Dealing with plagiarism as a teaching assistant

Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that “plagiarism” farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men—but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington’s battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite—that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.

Then why don’t we unwittingly reproduce the phrasing of a story, as well as the story itself? It can hardly happen—to the extent of fifty words except in the case of a child; its memory-tablet is not lumbered with impressions, and the actual language can have graving-room there, and preserve the language a year or two, but a grown person’s memory-tablet is a palimpsest, with hardly a bare space upon which to engrave a phrase. It must be a very rare thing that a whole page gets so sharply printed on a man’s mind, by a single reading, that it will stay long enough to turn up some time or other to be mistaken by him for his own. No doubt we are constantly littering our literature with disconnected sentences borrowed from books at some unremembered time and now imagined to be our own, but that is about the most we can do. In 1866 I read Dr. Holmes’s poems, in the Sandwich Islands. A year and a half later I stole his dedication, without knowing it, and used it to dedicate my “Innocents Abroad” with. Then years afterward I was talking with Dr. Holmes about it. He was not an ignorant ass—no, not he; he was not a collection of decayed human turnips, like your “Plagiarism Court;” and so when I said, “I know now where I stole it, but whom did you steal it from,” he said, “I don’t remember; I only know I stole it from somebody, because I have never originated anything altogether myself, nor met anyone who had.”

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/05/bulk-of-all-human-utterances-is.html

Hi Milan, I agree with Scott – it will happen, no matter what you do. I have been a TA for two years, and have had occurrences of deliberate plagiarism in each session (as opposed to unintentional cases where the student doesn’t understand how to properly cite/reference).

I include a discussion of plagiarism in my first class, refer the students to the University’s website on plagiarism, and provide links to guides on referencing/citations. Later lesson plans include a review of how to do in-text citations and referencing. Students are required to complete the academic honesty exam. Discussion of plagiarism again takes place when essay topics are submitted. I provide extensive feedback on the first assignment of the year to help students do better on their subsequent assignments.

There is very little downside to students getting caught plagiarizing – and they know it! If your Course Director decides to bring this forward (yep, many just don’t want to deal with this), the student may get a few marks taken off their paper. This year I had one student who plagiarized on his fall essay and again on his winter essay and he still passed the course (the prof re-graded both essays). There may be some profs who are more concerned with the ethical issues, but I have not yet worked with one.

I know many TAs who no longer report plagiarism cases because of the non-action on the part of faculty/administration. They simply fail the student on the assignment in question and tell the student why.

I love my work as TA. I meet amazing students and have a chance to make a difference. I take a holistic approach, focusing on skill development (researching, writing, presentations, critical analysis). I hope you find your TA experience to be rewarding.

At a lot of schools, taking a hard line against cheating will get YOU in trouble, not the cheating students.