Lin Zhu
Students may not fail the entire class if caught plagiarizing on a particular paper or cheating on one single exam, according to Betty Odello, chair of Professional Ethics Committee of Pierce College.
Referring to the view of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office that an instructor cannot automatically give a student an “F” for the entire course where the student is only known to have cheated or plagiarized with respect to one of several assignments that count toward the final grade, according to a 1995 letter from an attorney within the office.
“If a student legitimately gets A’s on assignments which account for 90 percent of the grade in a course, then he or she has certainly demonstrated a high degree of proficiency in the subject matter,” said Ralph Black, assistant general counsel of CCCCO, “even if plagiarism or cheating is discovered in connection with one assignment worth 10 percent of the grade.”
According to Conduct Code for Students of Pierce College, violation of academic honesty and integrity occur when a student participates in any act in which he or she uses deception or fraud while performing an academic activity.
Any offense against academic honesty and integrity may lead to an “F” or a “0” on the examination or assignment.
“It’s the school policy that we cannot fail a student for the entire class if he or she is caught cheating on one single exam or plagiarizing on one particular paper,” said Odello, who is the chair of philosophy and sociology department at Pierce College. “But it may depend. If the exam or paper counts 50 percent of the final grade, you may definitely fail the class if you’re caught cheating on it.
“But if the exam or paper only counts 10 percent of the grade of the class, you may still have a chance to stay in the class. That’s the way the school policy is now,” she added.
“If you’re going to plagiarize in my class, trust me, I will watch you very carefully,” she added.
“If a person is plagiarizing a paper, I’ll have to be very careful that [they’re] not cheating on any other things.”
“When I get a paper which doesn’t seem to match with what the student has done previously or what he has drawn in class, there’s an alarm,” said Odello.
They both agree Google is a great tool to check the suspicious paper.
“When students are caught plagiarizing, they are usually embarrassed and very ashamed,” said speech professor Jennifer A. Cohen Rosenberg.
“Very few deny that they plagiarized their work, since I have copies of the sources they used.”
“I had one student cheating in one of my quizzes. She put another piece of paper under her test paper so she could copy it. She turned in the exam and I never saw her again. That’s the end of her,” said Odello. “When I have difficulties on writing a paper, what I usually do is to go online to search for some sources on the topic and then put them together to form a new paper. I’m not quite sure whether it is plagiarism,” said English major Laila who refused to give her last name.
It is plagiarism, according to Odello and she definitely never hesitates to let people know that she’s on the watch.
“I warn people,” said Odello. “I warn them ahead of time. Let them know I do not accept it; let them know I’m on the lookout for it; let them know I’m aware of all the places where they can buy those papers from.,” she continued.
“I try and get students to start research early, Cohen said. “Recently, I began taking students to the computer lab to help them research their speeches. I feel like this has helped a great deal. Now they have time to conquer the hurtle between plagiarism and a legitimate speech – they can put the sources in their own works!”
“Students are expected to be more aware of the harm of plagiarism and make more efforts to avoid plagiarism on their daily work,” said Odello. And she gives suggestions on how to start as well.
“Go see your instructors if you have questions. We keep office hours. We will help you. It’s up to the students, and it’s up to me too, to prevent plagiarism happening in our classes, she concluded. That’s our job.”