Preventing and Handling Plagiarism in English Classes

Addressing Specific Cases of Plagiarism

First, try to distinguish between inadvertent plagiarism (where the student doesn’t know how to use sources effectively and ethically) and deliberate plagiarism (where the student knowingly copies something into her essay and pretends it is her words, her ideas).

If you do have proof (you found the plagiarized portions), you can tell the student what he did was plagiarism and handle it according to the section titled What you can do.

If you do not have proof of plagiarism, do not boldly accuse the student of plagiarism. One education instructor relays the story of a student who came to her office weeping because an instructor had written on her paper, “These words are too big for you. You’ve plagiarized.” The student hadn’t plagiarized and the instructor’s accusation was out of line, bordering on overt prejudice in this instance.

If you do not have proof, but you suspect plagiarism, here are some ideas:

• Say/write to the student: “You’ve obviously used some sources in this paper, but you are not citing them correctly, which puts you at risk of plagiarism. I’d like you to bring the paper and the source(s) you used to my office and I’ll help you with citation skills.”
• Talk to the student one-on-one and ask the student about the ideas in the paper. If he/she can’t explain the ideas, express your concern that these are not his/her ideas, and require the student to turn in a new draft.
• Take the sample of suspected plagiarism and a sample of what you know to be the student’s actual writing. Talk to the student about the differences that you notice and ask the student to explain the differences. It may be a matter of a student (innocently or not) getting a friend’s help.

Even if you do not have proof, you can refuse to accept a paper if you strongly suspect plagiarism. See the next section about what you can do.

Preventing and Handling Plagiarism in English Classes

What you can do

According to Highline’s Policy on Plagiarism, you cannot tell the student you will fail her for the whole course because of plagiarizing one assignment. You can:

give the student a 0.0 for the assignment. (This may cause the student to fail the course, which is fine: that is within the bounds of the policy.)
refuse to accept the paper and require that the student submit a new paper in order to receive a grade for that assignment.
We strongly advise that you fill out the Academic Dishonesty Report or write a letter to the student documenting the plagiarism and explaining the consequences. The report or letter can impress the student with the serious and formal nature of plagiarism. By cc-ing others, you can create a clear paper trail, so that if the incident becomes more involved, the coordinator and division chair are already informed.

If you’d like to write a letter instead of or in addition to the report, here are some samples:

Sample letter 1 — proof and rewrite request
Sample letter 2 — proof and zero for assignment
Sample letter 3 — no proof and rewrite request

You can just copy one of these samples, change the names and description. You should cc the writing department coordinator, or the division chair — again, in case it becomes more involved.

If you send in the report, Toni Castro places documentation about the student in the system — If Toni gets more than one report about a given student, her office will take action.

You don’t need to have to have solid proof (finding a copy on the internet) in order to refuse to grade an assignment because of suspected plagiarism. We advise you discuss the matter with the student and that you write a letter laying out the particulars of the assignment and the discrepancies in the student work. In most cases, the student will admit to plagiarism or agree to submit another paper.

In rare cases, a student may vehemently deny plagiarizing and refuse to submit another paper or accept a 0.0 grade for the assignment — at the same time, you are very sure it’s plagiarized but you don’t have proof. There is a procedure available if the student denies that he has plagiarized and you don’t have hard evidence (notice emphasis added below –other writing teachers will judge the paper with samples of the student’s actual writing):

1. Complete a Report of Academic Dishonesty form; include or attach evidence. In the case of plagiarism the strongest evidence is the plagiarized source. Other evidence such as the opinions of experts (your colleagues) can also be sufficient.
2. Student Judicial Affairs administrator will review documents and schedule appt. to meet with faculty member and the accused student individually to fact find and gather evidence. Faculty member will be expected to provide convincing evidence that proves the student has plagiarized.
3. The sanctions imposed are decided upon by the SJA administrator/VP after consulting with faculty, student and reviewing facts and evidence presented. Remember that students have rights including the right to procedural due process. Students should be informed that they have the right to appeal to the discipline committee if the student is not satisfied with the sanctions imposed through the formal hearing between the student and SJA administrator.
4. If the student is placed on probation, suspension or expelled from the college, it will become part of student’s record. In some cases, a decision may be made that the record is sealed upon graduation if there are no further violations.

See Student Rights and Responsibilities for full policy on plagiarism.

Preventing and Handling Plagiarism in English Classes

Finding proof of plagiarism

The following will help you identify plagiarism cases in your classes.

• Go with your gut instinct. If you are suddenly reading a paper in which the diction and rhetorical feel to the sentences doesn’t fit with what you’ve received from the student, trust yourself.
• Use Google search — this takes 10 seconds to do!!! Go to www.google.com, click on Advanced Search and in the box marked Find exact phrase, type out a phrase from the paper. Try a couple different phrases from the paper, if the first one produces no hits.

If you can’t find proof, this does NOT mean you have to accept the paper. See the next section on addressing specific cases of plagiarism.

Creating plagiarism-proof writing assignments

No assignment is plagiarism-proof, but you can reduce the frequency of plagiarism with a good assignment. Avoid giving cliched or generic writing assignments because it is easy to find an example on the internet and students pass around essays about these topics: “Write about a change in your life.” “Write about a learning experience.” “Write about gender roles in your culture.” “For/Against Gun Control or Abortion.” “Write a persuasive essay on an issue that interests you.”

Use assignments that ask students to respond to readings from your class in a particular way. Alter the readings and/or the approach to the assignment each quarter. Examples:

• Summarize Smith’s point about life changes and apply what he says to an experience in your own life.
• After we write a group summary of Mike Rose’s essay about education, you’ll need to paraphrase one of his ideas and describe a personal experience that you faced that responds to his ideas.

Make sure that you work with students on how to use sources ethically and effectively with their own writing. Because of lack of training or cultural differences, students may not know how to use sources in a way that avoids plagiarism.

Examine the difficulty of your assignments: Are you asking students to do something that might be too difficult for your course level and/or not adequately preparing them for the task? Should you include more journaling, prewriting and drafting activities to prevent the confusion –>panic –>plagiarism connection?

See other tips on preventing plagiarism before it happens.