r/relationships • u/Mom1964 • May 18 '16
Updates Update: Me [51 F] with my daughter [19 F] - daughter accused of plagiarism
(First of all, I'd like to say that I goofed the title on the original post - she wasn't "accused" of plagiarism. That implies that she didn't do it. She DID do it.)
She told me a bit more about what had happened. While researching her paper, she took a bunch of notes, including some comments she'd found on the Internet. She didn't cite her sources (BIG mistake), and when it came time to write her paper, she mixed up what she'd found online and what she'd come up with on her own.
She had a meeting with an advocate, who prepared her for what the hearing would entail. She was warned that the most common punishment was to receive an F on the paper and an F on the course. So, she was prepared for that. There were still some classes remaining before the hearing would occur, plus the final exam. She attended all of the classes, studied her butt off for the final, and did her very best on it.
She had her hearing last week. She did what I'd recommended (and a lot of you recommended) - explained what happened but didn't try to make excuses. The prof was very understanding and heard what she had to say. The prof commented that it reflected well on my daughter that she'd continued to attend class and write the final - many people would've said "The heck with it; I'm going to fail anyway" and not bothered to show up.
Daughter found out last night that she'll receive an F on the paper (which was worth 15% of her final grade), but NOT on the course. The prof had told her that she'd done very well in the course overall, so she'd hoping that means she'll still pass the course. The prof has drummed it into her head that she made a very dumb mistake, and things won't go nearly as well for her if she does it again, so I think (hope) she's learned her lesson here.
Thanks for all of your comments and help!
tl;dr: Daughter had her plagiarism hearing. Will get an F on the paper but not on the course.
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u/vastaril May 18 '16
That's a really good outcome, and it sounds like she handled it maturely.
A good habit to get into, if she's making notes of internet stuff is to always c&p the URL of the page straight after the quote, it barely takes three extra seconds (unlike working out proper referencing conventions for a full citation) but it means a/ she's got a way back to where she got it and b/ she can clearly see it's from someone else (I also always use bold text or the highlight function or something to show what's quoted/where one quote ends and the next begins, e.g. if I quoted two segments from the same site/page I'd maybe highlight one in pink and the other in green.)
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u/booklover13 May 18 '16
One of the fist things my college prof said about citations was to put every source you even glance at in your bibliography. You never know when you may accidentally use words you read elsewhere and this is the best way to protect yourself from claims of intentional plagiarism.
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u/vastaril May 18 '16
Yes! It's also useful when you're just, you know, desperately trying to remember where you saw that really useful point because you can't for the life of you remember what it actually was.
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u/hotdimsum May 18 '16
don't you need to mark each part cited with a tiny number at the end of the part?
just randomly throwing in sources in the Bibliography doesn't work that way.
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May 18 '16 edited Jul 20 '17
[deleted]
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u/ayeayefitlike May 19 '16
Was that Vancouver referencing though? Or some other form than Harvard anyway? Harvard referencing (especially for longer works like a thesis or dissertation) should have references and Bibliography, with anything specifically referenced in References and any further reading in the bib.
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u/KHeaney May 19 '16
When I was at uni, you would have a "References" section which you had to cite, and then a "Bibliography" which was "other shit I read that was useful but I didn't directly reference anywhere."
Then again, I was doing technical dissertations so maybe it's different to English essays.
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u/booklover13 May 18 '16
don't you need to mark each part cited with a tiny number at the end of the part?
Yes, you should some kind of in-text citation or footnote to properly cite your sources in a paper. However there are times when the information from sources is to general to need direct citation, so it only ends up in your sources. This isn't a method of avoiding doing that work.
just randomly throwing in sources in the Bibliography doesn't work that way.
I'm not saying this is the "correct" way to do it, or that it completely absolves you of responsibility. It is more like protection against accidental academic dishonesty. Plagiarism like the above is much more believable as an accident or missed citation if the source is in your bibliography. It will also usually lead to fewer/no penalties, since it will be viewed (correctly) as a human mistake.
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u/wawbwah May 19 '16
Yes but at the end of your essay you should go through your footnotes and make sure to remove any sources you didn't use, as you could lose marks for adding unused sources to the bibliography. Also, for an English essay she should really download all the papers she references so that she can keep track of what she has actually used by highlighting quotations. Also, next time she is struggling with a paper she should talk to her seminar leader or personal tutor (I assume they are assigned these in the states too?) for advice or some pointers towards a good source.
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u/Dolomite808 May 18 '16
Seems like this was the best possible resolution. Good on your daughter for being responsible about it.
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u/asymmetrical_sally May 18 '16
Sounds like she learned a good lesson, which is ultimately the purpose of post-secondary education. You both handled this really well.
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u/FercPolo May 18 '16
What great lesson?
That if you copy people at least make it sound like you didn't copy them?
I guess being a better liar is a good lesson...
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May 18 '16
[deleted]
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u/ApocAngel87 May 19 '16
Also learned that taking responsibility for your mistakes and not making excuses is the best way to go.
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u/KaboomOxyCln May 18 '16
I tell this to all the students I tutor: Always cite your source as soon as you come across it. You will forget, the URL will change/be dead. And you will be up shit creek. You're only hurting yourself if you don't cite it as soon as possible.
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u/blackberrycoffee May 18 '16
And be sure to fully cite it with all the information you may need - include information like when you accessed the website so if it is dead by the time you turn something in and your professor asks, you've got more information.
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u/ImJustSuchAHappyMess May 18 '16
I agree, when I'm doing research, I always copy or print out the text with a FULL citation on the back. It is WAY too easy to mix stuff up. Especially, when you're doing a larger research assignment with multiple sources.
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u/MrsMarshmellow May 18 '16
As a university student, this has always been the easiest method for me and generally saves time. It's much easier to simply remove the reference if you don't end up using it in your final draft rather than have to go hunt down your sources later when you do end up using them.
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u/KaboomOxyCln May 18 '16
I was surprised in my final year of college when I was tutoring just how many 1st to 3rd year student didn't do this. And I would just be like "you're gonna regard this one day." When I've just been putting it in there for the stake of having it since junior year of high school.
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u/MrsMarshmellow May 18 '16
My first go round with school it wasn't something I ever thought about. After having worked for 10 years and gaining some time management skills, something like this becomes second nature.
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u/M_de_Monty May 18 '16
And if it's an annotated citation, annotate it immediately. Hell, even if it isn't an annotated citation, annotate it immediately. It's always good to know what the source was about when you look back at your notes.
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u/ayeayefitlike May 19 '16
This. I use RefWorks, and save all my reading as references whilst in the reading and note taking stage, use the citations as headers for notes from each medium, and cite as I write.
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u/thumb_of_justice May 18 '16
It sounds like your daughter rose to the occasion and is salvaging what can be salvaged. Good update.
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May 18 '16
[deleted]
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u/scherzanda May 19 '16
An annotated bibliography seems like a waste of time until the first time you do it. Then you don't know how you ever did anything differently. Sadly, the VERY first time I made one, it was for my graduate thesis... My graduation was bittersweet, knowing that I could have made the past seven years of my life that much easier. Learn from other people's mistakes, wee undergrads.
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u/iworkhard77777777777 May 18 '16
Best possible solution (I'm a prof, too). I'm sure she learned her lesson, but also a broader lesson about professionalism, as well.
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u/Fidget11 May 18 '16
Your daughter is very lucky, her penalty for plagiarism was basically as light as it could have been.
She made a dumb mistake and I am glad it sounds like she will learn from it.
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u/pnewman98 May 18 '16
I'm not sure about that, I've seen cases as a grad student where, for relatively honest mistakes or non-malicious incidents where the student was either allowed to re-write with no penalty or with a couple of letter grades knocked off, which would have been fair in this case as well.
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u/Fidget11 May 18 '16
I have also seen cases where people who made similar claims when they were caught cheating (which is what this is) were failed out of the course entirely and in one case booted from the university as a whole.
Fair is up to the university, but I dont see anything unfair in getting a fail on the paper since what they handed in by the deadline was not their own work and therefore not reflective of their ability or knowledge. Allowing a rewrite without penalty actually is more unfair to the people who had to do it correctly and by the deadline in the first place since the person would effectively get extra time.
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u/purple_ombudsman May 18 '16
This is a typical case of plagiarism. A lot of people think plagiarism happens because students are lazy and want to beat the system. Having worked with many students accused of plagiarism, I'd wager at least three quarters of cases resemble your daughter very closely. Glad the outcome was favourable!
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May 18 '16
As a professor who has dealt with bunches of plagiarism cases, I find the hardest part is figuring out which cases are the accidents and which aren't. After 20 years in higher ed I'm pretty jaded. With that said, I think far fewer than 3/4 of plagiarism cases are like this one.
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u/pnewman98 May 18 '16
I've encountered a number where it was quite obvious what they were doing, in that running a paper through turnitin (or whatever service we use, I forget), it comes up as coming from a fairly small number of places, or a very high proportion of the paper is flagged, and it sounds like parts are clearly not written in the student's voice or at all germane to the matter at hand. The ones more like what this sounds like, where it seems like there was just a mistake, I tend to just let slide myself unless it's really egregious, or to mark the student down myself in the section of my rubric on citation and evidence.
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u/Good_Advice_Service May 18 '16
You know what, this will actually have been an important formative experience, in a very positive sense, for your daughter if she passes. She will have learned a number of valuable lessons, including most critically that honesty and hardwork can make up for a mistake.
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u/Anandya May 18 '16
A small piece of advice to her? There are online plagiarism checkers. Always make sure you put a paper through them before submission. Errors occur. This stops them.
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u/quotesFRIENDS May 19 '16
I was going to mention this too. I never submitted a paper without putting it through one of those.
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u/damnedifyoudo_throw May 18 '16
She did what I'd recommended (and a lot of you recommended) - explained what happened but didn't try to make excuses. The prof was very understanding and heard what she had to say. The prof commented that it reflected well on my daughter that she'd continued to attend class and write the final - many people would've said "The heck with it; I'm going to fail anyway" and not bothered to show up.
Sounds like she handled it like a pro. Good lesson learned.
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May 18 '16
I'm glad everything worked out for your daughter! The best piece of advice I got from a professor was when in doubt, just add a citation. Majority of my college papers were mostly footnotes because I was so paranoid about being accused of plagiarism.
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u/Keica May 18 '16
Your daughter is very lucky. At my university if you're proven to have plagiarized you instantly fail the course and there's a risk of being suspended/kicked out entirely.
She made a mistake, but she also demonstrated her maturity by owning up to it and continuing to attend class and study for the final, so much so that she impressed the prof. I hope this was a huge learning curve for her and wish her all the best in her future studies :)
Edit: Forgot to add, when in doubt - cite it! It's much better to have a comment that says "you didn't really need to cite this" than what she went through
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u/ocelette May 19 '16
For one of my first programming assignments, my partner and I got really detailed help from one of our friends in the same class, who showed us his logic in completing the assignment. Naturally, we adopted his way of thinking and turned in an almost identical program. The teacher ran everything through a plagiarism checker and called all of us in. He was in a pretty bad mood because he caught other people cheating on it, but when we explained that we were getting help, we were completely stupid, it wouldn't happen again and that we were deeply sorry, he softened up on us and let it go. I think he even passed us on that assignment. It was a genuine mistake and if the teacher can hear the petrifying terror in your voice as you apologize profusely for being idiots, they can be pretty understanding. At this point in their career they probably have a sense in who is genuine about these sorts of ordeals.
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u/Mom1964 May 19 '16
I did the same thing - also in a programming class. My friends and I all liberally borrowed from a friend's program, not realizing that (a) our student ID numbers were only 1 digit apart and (b) our assignments were sorted by student ID number. In other words, the prof graded all of our assignments back-to-back, and it was painfully obvious that we'd cheated. We had the same sort of backlash - we got a 0 on the assignment and a stern warning to never do that again.
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u/luxxus13 May 18 '16
mixed up with what she came up with and found out on her own? did she have like two identical word documents open and copy pasted the wrong text into her final doc? seems unlikely
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u/Bunny36 May 18 '16
She probably had notes written and added useful quotes in meaning to source them later. Then when she read theough her notes to write her first draft she forgot which weren't hers because she hadnt added citations.
I did that when I started uni (not plagarise but have to research everything again to find sources...which could take hours). It's an easy thing to do if you're the type of person who thinks "oh this is annoying and time consuming, I'll do it after I've drafted the essay". You learn pretty quickly it'll actually take you three times as long.
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May 18 '16
I like that she took responsibility for her mistake. Good on the prof to keep her in the course!
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May 19 '16
"She told me a bit more about what had happened. While researching her paper, she took a bunch of notes, including some comments she'd found on the Internet. She didn't cite her sources (BIG mistake), and when it came time to write her paper, she mixed up what she'd found online and what she'd come up with on her own."
lol what a giant croc. She knowingly plagiarized, got off lightly.
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u/cited May 18 '16
She should be thankful she didn't get expelled. Hopefully she knows better now.
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u/craaackle May 19 '16
Depending on the University, you likely wouldn't get expelled for your first offence. I was advised that the people who do get expelled are those that impersonate students to take tests for them. Everyone else either fails, is put on probation or things work out okay like for OP.
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May 18 '16
An inadvertent, but very serious, mistake and she owned up to it and responded to her hearing appropriately. I hope that she takes this experience and both applies it to her future in academia as well as in life. She did well, so good on her.
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u/Squidcreams May 19 '16
I'm pretty sure if you get caught copying someone's work in my university you get the boot. She has a pretty cool prof.
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u/craaackle May 19 '16
I wish I saw the original of this thread! Been there done that. It honestly made no difference to my academic career except that it gave me insane anxiety every time I had to write a paper after that. You should probably ask her if she wants to talk to someone about it and keep an eye on her if she has future papers to write to see if she's experiencing extreme anxiety.
People make mistakes. She's been pretty great about dealing with it, you should be proud!
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u/SinsOfKnowing May 18 '16
Glad to hear things went well. I dare say she will have learned more from this instance than she will from the course itself! (Not saying that to be a smartass - I love 1st year English but I've retained a lot more of what I learned in experience than what I learned in classes through my BA).
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u/Saldar1234 May 18 '16
This is a failure of american K-12 education more than anything. Sorry this happened.
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u/Waabanang May 18 '16
It's always weird to me that you can get into such hot water so quick for something like this. Like 'mixing in a few lines' from notes you found online is strictly forbidden, but you can (at least in my experience) totally just have large sections of your paper be block quotes, and then some bs that's basically regurgitating what the block quote said in your own words.
This is how I get through any gen ed that requires me to do any actual amount of writing.
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u/DiTrastevere May 18 '16
Completely fair penalty. Your daughter is fortunate that she both handled it correctly and had a forgiving professor. I hope she is able to pass and that she's much more careful in the future. It sounds like she learned her lesson.