Actions That Should Be Taken in a Case of Academic Dishonesty

Abstract

Students especially those in institutions of higher learning are expected to follow set rules and regulations when it comes to the integrity of their work. Plagiarism can be both intentional and accidental yet both cases carry dire consequences for the student. In this paper, I intend to explain how as a new nurse educator I would respond if I realized one of my students was involved in this heinous show of lack of academic integrity.

Introduction

Realizing that you may have to punish a student for academic offenses especially if the student had promising prospects never brings delight to any educator. It’s true that actions have consequences and sometimes as an educator you never hope to ever be in a situation to mete out punishment for cheating. You hope that all your students can adhere to the guidelines for academic honesty but there are always going to be a few stray elements. And ignorance can never be an excuse for plagiarism because by the time they get to college, every student will have interacted with the concept of plagiarism in many different forms.

Ideally, plagiarism means stealing someone else’s work or ideas without crediting them and their work. It can involve a writer purposefully using another writer’s words or ideas and failing to acknowledge them. In a university set up this could be done when a student presents someone else’s work as their own for grading; this could be the work of another student who is more versed in the assignment or from an expert source. Other instances of plagiarism can include buying a paper and hiring someone else do your assignment for you; a rampant case that has led to the growth of huge businesses on the internet. Because of the wide array of how plagiarism can happen, it is mostly the task of an individual institution to define what practices get to be labelled as academic dishonesty.

The idea of academic integrity is not just about ensuring that a student gets the grade for which they’ve worked but also helps in fostering a trustworthy community. Honest students make for honest leaders and members of the society outside of school. It is therefore imperative that we cultivate this culture to the letter by demanding nothing short of explicit authenticity from students’ work. Stealing someone else’s work is a more serious transgression outside of school than within school. It can be argued that academic dishonesty is a layer to what can grow to be full blown corrupt tendencies within an individual. Therefore, as an educator I would strive to shun the act from my class even if it meant making an example of one culprit to the entire class. It is every teacher’s dream, I suppose, to produce some of the most talented, hardworking, reliable and honest individuals in the community. I would be remiss if I didn’t try to mold my students toward such expectations.

Difference between Intentional and Accidental Plagiarism

Intentional appropriation; the most cardinal of academic misdemeanors occurs when one purposefully decides to use another person’s words verbatim without crediting them. For example, in 2008 Michelle Obama delivered the following speech at the Democratic Convention then: “Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do.” Now that part of the speech contains information and words that can be argued to be common as Paul Manafort, president Trump’s campaign manager did. These common details include the sanctity of one’s words and parent’s instilling their kids the culture of hard work. But the formulation of these words and ideas are unique in their own way and identify to the beliefs of Mrs. Obama so that even if you agree with her and believe that she speaks to your very own beliefs, it is necessary that you find a different way of saying so without lifting the speech almost word for word as Mrs. Trump did eight years later at the Republican National Convention when she told GOP delegates that “From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise.” Hers was a case of replacing merely the subjects of the sentence. In short, a case of intentional plagiarism does not have to be only when one lifts an entire essay or even just a paragraph. Other kinds of plagiarism that might be categorized as intentional include: mosaic plagiarism which occurs when a student borrows phrases from another source but does not use the quotation marks in essence implying that those are his own original formulation of words or if he chooses instead to replace certain words in the lifted phrase with their synonyms; self-plagiarism which is when a student submits his previous works or parts of them without the express permission of all the professors involved.

Accidental plagiarism on the other hand could happen if a student, for instance, forgets to credit their source maybe because he or she was in a hurry or just an oversight. This is still plagiarism because they may have lifted a paragraph or line of text from a source but didn’t acknowledge them. Not intending to plagiarize yet still ending up doing the same does not make a student any less responsible for their academic offence. The student may be subject to the same punishment as one who intentionally plagiarize but, as an educator, I’d be more lenient with such a student especially if they owned up to their mistake.

Causes of Plagiarism

Before punishing a student for academic dishonesty, as a teacher I would first need to understand what might have led a student to partake in such a dangerous and unrewarding venture. Some causes of plagiarism include:

Procrastination

Some students either get distracted by the events happening around them or are not involved enough in their studies that they end up not setting aside time to go through their course work. This creates a situation in which they get to the exam room unprepared hence not ready for their paper. In the tenth episode of the Freeform television show Grown-ish, Zoey Johnson decides to attend a party and convinces herself that she will leave after just twenty minutes so as to study for her Chemistry paper the next day. She lets herself be convinced by her friends that she would miss out on a lot if she does not attend the party and while at the party, she finds it hard to leave. This is a case of being distracted and not getting the time to study and it is purely student-manufactured. It is hard to sympathize with Zoey in this situation because her not being clear about her priorities is primarily her fault. She later decides to cheat in her paper the next day by copying her classmate’s work.

Inadequate Understanding of the Topic Tested

Sometimes students end up not being able to fully grasp the ideas taught in class. Therefore, when they are tested on these topics that proved extremely difficult to absorb, the student might think that his or her only choice is to either plagiarize another student’s work or pay to get someone with a better understanding do the work. This is still a case of a student trying to earn grades for work and knowledge that is not his or hers. If this was allowed to go on unpunished, the field of education would be churning out half baked and incompetent individuals in different professions. This would particularly be a case of life and death in the field of nursing because people trust and depend on us to take care of them during their period of illness. I would not want to know that one of my students out there, for example, cannot diligently administer drugs to a patient as directed by the patient’s doctor.

Poor Note-Taking and Citation Errors

As I stated earlier, one of the forms of academic dishonesty is accidental plagiarism which is purely a result of negligence and avoidable mistakes by the student. A student will still be considered to have plagiarized their work if he or she does not correctly cite sources or completely fails to cite. In my opinion educators should not be as stern to students with such cases of plagiarism as they would be with those students who intentionally choose to be dishonest. Yes, negligence and ignorance are no excuses for a student to make academic mistakes but while we punish such, educators should consider the lack of intention to cheat in the students’ work and afford them some level of leniency.

Identifying Plagiarism

The internet specifically has made plagiarism easy because all the student has to do is search key phrases for their assignments then copy and paste lines of sentences from multiple source; what was covered earlier in mosaic plagiarism. The internet is also the best tool to use to identify plagiarism as you can find a service that goes through your student’s text and will notify you if there are cases of direct lifting without citation. Patchwriting which is when a student chooses to replace words in a copied phrase with their synonyms is still a punishable academic offence.

Another issue that student’s go through is the question of whether to cite or not to cite. You find that in high school students are generally required to read and understand a prose from one book and then paraphrase in their own words. College on the other hand gets a bit more complex as the student has to read from multiple books and sources and keep track of his or her own line of thought with the new knowledge that he or she gets from these sources. It thus becomes a difficult task for a student just coming from high school to decide what is to be considered common knowledge needing no citation and what is new information whose source should be cited.

Consequences of Plagiarism

Different educators and institutions have different forms of punishments for academic dishonesty. The punishment that a student receives is usually determined by the kind of plagiarism that was detected in his or her work and the extent of the dishonesty. A professor can choose to give the student an F in the affected assignment or even the entire course forcing the student to retake the course. This is a fair treatment for the lighter cases of plagiarism like accidental plagiarism. Even though dishonesty was not the intent, the student still needs to learn to be careful while submitting their work because sometimes the difference between a patient dying or living depends on the nurse being able to write correctly the name of the drug that was subscribed to the patient.

Other ways in which I would punish a student involved in plagiarism would be to recommend that they be suspended for a period of time from the school. I would take this action in a case where the student lifted heavily from other sources but owns up their mistake, shows remorse and promises not to cheat again. Zoey from Grown-ish in the next episode (episode 11) decided to admit to the academic board that she is at fault and leaves herself to the board’s mercy. The board fails her in that Chemistry paper and she is required to sit for it again. I believe these two forms of punishment cautions the students who are ready to change their attitude against repeating their actions.

The extreme case of punishment that I would be expected to give out is recommending the expulsion of the student from the university. This is for severe cases of cheating with little to no remorse or effort to change displayed by the student. Expulsion from college is synonymous with sealing a student’s future but so is presenting work that is not yours and hoping to be awarded grades for it in a field that requires you to be honest and true to your capabilities. An incompetent nurse puts the lives of her patients at risk and destroys not only her reputation but also those of her colleagues. Plagiarism especially for medical research can result in widespread illness and loss of lives.

You can see how academic dishonesty is frowned upon in the outside world by how individuals are treated whenever it is found out that they were at one point involved in the vice. A perfect example is how former vice president Joe Biden was forced to drop his presidential ambitions when several instances of plagiarism were discovered in his speeches. He had used speeches that were almost alike to those of British politician Neal Kinnock. Bailey writes that “The end result was that Biden, who was already lagging in the polls, was forced to drop out of the race. Though Biden continued to serve in the Senate, these allegations have stuck with him for pretty much his entire career since then.”

As can be seen in the cases of Joe Biden, Melania Trump and other prominent individuals who have been caught up in cases of plagiarism, it embarrasses the individual and they lose a lot of respect from their colleagues. If my student plagiarizes, he or she is stealing someone else’s work and rendering pointless the idea of academic integrity and honesty. The student also makes his or her colleagues feel it is unfair for them to be working very hard while others are taking shortcuts towards the same goals. I would therefore ask my students to practice the following academic activities to avoid plagiarism:

• Planning and reading in advance for their paper and not letting themselves be distracted by the events around them
• Seeking guidance and help from me or someone qualified in case there are concepts that they do not completely understand.
• Always acknowledge the original source in your paper and remember to put in quotation marks any phrases that are directly lifted.
• For new students, if you don’t think that an idea is a fact or common knowledge, it is advisable that they cite the source of that idea.