possible plagiarism

[Vanchu, Anthony J]

What Andrew Wachtel says is certainly true and is a good way to clear up any
doubts one might have about suspicions of plagiarism.  And if you can get
the student to own up to having plagiarized on the basis of such a
conversation, then I'd say you've been lucky.

But in order to satisfy deans and administrators (not to
mention-uvy!--lawyers), one usually needs hard evidence, such as citations
from a published document.  In one such case at an institution where I
formerly taught, I copiously documented the sources of plagiarism in a
student's paper.  When I confronted this student with the evidence, as I was
instructed to do by my dean's office, the student denied what was right
before both our eyes.  The dean's office, fortunately, recognized that I had
clearly proved my case.

One word of advice on this account-seek out the appropriate administrators
at your school and follow their instructions to the letter.  Taking matters
into your own hands and deciding to settle it in your own way can lead to
BIG problems, as David Birnbaum's previous posting also pointed out.  When
this whole nasty affair was over with, I was thanked profusely by the
administrators I'd dealt with because, by finding out what procedures I
needed to follow and then following them, I'd made their lives much easier
and, most importantly, accomplished the task of getting an act of plagiarism
appropriately punished.  Most professors, I was told, didn't do so unless
they had been through the drill previously.

Finally, *do* ask colleagues who specialize in the particular topic of the
plagiarized paper for help.  Most are quite willing to do so, esp. since it
may be their own work that has been hijacked.  In the above case, I e-mailed
two colleagues at other institutions and then faxed them the student's paper
(minus the name).  I was quite fortunate and hit paydirt immediately, as one
of the two was in the middle of reading the article the student plagiarized
from.  The story draws to its tiresome conclusion when I finally had to
contact the author of the article, since the copy of the journal in which
the article had originally appeared was-kak ni stranno-missing from the
library.  The author then faxed me the article so I would have the necessary
evidence.  I guess all this is to say that tracking down plagiarism can take
a lot of time, work, and, in some cases, inventiveness-resources that
overworked academics might have in short supply at the end of a long
semester.

Tony Vanchu



        ----------
        From:  Andrew Wachtel[SMTP:awachtel at casbah.acns.nwu.edu]
        Sent:  Wednesday, December 16, 1998 2:20 PM
        To:  SEELANGS at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
        Subject:  Re: possible plagiarism

        I have discovered one sure-fire method of figuring out whether a
paper was
        plagiarized or not, and it requires no searching at all.  It does
require
        talking to the student whom you suspect of plagiarism, however.

        The theory is simple, people who plagiarize haven't thought much
about the
        works they are supposed to be writing about, but people who have
done their
        own work have.  All you have to do is ask the student to answer a
couple of
        questions that are obvious extensions to the paper you received.  If
the
        student is unable to do so, you will have all the evidence you need
(at
        least all the evidence you need to get the student in question to
admit the
        plagiarism)

        Andrew Wachtel

        >Dear SEELANGers,
        >
        >I'm afraid I can't help with the case in question, but last year I
        >encountered several instances of plagiarism in courses in my
department,
        >some internet-related and some not, and some of what I learned may
be
        >useful for other instructors:
        >
        >1) I'd be very careful about mentioning even a suspicion of
plagiarism to
        >a student if I couldn't prove it by producing the source. A faculty
        >colleague in another department here was certain that a paper was
        >plagiarized, told the student, and issued a grade of incomplete
while
        >searching for the source. When I heard about this (from the dean)
it was
        >still pending, but the university said that if the student denied
the
        >accusation and the faculty member couldn't find the source, however
        >certain he might be from the style or content, the decision would
have to
        >go in the student's favor. This may not be true at all
universities, but
        >if your university won't back you up unless you can produce a
source, you
        >might want to be careful about accusations.
        >
        >2) Tracking down Internet plagiarism is easy; if the student can
find the
        >paper on the internet, so can you. (Even some of the sites that
charge for
        >papers give the first few sentences as samples.) Go to one of the
search
        >or metasearch sites that supports boolean searching (the kind where
you
        >can specify multiple keywords and retrieve only documents that
contain all
        >of them), pick several telling keywords from the paper, and fire
away. It
        >took me less than a minute (literally) to catch each of two
internet
        >plagiarists last year. You can find a partial list of search and
        >metasearch sites by visiting my home page (see below) and
connecting to
        >the "serious links" subpage. I've had good luck with Altavista.
        >
        >3) Non-internet plagiarism is tougher, although I caught several of
these
        >last year, some from books and some from encyclopedias. To narrow
the
        >search, look for anachronisms (I recieved a paper about Chagall
that wrote
        >about him in the present tense, as if he were still alive, which
helps
        >restrict the books I had to check) and thematic clues (very general
        >biographical overviews are often encyclopedic, specialized ones are
often
        >forwards to monographs or collections, close readings are often
monographs
        >or articles).
        >
        >4) Colleagues can be a big help in tracking down sources for
plagiarism,
        >especially in survey courses, where the instructor may not be
sufficiently
        >experienced with all topics to recognize plagiarism sources
quickly.
        >
        >Good luck,
        >
        >David

>________________________________________________________________________
        >
        >Professor David J. Birnbaum     email: djbpitt+ at pitt.edu
        >Department of Slavic Languages  url:
http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~djb/
        >1417 Cathedral of Learning      voice: 1-412-624-5712
        >University of Pittsburgh        fax:   1-412-624-9714
        >Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA