I was grading the second batch of these papers when I came across one paper with a flawless introduction. I was very impressed then moved onto the next paragraph, only to discover that the style and tone were significantly different from those of the introduction. It was as though two different people wrote the two paragraphs. Out of curiosity, I Googled the introduction and found, to my dismay, that the words were taken directly from the author’s abstract in the journal publication that preceded its appearance in the edited volume that I assigned for the class. He had changed a few words here and there but the structure was exactly the sam. Now that I discovered the plagiarism, I had to do something about it...
Luckily, I had attended an academic honesty workshop last year, conducted by a faculty member in our department. I knew from this workshop that there is a process in place that doesn’t jump to punishment and discipline. First, there is a warning; second, there is penalty for the assignment. Each step increases in severity until it reaches expulsion, I believe. I contact the student about the incident, careful to avoid using the word plagiarism, and requested a meeting at my office to which the student responded quickly. I found the form, after doing some searching on the web, at an office I can’t recall right now (in Maggie Benston Centre) and prepared my documents before meeting with the student. I didn’t know what to expect. For all I knew, he may be defensive or angry...
When the student walked in, I knew from his expression that he was terrified. I calmed him down by asking how he was, how his midterm went earlier in the day. I brought out the paper and explained how I discovered that he used the words of the author without citation. I then asked him to tell me his story. He explained that he found the assignment difficult and he researched the paper and came across the author’s abstract. Since he wasn’t allowed to use quotations, he took parts of the abstract and changed some words, thinking that it is allowed. He simply didn’t know the “rules”.
I suspect that at moments like these, an instructor is left to either believe the story or disregard it as a lie with differing consequences in the disciplining process. It’s a strange moral dilemma that places the instructor and the student in a dance of suspicion: “is he lying?”... “is she buying it?” When it comes down to it, the assignment was difficult and the student very well may not have known what to do. I could picture him huddled over his computer trying to figure out this difficult reading, particularly as a student whose first language didn’t seem to be English, and trying to meet an assignment deadline. And he had no support. This was before I had conducted my writing exercise using Peter Elbow’s video. Despite my attempts at explaining the assignment several times and providing an example with one of my own key-term papers in class, the students were left to their own devices. It just doesn’t seem realistic to me for the situation to be pared down to either lie or truth.
Then an amazing thing happened in the meeting that caught me by surprise. The student confessed that he didn’t actually understand what he was writing, pointed to various parts of his own paper and asked: “What does this mean?” We talked about his writing process for assignments and I discovered that over the years he has developed a formula on how to summarize readings without fully understanding them. I suppose the formula had worked for him so far but this assignment exposed the cracks in his process. We discussed the meaning of the concepts in the article and I suggested trying a different writing process: to write in his own words first, much like free-writing, then revise what he has wrote.
At the end, we returned to the plagiarism question at hand. I asked him what he thinks should happen. He answered that he should fail the assignment at the very least; he knew that academic dishonesty was serious, even though he didn’t know he was partaking in it. I responded that I disagree with his assessment. I gave him a warning, asked him to redo the assignment without penalty, completed the form and kept the matter between the student and I (there was no indication on the form or anywhere that the instructor is obliged to report all incidents to the department). He was surprised and we talked more about the assignment and how he can approach it. We also chatted about graduate school as he was mildly interested in pursuing a Master’s degree.
So my first plagiarism case became a teaching opportunity, rather than discipline or punishment. The same student now approaches me in class (until then he was shy and hung at the far back of the classroom) to ask questions about the final paper, runs by his ideas with me through email and has expressed interest in taking my summer course. I guess a cynic would claim that he wants to take my course because he’s pegged me for an “easy” teacher, but I’d like to think that I gained his trust as an educator. In a way it is reciprocal: I showed him that I trusted the sincerity of his mistakes and gave him guidance instead of punishment, and now he is trusting me to be his teacher again. That to me has been one of the greatest awards so far in teaching. To win that trust---because it’s not a given, nor should it be---is more affirming than hollow positive comments on student evaluations.
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