A while ago I had a student miss a class and she didn't email me or come talk to me about missing it. So I was really surprised when she submitted a data form for the class she didn't attend. I took a closer look and it was a xeroxed copy of her lab partner's data form. She just scribbled out his name and wrote in hers.
At first I wasn't sure how to deal with her because I had never had that happen before. So when she was done with the lab I took her outside and showed her the data form and told her "This is plagiarism and I can't accept this data form. I don't want to have to report you to the Aggie Honor Code Office."
For those of you that aren't Aggies, we at Texas A&M have an honor code that all students must abide by:
"An Aggie does not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do."
The Honor Code Office (or Academic Integrity Office) handles cases of cheating and plagiarism, and students can be expelled for plagiarism depending on the severity.
Her response to my statement was "Oh my gosh, I didn't think about it that way! I'm so sorry, thank you for letting me know."
In my head I'm thinking "How else would you think about it? You took your partner's data form, xeroxed it, and tried to pass it off as your own. That's the scenario definition of plagiarism."
Anyhow, I give my students the opportunity to complete extra credit by finding scientific articles and writing a one page summary of the article. I reminded her of the opportunity and said that she can make up the points that way.
She came by my office 5 minutes to the deadline and handed me a stack of papers, along with her Fandango ticket to see African Cats, and then left. A few minutes after she left I looked through the papers to find:
- a scientific article on coral reefs (NOT a summary, just the article)
- a scientific article on harmful algal blooms (again, NOT a summary, just the article)
- an incomplete google docs printout of what looks to be a summary on beached oiled seabird surveys (nothing related to the aforementioned articles).
Confused, I emailed her asking if she misunderstood the assignment or if there was a mix up. She emailed back about a half hour later saying "Oh my goodness, I gave you the wrong stuff! I already left town for the weekend, can I email them to you?"
I said yes she can email it. If it's a simple mix up I have no problem giving her the opportunity to rectify the situation.
This morning I wake up to no email from her. So I emailed her this morning saying "I need your summaries (SUMMARIES, not the articles, but please include a works cited of the articles you summarized) via email by 5 pm today. In fairness to those students that turned theirs in on time, after 5 pm, your submission will be considered void and won't count as extra credit."
In my head I'm thinking, "If someone wants to go from a C to a B or a B to an A that badly, if they know they did something wrong and asked for an opportunity to correct their mistake, they would do so ASAP."
It's now 11 pm and I haven't even heard a "Sorry, I couldn't get to my email, here's my stuff." Obviously, she doesn't care enough. And I don't care enough to hear excuses.
The other girl from yesterday finally submitted her extra credit summaries, which she did as a text file and formatted it so that half of the summary was red and italicized and overall formatted weirdly. One was okay, the other was only half a page and didn't include a works cited.
I'm sorry, but for a summary, if I don't have some way of knowing what you summarized, how do I know whether or not what you wrote was plagiarized? Or completely bullshitted and made up?
Something similar came from the lab partner of the would-be plagiarizer. He submitted one, but didn't give a works cited. Fortunately there was still time until the deadline and I told him he needed to give me his works cited. He then submitted another summary, only this one was half a page because he put his works cited on the same page as the summary and took up about a quarter of the page with his heading.
Some students are not going to be happy with their grades. And quite honestly I don't care because they will be in the minority.
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ReplyDelete*I deleted my first comment because I had a stupid grammatical error. My own personal face-palm!*
ReplyDeleteMan, this makes me wary of graduate schools requiring me to teach low level undergraduate classes. I'm really bad at giving people the benefit of the doubt, and, judging by my own behavior in my early college years, I'd be willing to bet that all of these students (especially the "Oh my goodness, I've already gone out of town" girl who simultaneously checks into Foursquare at a bar down the street) are trying to manipulate you. It seems like the work you ask of them is fair and relevant, and any grade they're earning is justly deserved. Kudos to you for handling such inanity professionally. I'd be trolling their Twitter and Facebook accounts to confirm my loss of faith in the youth of tomorrow.
Hehe.
ReplyDeleteWell it's not required of me in the sense that I won't be able to graduate without having taught an undergrad class. It's required in the sense that I want to have a steady paycheck while not doing research because my lab is in Galveston and I'm in College Station taking classes. After this semester I'm done teaching, thank god.
I try to give people the benefit of a doubt, if a student actually tried to do something correctly. But really for some reason the spring semester brings more inanity than the fall.
This past year I've been met with a lot of situations that have me groaning about the future of education and the people that will be running businesses and governments. But I suppose my next blog post will be about the few people who make teaching worthwhile, and gave me hope that not all is lost.
Overall it's been a good learning experience for me to not be a doormat.
sometimes i wonder how people even got into college. haha :)
ReplyDeleteI've been asking myself that question allllllll year long.
ReplyDelete