Spring Break
UA finds ways to help students avoid plagiarism
Jessica Burk
Issue date: 9/12/08 Section: News
Westeen also advised students to meet with their instructors during their office hours to discuss papers before turning them in.
"It's always better to talk to people," she said.
Students should avoid plagiarism because it is robbing them of the goal of education, which is to learn how to think critically about a source, Westeen said.
Plagiarism hurts the author of the piece and the other students in the class, and it also "diminishes the value of a university degree for both you and other people on campus," she said.
Bain also advised students to try not to plagiarize.
"We will know [if you plagiarize]," he said. "We don't expect you to be master thinkers. That's why you're students."
There are several levels of jurisdiction for students who do try to plagiarize, he said. The student can fail the assignment or the class or might be referred to the UA Judicial Board.
"In serious cases, there can be legal consequences [or] academic consequences, at the very least," Westeen said. "Mostly university policy [ranges from giving] a zero on a paper to actually being expelled from university if it's a continued problem that a student is having."
One of the more serious cases of plagiarism Westeen has encountered was when she was teaching at Northern Michigan University, she said. Her students were writing a descriptive paper about personal experience they had, and one of her students turned in a paper about a Native American reservation in the desert. However, the writing style didn't match up with anything the student had done before.
"I typed it into Google, and the entire paper popped up," Westeen said.
After being confronted, the student claimed she'd written the paper in high school, posted it online afterward, and the other person, who had it copyrighted, had stolen it from her.
"[The case] went all the way to the dean, [and] she never admitted to plagiarizing the paper," Westeen said.
"It's always better to talk to people," she said.
Students should avoid plagiarism because it is robbing them of the goal of education, which is to learn how to think critically about a source, Westeen said.
Plagiarism hurts the author of the piece and the other students in the class, and it also "diminishes the value of a university degree for both you and other people on campus," she said.
Bain also advised students to try not to plagiarize.
"We will know [if you plagiarize]," he said. "We don't expect you to be master thinkers. That's why you're students."
There are several levels of jurisdiction for students who do try to plagiarize, he said. The student can fail the assignment or the class or might be referred to the UA Judicial Board.
"In serious cases, there can be legal consequences [or] academic consequences, at the very least," Westeen said. "Mostly university policy [ranges from giving] a zero on a paper to actually being expelled from university if it's a continued problem that a student is having."
One of the more serious cases of plagiarism Westeen has encountered was when she was teaching at Northern Michigan University, she said. Her students were writing a descriptive paper about personal experience they had, and one of her students turned in a paper about a Native American reservation in the desert. However, the writing style didn't match up with anything the student had done before.
"I typed it into Google, and the entire paper popped up," Westeen said.
After being confronted, the student claimed she'd written the paper in high school, posted it online afterward, and the other person, who had it copyrighted, had stolen it from her.
"[The case] went all the way to the dean, [and] she never admitted to plagiarizing the paper," Westeen said.
Viewing Comments 1 - 5 of 5
Maria Ostridge
posted 2/24/09 @ 11:10 PM CST
I have to agree with teh poster above... :/ looks like a lot of hot air to me.
Jane Bailey
posted 2/25/09 @ 7:28 AM CST
Great article. I agree totally.
Caroline Pellyn
posted 3/05/09 @ 11:13 AM CST
Cheers for writing about this. FYI - here's some more info about watch bones you might like!
Dawn Redden
posted 3/09/09 @ 5:27 AM CST
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Rachel Whitney
posted 3/11/09 @ 2:42 AM CST
That looks like lots of fun. When I was in college we didn't had so many fun activities.
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