These questions are crucial because they help us know how to allocate our trust and admiration. Trump and her people cheated, they got caught, and now they’ve been called to office hours with the American people We want to know where something was made and under what circumstances. We want to know who wrote the hilarious joke, the brilliant observation, the pithy tweet. In my classes and in this culture as a whole, it is a fundamental principle that products cannot be evaluated without knowing who produced them and how. When I grade students’ writing, I am also grading the work they put into mastering concepts, researching, generating original ideas, and revising. But in the modern West, and especially the United States, copying without attribution goes against our societal values and our economic principles, and it is these values and principles that rules against plagiarism are meant to safeguard. Historically plagiarism hasn’t always been a big deal, and in some cultures it still isn’t considered a serious ethical violation. Sometimes students will ask me why plagiarism is such a big deal in the first place - but even if they don’t, it’s at this point that I explain why the rules are the way they are. Excuses are common - college means new, higher standards, which can create unexpected pressure. Is it possible they didn’t attribute a direct quote? Did they use key ideas from other sources and fail to cite them? Usually there’s an awkward silence followed by a mumbled confession. ![]() First, I bring the student to my office and ask if there’s anything they want to tell me. Here’s how it works when I discover a student has plagiarized. Over the years, I’ve developed an approach that deals with these two concerns, and if Melania Trump - or, more accurately, her group - had been in my class, there’s no question that her speech at the Republican National Convention on Monday night would have received an F. I can’t apply different standards to different students, but I don’t want my standards to discriminate against those whose error is cultural, not ethical. Now, back in the United States, a disproportionate number of plagiarism violations in my classes (though far from all) are committed by international students.Īs an educator, I have to balance fairness and empathy. When I taught in China, students were surprised by my strict rules against copying. I say "this country," however, because one of the difficulties with punishing plagiarism is widely acknowledged cultural disparities regarding the nature and severity of the offense. Without attribution, the use becomes plagiarism, and there isn’t a professor in this country who would allow it. Like my students, Melania Trump and her speechwriters were welcome to use phrases and sentences from a speech by Michelle Obama, provided they were preceded with proper attribution, something like, "As Michelle Obama expressed in 2008…" This kind of cheating is incredibly easy to avoid. I explain to my students they make a pact when turning in a paper: that the work is their own More often, my plagiarism software detects a few sentences lifted from some online source, or I notice an unusual word choice and Google the phrase where it occurs, which turns up the original author. But in my four years of experience teaching undergraduates at James Madison University, that’s only happened once. An entire essay copied wholesale receives an automatic F, which might cost a student the class if it’s a midterm or a final. ![]() Obviously there’s a question of proportion. The rule is simple, but I struggle with the proper punishment. That goes for essays, online responses, PowerPoint presentations, group presentations, and, yes, even a speech. ![]() I make it very clear on the first day of class: If a student uses more than four words in a row written by someone else, those words need to be cited.
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