Two UVA students in semester at sea program expelled, put off boat in Greece
 

I usually don't like parents meddling in a collegiate decision when their precious cargo has been caught cheating, but this seems like overkill.

University of Virginia students accused of plagiarism, expelled from program | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com

Whoa, she claims no one ever defined paraphrasing for her? I call bullshit. Almost every professor I know discussed plagiarism issues in depth at the start of a course, and the honest in academic work policy at my university was clearly printed on EVERY syllabus, as required by university policy. Furthermore, many of my profs emphasized that "when in doubt, cite." It's really too hard to have too many citations. Perhaps she didn't cite because she was ashamed that she used Wikipedia as an academic resource?

However, I don't agree with their procedure. Expulsion for one violation seems extreme.

Our policy reads:

And from the Office of Student Conduct here, elaborating on the process:

I like our method better; it gives students ample opportunity to learn from the experience without totally humiliating them and/or robbing them of further educational experience.

I can't really say if it's plagiarism unless I saw the context of her paper. I've written papers that likely look like source material before, but it hasn't been plagiarism but rather the wording is obvious. An example:

I'm writing a paper on the Third Reich for a European history class. Obviously some of this report will be done on the history of Adolph Hitler (Godwin!).

I write:
This is written without even consulting Wikipedia, from another source, but it's a very common and reasonable way to state where Hitler was born. If I happen to write a sentence on my own that's very similar or the same as a sentence from elsewhere, am I truly guilty of plagiarism?

According to reasonable people, no. According to the professor I never took a class with who would fail people for something as simple as having a period instead of a comma in a citation, yes. The most important thing is that your writing style is consistent from paper to paper.

Cheating is cheating. It is also very rampant in our colleges and universities. Cheating lowers the standards and demeans us all. Why on earth would you consult wikipedia for a college paper? In any event, a good student can make their case if there is a question regarding their work. Having a good track record establishes precedence.

That was my first thought. :rolleyes:

I'd have expelled her that, if not the questionable plagerism. (There are only so many ways to say the same thing.)

That's why I'd want to see the rest of her paper. If it was consistent with her writing, I wouldn't see it as reasonable grounds for expulsion.

I think this response seems pretty extreme, but I dont really know all the details...

as far as using wikipedia... I think its a good way to gain some general knowledge on a topic. for papers I have used it as a way to find other citable sources. if you scroll down to the end of the hitler article there are 10 different books that are referenced, find that book and use it as a source...

I did this quite frequently in university, and many profs I talked to agreed that a good Wikipedia article, with good citations, can be a jumping off point for research--but it shouldn't be what you cite. It should be the starting point.

Yeah, that about sums up the best use of Wikipedia for educational / paper research purposes.

Of course, let me tell you about the time I caught a student plagiarizing Wikipedia straight up, and claiming it as original work. I was a TA for a prof on campus, and she had me flag papers that got a grade that was atypical for the student who turned it in. In other words, I'd compare their paper grade with their grades on typical homeworks and midterms, and flag anyone that had a positive anomaly. So I get about 3, 4 hits. I google random sentences from each of the papers, and one of them was a straight word-for-word copy of a Wikipedia article.

She confessed to the crime, but if I remember correctly, the prof let her off with just a drop from the course. No failing grade, no mark on her record, nothing.

As for the story in the thread, by my judgment it sounds extreme, and I think they probably should be giving the student the benefit of the doubt in this case.

The problem is we don't enforce cheating standards enough. I have personally caught dozens of my fellow students cheating and plagiarizing and turned them in but to no avail. The professors and the administration are so scared of being sued. This tacit approval of cheating and dishonesty is a big disservice to the US colleges and universities.

As for Wikipedia, all my professors specifically and strictly forbade it and I agree with that policy. Are we that inept and lazy that we can no longer do research on our own?

I don't think it's extreme at all. She cheated. Maybe the expulsion of that student will serve as a warning and a wakeup call to the thousands of would-be cheaters who don't belong in college in the first place.

MSD was right, it's important to get writing style as a context by which you judge the grammar syntax. If it matches, then it may be more difficult to establish that it was plagiarism.

Still, I could think of worse places than Greece to be dropped off.

Agreed on every point. If you ask me, the behavior of the girl AND her father are both reprehensible, and they both should have known better. If that had been my daughter, I would have fully supported the actions of the school, and made sure that she understood that she was responsible for all of her actions. Oooh, she has to stay in school for another quarter. Big freakin' deal.

During my undergrad, a good friend of mine was permanently suspended for plagiarizing on one assignment. He was gone virtually overnight. There was zero tolerance for that, and frankly, I thought the enforcement was excellent (even if I felt bad for my friend--it was still his fault).

I think English majors are taught proper usage, but there was a story that came out just prior to this that claimed that other students are not taught proper citation and usage in these days of online research.

At any rate, the three phrases she used would have been considered "common usage" by my school. There were no words that were groundbreaking research in any way.

The difference would be, "Poppinjay, born in 1922, and a user of laudnum at theatrical events says there were no words that were groundbreaking research in any way" would be plagarism. The prior would not. In other words, there's parsing and there's plagarism.

I was an English major, but I was taught proper usage in high school, maybe even junior high. And if you ask me, college-bound students should know this crap, especially at a reputable place like U of Virgina. I really can't manage to think of any excuses for this.
Plagiarism has nothing to do with "groundbreaking research." It has to do with using words that were written by someone else, and claiming them to be your own. I have no tolerance for this kind of behavior, especially at the university level.

Yes, students should be taught proper usage, but they aren't. When I was a junior English major in college, we were required to tutor incoming Freshman on basics of writing research papers. It's part of the "Everybody Gets An A For Effort" problem.

At any rate, the words she used weren't even complete sentences. They weren't unique or special in any way. How few words in a row does it have to be to not be plagarism?

willravel, you're expelled. Pack up your shit. You're getting off in Athens. No, I mean you have to leave the ship in Athens.

Freely admitting stupidity:
If "looking out the window is an act of war" -(no idea for attribution)- thinking about anything you ever heard or read and spouting it elsewhere must resemble these "charges".

Every haiku
has already been written
is false, I believe.

The professor is the one with the problem.

Yes, clearly, Cyn. Is there some question about that?

And so it would be if Will were publishing this paper or turning it in for a grade. Something tells me he's not seeking academic notoriety with TFP forum posts, however ;)

Yeah, this is not TFP University here.

But certainly, the effect of (caught) plagiarism on one's online reputation is no less trivial than what happened to those girls' official records. You might not get kicked out of school for it around here, but it's not a terribly flattering behavior... I think we can all agree on that.

The effect of (catched) plagiarism on one's online reputation is no less trivial than what happened to those girls' official records. You might not get kicked out of school for it around here, but it's not a terribly flattering behavior. I think we can all agree on that!:)

Here is a related case:

Wikipedia text:
Plagiarized text?
This seems pretty clearly paraphrasing and plagiarism to me. What do you all think?


For those who want to know where it is from see the spoiler:

Spoiler:
Mc'Cain's recent speech on foreign policy.


Of course the true crime in all of this is that people are using wikipedia as a source!

lol... wiki is simply adorable!
... an annotated index with lots of images in the the public domain.
...also
...the scenario on board brings Milgram's experiment to mind
...and
...ahh...the power... to be judge and jury
...finally...
...why fight it? ...include plagiarism in the system...
...a "0" credit for plagiarism...
...at least someone did some research...lol

Little known fact: Martin Luther King is occasionally incorrectly referred to as "Doctor M.L.K."

He was permanently banned from the title as he was found plagiarizing his thesis.

It's 0400 EST. So I made the OP a picture.

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/a...imoffaboat.jpg

Maybe I'm a lone voice in the wilderness, but I think the UVA reaction was insane overkill.

I am a teacher, and no friend to cheaters or plagiarists among my students. And I have caught students doing so, and confronted them accordingly.

But at least in my experience as a student (college, grad school, rabbinical school), plagiarism is confined to text or ideas that are distinctive, or represent more than a few consecutive words in a phrase. Leaving aside for a moment the depressingly frequent use of wikipedia as a source, the three phrases for which this girl was expelled (not one of which is even a complete sentence) represent no style, content, or phrasing unique or distinctive to one author: they are mere factual notations, that could just as easily have been cribbed from the Encyclopedia Britannica articles on those events, or from any decent professor's lectures on the subjects.

If a student hands me an essay on Marie Curie, and it contains the short sentence, "Radium, atomic number 88, is an alkaline earth metal which is intensely radioactive;" I can't possibly see charging that student with plagiarism even if every third science textbook in America has the exact same sentence. Whereas, if the essay contained the sentence, "Radium, atomic number 88, was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie, the nineteenth-century scientific couple brought together-- ironically-- by a mutual interest in magnetism; but unfortunately, the alkaline earth metal proved intensely radioactive;" I would charge plagiarism. This latter sentence, while conveying the same information, does so in a very distinctive style, it appends additional content, and is cast in a very specific mode of phrasing. Although even in the first case, if the student handed me an essay with not one sentence, but a small paragraph of sentences similarly plain, dry, and factual, all drawn from a science textbook, I might well charge plagiarism also.

But, really, we're at a point where a girl can be expelled from college for borrowing an isolated clause of a sentence, conveying nothing but dry historical fact, for part of an assignment to summarize and synthesize a movie? How is that not just craziness? It's like firing a productive, long-term employee because they accidentally walked home with a mostly-worn-down pencil from work tucked in their pocket. For wholesale stealing of office supplies-- sure, fire them. But for a pencil? And not even a whole one?

I'm sorry, but in my book, judgment without tolerance is just petty tyranny.

At least they didn't make her walk the plank...

You know, I really love it when someone signs up to ressurect a dead thread with something that's essentially pure nonsense.

No really, I do love it. I get to go back and see some of the old faces and pretend, for just a second, that they're still around.

I know. I nearly felt threatened by Abaya until I checked the dates.

You guys have a strict definition of dead if 2 weeks without a post means dead.

Dear Shauk:

Welcome to 2010.

Sincerely,

Those of us who no longer live in 2008

plagiarism is necessary. progress implies it.

Wow didn't realize it was an old thread.

Anyways, using other people's ideas is not plagiarism. It's only when proper documentation of references is ignored does it implicitly suggest it's an idea or fact discovered directly by the author.

It's WAY too easy to plagiarize today, and measures to enforce it must be kept stringent.

One of my English professors had us blog about what we read because he felt the essay was dead in the Internet Age.

I'm guessing (professor) was more interested in what you think than in whose words you use to express it.

i never viewed plagiarism as a moral issue. i view it as a social convention: if you're writing academic stuff, be it low-wattage undergraduate stuff or advanced research pieces, there are certain rules. one set of rules involves citation. there's alot of arguments for them, most of which i think are stupid, frankly. the one i don't think stupid has to do with intellectual transparency--here's the tradition with respect to which this project operates, here are the reference points.

there's a real problem with the notion of "originality" in a critical essay. but that's the nature of the form--if there has to be an Authority that stands between a writer/researcher and what is actually of interest, then what much of the critique amounts to is a abstracting and rearranging elements pulled from the Authority. so nothing is "original" really. except the arrangement and suturing. but that seems to me good plagiarism, a recycling and a displacement rather than a copying---so an appropriation that makes the original do something other.

but this was a couple years ago about some hysterical over-reaction on the part of god knows who at uva to some rule breach. obviously these folk thought the plagiarism involves some Ethical Problem. i think that's ridiculous. at the same time, the student(s) obviously had talked to some sort of counsel and were outlining the only plausible defense against a plagiarism charge, which is that s/he/they hadn't understood the rules.

but better to know the rules exactly and violate them deliberately and some some conceptual purpose.

if i was going to go after a student for plagiarism, it'd be more about the intellectual laziness than the copying. i've had to do that before. but you really need to think about launching a formal procedure because you can get a student thrown out of school for it. but i digress.