Dealing With Plagiarism in an Academic Environment

The other day, I was grading papers for the Communications course when I came across a paper that was so obviously not the work of the student who turned it in. As a matter of fact, it was completely stolen from an academic journal word for word. Finding the original source wasn’t difficult, but figuring out what to do wit it AFTER finding the original source then became the problem. I mean, honestly, what to you do after you find out a student has completely stolen his work that he has then turned into you?

Seriously.

That’s the dilemma I ended up with because there are no set answers as to what to do after you find out your student has dishonestly created his work for your class. Sure, you could just give him an F and move on, but is it really that easy?

Here’s the situation I ended up with, because right as soon as I found out, I didn’t know what to do. The work was obviously stolen, but my administration wasn’t around to really offer me any insight. As a matter of fact, because this was an evening course during the summer, my back up staff was nonexistent. The main secretary was “off” until the fall semester started up again, and even the “go to” person for her wasn’t in the office when I walked there to find out what to do going forward. Basically, I was on my own.

And to be honest, I didn’t know what to do. Sure, I could be an asshole and condemn the student right from the start, but really what good does that really do? It proves I caught the student, and he pays the penalty but does anything possible come out of that situation?

Yeah, I caught him. But so what?

This is a community college course where I’m an adjunct instructor. Catching a student teaching doesn’t really lead to any black and white solutions. Basically, a student gets kicked out school and that’s that. What exactly did we solve by my direct response? Personaly, nothing. A struggling student is now out of school and the teacher proved he was an asshole. Not really sure we got much out of this situation.

If I let him get off scot free, what do we get? We get a student who is going to go to his next class and see if he can get away with that one just as well as he got away with the last few ones, because you know I’m not the first one he cheated in. So, did I just kick the can down the read?

So, I ask you? What should I do?