Sonic The Hedgehog Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 I always felt like copying and pasting was pretty standard for most classes. That's not to say most people in the course would do it, but it also never felt uncommon for someone to say they had. Maybe the seriousness is lost on me due to that, because turning her in seems extreme to me.I'm not an advocate for plagiarism, and can't remember ever doing it after high school. I enjoy writing and simply find it easier to use my own words. But turning someone in over it seems harsh. I'd certainly be annoyed if that was someone's only contribution to a group effort, and I wouldn't include it, but I also wouldn't out them for it. The most I'd do is tell them to at least learn to paraphrase and not be stupid enough to just rip an entire page from the internet. I can understand taking a paragraph or two as a launching point for your own ideas, but trying to pass off an entire page of another person's work is foolish. I think once she saw how quickly you found out it was plagiarized then she'd realize that kind of thing wouldn't pass by a professor either, and would start taking future assignments more seriously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addien Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 Yeah I def don't think she should get some free pass or something, but you should decide to turn her in based on how your conversation with her goes. Does she acknowledge that she did something wrong, or is she in deep denial? Etc. It seems like it would be the courteous thing to do to give her a heads up first about your thoughts on her work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honey Badger Posted August 12, 2011 Author Share Posted August 12, 2011 I emailed the professor so it'll be up to him. If no response, I'll live and let live. If he decides to push it, I'll forward him the emails and leave it at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asarlai Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 Plagarism: Yea or Nay? Nay! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monday Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 I emailed the professor so it'll be up to him. If no response, I'll live and let live. If he decides to push it, I'll forward him the emails and leave it at that.Really? Did you even talk to this woman first? Look her in the eye and let her know that you were turning her in and why? Seems like kind of a wiener move to me. Just sayin'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salome the Persian Witch Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 The wiener move is handing in plagiarized work for a group project the night before. IMHO, it's not his responsibility to shield her from her consequences. It's for the prof. to figure out what to do and how to proceed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monday Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 The plagiarism was an even bigger wiener move, true, but it doesn't diminish the wieneriness of what HB did afterward. Shielding from the consequences is one thing, but tattling (for lack of a better word) without talking to the woman first is another. Again assuming HB didn't talk to her first. HB, did you at least CC the plagiarizer on the email to the prof?It's just not the route I would have taken. If I have a problem with someone or something someone does, I go to the source. Honey Badger took the time to go around polling other students and every Tom, Dick and Harry on the internet but couldn't muster the courage to ask the offending party what's up? C'mon. That being said, it's crummy the other student put HB in that position in the first place. Really, horribly, remarkably crummy.edit- removed an accidental unrelated quote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addien Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 Let's ask ourselves what Ned Stark would do (seriously). You know he'd have told her beforehand that he was going to discuss the plagiarism issue with the professor, to at least give her a chance to respond. That doesn't absolve her from her guilt, but there may be other issues (possibly cultural, or a simple misunderstanding) at hand that the OP may not be aware of. Of course, Ned Stark got beheaded, so perhaps that isn't the morally correct thing to do. Is the woman in question particularly Cersei-like? ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monday Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 WWNSD? Somebody needs to start making these bracelets immediately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addien Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 WWNSD? Somebody needs to start making these bracelets immediately.I mean, you'd almost certainly get fucked over if you lived your life like that, but at least you'd know you were making honorable choices. Just don't accept any thankless administrative positions for your old drinking buddy turned monarch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inigima Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 If the prof reports her for academic dishonesty, will it be clear that it was HB that turned her in? I'm not sure how the information was handled exactly. If he talked to her, and then turned her in, it definitely would have.While my instinct was CH's approach, academic dishonesty is pretty much the capital crime of the academic world. This is not a small deal and I can't really fault HB for going that route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evanesco75 Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 I mean, you'd almost certainly get fucked over if you lived your life like that, but at least you'd know you were making honorable choices. Just don't accept any thankless administrative positions for your old drinking buddy turned monarch. :thumbsup: This has happened to me during my last semester of my Masters where I was assigned a group project with 2 other students. They lifted everything they contri*uted from elsewhere (I didn't know they had done) and our professor caught it. She was determined to fail us all which would've completely fucked my GPA and perhaps necessitated repeating the course in question. It was a nightmare; I pled my case with my professor who had a pretty decent opinion of and rapport with me as a fairly good student for years prior. Still, she was strict as hell. She told me she was inclined towards me telling the truth, *ut she wouldn't exempt me unless they confessed that I'd had nothing to do with it (and that all the original work was mine).Long-short, there were tears, accusations, pleading and shaming till they finally consented, and I passed. I swear I've seldom hated anyone as intensely as I did them at that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addien Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 If the prof reports her for academic dishonesty, will it be clear that it was HB that turned her in? I'm not sure how the information was handled exactly. If he talked to her, and then turned her in, it definitely would have.While my instinct was CH's approach, academic dishonesty is pretty much the capital crime of the academic world. This is not a small deal and I can't really fault HB for going that route.Yeah, but if she's fresh off the boat from China (I don't know that, just taking from the OP that she's an international student), despite the fact that she should be aware about the standards of academic integrity in the US, the fact is that in Chinese university life essentially copying and pasting other peoples' words isn't seen as a big deal, particularly w/r/t what this assignment sounds like (a group project rather than a formal report?) The concept of plagiarism is totally different. That doesn't absolve her, or excuse her. Yes, she should know that American academic discourse is totally different. With that said, sometimes you don't even know what you're supposed to know - it might not even occur to her that there would be a difference, or perhaps her advisors or the international-student academic advisors have been remiss in stressing the point during orientation. The point is, we don't know if she knowingly committed plagiarism or not. I suppose the school's ethics board will give her a fair evaluation with her background in mind, but it seems like it could be a really shitty welcome to America to not at least be given a heads up when you didn't even know that you fucked up. I guess it sounds like I'm making excuses for her? It's totally possible she knew what she was doing and was fucking over the group on purpose! Sorry if it sounds like I have an axe to grind, I just know more than a few Korean university students here who were totally perplexed by the differences between Korean academic writing and US academic writing (to say nothing of the many, many cultural differences that no guidebook can prepare you for.) This doesn't absolve them, either! I guess I hope this young woman isn't suspended if she was caught unawares or didn't realize that it was plagiarism in the context of this project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addien Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 :thumbsup: This has happened to me during my last semester of my Masters where I was assigned a group project with 2 other students. They lifted everything they contri*uted from elsewhere (I didn't know they had done) and our professor caught it. She was determined to fail us all which would've completely fucked my GPA and perhaps necessitated repeating the course in question. It was a nightmare; I pled my case with my professor who had a pretty decent opinion of and rapport with me as a fairly good student for years prior. Still, she was strict as hell. She told me she was inclined towards me telling the truth, *ut she wouldn't exempt me unless they confessed that I'd had nothing to do with it (and that all the original work was mine).Long-short, there were tears, accusations, pleading and shaming till they finally consented, and I passed. I swear I've seldom hated anyone as intensely as I did them at that point.Wow. Yeah, there's no excuse for that, especially in graduate-level work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evanesco75 Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 The worst thing was the 2 on 1 factor. They were mates and I was the odd one out. Really fucked up when all 3 individuals in the room know the truth, yet the majority denies it.Oh, well. I survived :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naz Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 Agree with everything Monday said. As a college teacher, I realize that I'm teaching adults, not children and I'd rather students sort out problems themselves before coming to the professor. With respect to plagiarism and other things that are "wrong" in college education, I'm all for a bit of self-policing before than strict discipline. I understand that the person who plagiarized was warned repeatedly about contributing to the assignment, but that doesn't count as taking her to task for the act of plagiarizing itself. That should have been discussed among the group members as a sort of confrontation well before reporting her to the professor.If this girl was confronted by her group members, then yeah, there's a possibility it won't do anything but there's also a possibility she might learn a lesson and think twice before jeopardizing a group project again. The next time she plagiarizes, she'll do it with her own individual work and will likely get in trouble all on her own, without the need for HB's tattling on her.One of the things I can't stand as a teacher is when you confront students with a problem and they blurt out that "so and so did it too", or that "everybody else is doing it and not getting in trouble". That might be ok for high school, but not for college, sorry. My response to them is to focus on their own work and let me deal with what everyone else is doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honey Badger Posted August 12, 2011 Author Share Posted August 12, 2011 I won't reply directly to posts since there's a wide range of them, but I'll speak generally.For those saying I should have confronted her first, I considered it, but felt that in most situations I would have let her off the hook and given her a stern warning. I know I wouldn't have wanted to not report it, as that would have been condoning it. Emailing the teacher and leaving it as his decision ended up being the best choice for me. Not reporting it would have been waffling and denying the fact that I was okay with plagiarism, which is not the case. I see many posts in here saying "I don't condone plagiarism ... but I do condone it." Read between the lines; using the word "but" means you are okay with it. You are either willing to report it or you are not. I do thank everyone for their opinions, I did take it all to heart. For anyone who disagrees with the decision, just look at the wide variety of opinions on the matter (coworkers and friends and family were the same way). There was never a clean way to do this. If it means anything, I would have felt terrible letting her off the hook, but I will feel equally bad if this ends up kicking her out of school. I was never going to feel "good" about this, but I had to put that feeling aside. Thanks for sharing in my horrible guilt-ridden week! :wacko: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blaine Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 If she's too goddamn lazy to do her own work to help the group out, you owe her nothing. Turn her in.Snitches get stitches, yo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monday Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 WWNSD?"If you would take a man's life turn a cheater in for plagarism, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you can not do that, then perhaps the men does not deserve to die person does not deserve to be turned in."Sorry. Couldn't help myself. I'll stop now. :leaving: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honey Badger Posted August 12, 2011 Author Share Posted August 12, 2011 Just to bring it back to the books, I didn't want to pull a Ned Stark because I don't believe the person deserves special treatment for being nice. An asshole who committed plagiarism deserves the exact same justice and "fair trial" as someone who is sweet and balls up and cries when confronted for plagiarism. Also, I have no problem with her facing her accuser if it came to that.Oh god, did I just pull a Stannis Baratheon? Yikes!/grinds teeth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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