiarism, why should it be obvious to Dizz or her DD?

I feel as though I mustn't know my own mind here - I have people trying to tell me here that I think this is ok! Are we actually on the same thread??

Maybe I have just been so unlucky in life to have one of those very very rare imperfect daughters, oh well!

Congratulations LRD!

Or Dr LRD as you shall be called henceforth! That must feel good! What next?

Sorry, not being stroppy and yes of course we all hate cheaters who won't accept, admit or learn. Am with you on that but people do make mistakes and sadly it is the genuinely honest who usually take it to heart - whilst most cheaters just blithely brazen it out and lie and appeal. They just don't learn. And yes, as upthechimney says, I think Universities should have the guts not to award any sort of degree for students found blatantly cheating.

I thought we'd pretty much covered how Turnitin works already, but yes.

It doesn't sound as if this was a particularly unusual or awful thing that the DD did; I'm fairly sure the university aren't going to come down a ton of bricks. I get why the OP is worried, because it is natural.

The only problem is, I think the OP is working herself into a state, getting very defensive when someone points out (in a general way) how plagiarism is seen and why her DD has got what might seem to be a frightening response to a simple mistake.

Her DD needs to learn how to use quotation marks and cite sources, that's all. Trying to explain away the mistake by saying it seems to have gone unnoticed elsewhere, or it's difficult to cope with conventions changing across subjects, or she was never told, is again completely human and understandable, but also a total waste of time.

Thanks.

You'd be entitled to be stroppy if you're meant to be writing a paper.

I agree it's very tough that people who care about their work are the ones who get really upset. It's just I am really about 99% sure the university won't come down heavy on this.

This is academic debate DizzIzz!

Always weigh up both sides of the argument!

You obviously don't think this is OK. I appreciate that!

Sorry the thread got derailed because a bunch of academics started arguing. You should come to our conferences. Bloody terrible it is.

In the meantime it seems to me you are concerned about your DD's anxiety which I respect. I think you should have confidence that the Uni systems will be fair and you should reassure your DD that if the worst she has done is honestly cock-up her referencing this a) common and b) unlikely to result in life-altering consequences provided she demonstrates the same concern you have shown here to work out what is wrong and fix the problem.

Not knowing the subject it is difficult to advise. Her personal tutor, student union, and if there is a student rep for her year (we have a student/staff committee with reps for each year) might all be people to talk to. But she is conscientious and anxious to get it right - I've seen lots of these students come through my doors once. We have never had to apply sanctions twice.

I am not defensive in any way for anyone trying to help me or saying my daughter needs to learn - 10 out of 10 there.

What I take massive offence to is someone trying to imply that all I am bothered about is a score rather than what my daughter is learning and another comment saying that I think this is all ok. These people have either not fully read and digested my posts or are just plain deluded.

If this post has offended anyone then I apologise for being rude, but after all I am not perfect, just like my daughter.

I really am thankful though for people trying to help me here.

It's difficult to avoid plagiarism sometimes! Especially when trying to paraphrase other peoples words without directly quoting them, but I'm sure they will look kindly upon a first year student who can explain. What has happened.

People aren't trying to suggest your DD isn't a committed student, I don't think.

It's simply an issue that, unless you're talking about a rare exception like penelope described with law, it sounds as if you or she is still misunderstanding the quotation mark issue. It's not a massive criticism of either of you, just that it doesn't sound likely it'd be ok to do it that way in her main subject either.

I think that's all.

But she'll get through it. She's an adult and she is surrounded by adults who will treat her as one - they're not going to tick her off for the sake of it, they will explain.

If she's quoting directly she needs to use quotation marks, no matter what the subject. (And this is true for everything in life, not just academia). I'm a copy edit and I sometimes get authors who 'forget' to attribute other authors' work to them. You have to be really careful.

And all students should know that you can't copy the words of another author without quotes, and even with quotes she should not be copying the words of others to this large extent. That doesn't show she's learned anything at all!!

I may out myself here because I have this view on plagiarism and undergraduate students. In my view undergraduate students may not have a clue about a topic/ skills on how to write an essay and try to hide it by copying and pasting from someone else.

However, they are unable (most times) to commit the offence of plagiarism. Plagiarism involves the appropriation of someone else's work to present it as your own. Students at undergraduate level may be blame of misconduct (such as copying in an exam) but there is no way we can ask them to present original ideas.

I very much doubt this incident will have any importance on your daughter's life. You have to argue that she acknowledges her sources somewhere else, that she misunderstood the rules of referencing, but she was not trying to 'cheat' (in my opinion too, someone who is caught with a software such as turnitin has no idea about cheating). She may fail the topic since she does not understand the basics of how to present arguments in a University context, but nothing more.

Many of the persons dealing with 'plagiarism' cases have never published an original idea in their life, and don't understand the term themselves properly. It is not ppossible to predict the kind of treatment your daughter will have to suffer. It will come down to individuals dealing with this case. However, as I said, very unlikely to be too serious.

Again, I have never taken offence at the whole question mark issue, I have already told my daughter to look into this further and discuss with her tutor ASAP. I have tried to stress that 7 pieces of her work have been completed in this way and marked as ok.

I referred to a score in reply to someone having asked if she's struggling, but then seemed to be mocked for it.
I then have to read that I think this is all ok. Of course I'm going to be a little surprised by those comments because in my own head, neither could be further from the truth.

However, with respect, I will lose no sleep over those comments and will focus on the positivity that I have received from the majority, because that's probably what's needed here.

YY, sounds like a plan.

Best of luck to your DD.

It sounds like your daughter has been let down by her school if she doesn't understand the difference between quoting and summarising. I wonder if one of her teachers had been a bit confused and that's where she is getting this thing about primary and secondary sources from. Essentially if she is reporting what some has written using another author's words she uses quote marks but if she uses her own words she doesn't. It is sometimes difficult to make it sound like your own words - maybe she had difficulty there too. I admit I often did.

Anyway, good luck to her.

I kind of agree Camaleon. It hadn't occurred to me that the use of the word plagiarism is a problem.

I think we can agree that copying out a chunk of a textbook without attribution and passing it of as your own is dishonest, but as you say it doesn't involve claiming the work as original since nowhere in academic standards do we expect undergrads to exhibit original ideas (sometimes we get intimations of them in third years which is super-lovely and very exciting).

Also there is a problem here. Turnitin scores are laborious to trawl through. IME practice varies between depts and even between modules, and in a modular degree this may explain why Dizz's DD got inconsistent feedback. That isn't great. It is possible she has made the same error consistently and no one has picked it up before. If so and she has submitted a lot of work, whilst that doesn't excuse this error too it should be fed back to the School. Either we use Turnitin to the benefit of students to identify cock-ups early on, or we give them benefit of the doubt if cock-ups arise later on. But of course applying the rules inconsistently will result in sloppy practice. Just as some journals are badly edited.

In our case we have mandatory formative work in the first term which is basically an exercise in legal referencing. If after that they still screw up in summative assessments they can't say they were not given an opportunity to practice. But it only works for students who are all taking the same compulsory courses.

Hmmm, I disagree with chimney's assessment of why plagiarism is A Bad Thing. I'm training people in scholarship not to become lawyers - so if they don't know much law after they leave us, I don't feel implicated (law changes all the time anyway and all lawyers will tell you their law degree was pointless because they only ever use a tiny fraction of what they covered). If they see no reason not to pass off a chunk of someone else's article as their own work in an article they submit to a journal we've obviously screwed up badly

Oh dear, you've really misunderstood me, or I wasn't clear: I said if we were being pragmatic -- behind that is a whole lot of stuff I could have said but as I should have been writing an a book chapter, I kept it short & cynical.

Because actually, my fundamental, deeply held view is exactly that of scholarly and personal integrity. So we don't disagree. At all.

And my response to others is that, after the OP has had good advice about the procedures from several of us, my posts have been more general, on the problems of, as someone says, pursuing the baubles rather than the integrity of scholarship. (I too have failed a PhD because it was clearly not the candidate's own work).

So no posts "directed" at anyone it's really not always about you! but an interesting general discussion of the issues underlying academic misconduct. I still carry the shock of sitting on Senate Standing Committee over about 8 years and seeing the depths to which otherwise "respectable" "naice" young people would stoop.

The 'someone' who mentioned baubles over integrity was me. It would have been nice to have been correctly cited.

Polishes halo. Whistles innocently.

(I amjust stirring now by the way Dizz and Chimney quite obviously - as you were.)