October 4, 2007
To:
From:
Re:
Critical Writing Faculty
Valerie Ross, Director, Critical Writing Program,
Plagiarism
1) In the C ritical W riting Program, plagiarism is regarded as a university offense.
Instructors are expected to report, in a timely fashion, all incidents of plagiarism to the
director of the program.
2) Plagiarism in most instances will result in an “F” for the writing seminar, for it
signals a failure to meet the basic expectations and perform the fundamental tasks
of a writing seminar.
3) A ll parties to plagiarism are considered equally guilty . If a student shares
coursework with another student and s/he plagiarizes it, both are considered guilty.
Useful links:
please post these to your BB sites and distribute them to your students
Penn’s Code of Academic Integrity
http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/osl/acadint.html
Penn’s Online Research Tutorial on Documentation and Plagiarism
http://gethelp.library.upenn.edu/PORT/documentation/plagiarism_policy.html
The Writing Center: For questions about plagiarism or help with handling sources and citation
formats, or any other aspect of writing, from assignment to final draft, drop by or make an
appointment with a writing advisor. For locations, hours, and appointments visit:
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/critical/help/
Procedure
Upon contacting the Critical Writing Program with an instance of plagiarism, you
will be given advice on how to proceed. Typically a meeting is arranged that includes
the instructor, the student, and the director of CWP to review the case and to
determine how best to proceed. The final decision rests with the instructor.
Some options are:
1. Refer the case to the Office of Student Conduct for a formal hearing
2. Issue an informal warning to the student, with a note to OSC confirming that a
warning has been issued. This warning will remain an internal record unless the
student engages in a second act of plagiarism.
3. In instances of what appears to be “soft plagiarism” (see below), we may refer the
student to the writing center for standing appointments so that s/he becomes a
more knowledgeable and confident writer.
T ypes of Plagiarism
Soft plagiarism (pedagogical): e.g., failure to cite a source; overly helpful collaborator
(peer, parent, other).
Hard plagiarism (ethical): e.g., downloaded sections or entire papers; custom writers;
papers from former students, friends, fraternities; papers written by parents or others.
C ritical W riting Strategies for Preventing Plagiarism
In the classroom and in relevant tutoring sessions:
1) Frequently review and discuss the code of academic integrity, particularly:
B. Plagiarism : using the ideas, data, or language of another without specific or
proper acknowledgment. Example: copying another person’s paper, article, or computer work and subm itting it for an assignment, cloning someone else’s ideas without attribution, failing to use quotation marks where appropriate, etc.
C. F abrication: submitting contrived or altered information in any academic
exercise. Example: making up data for an experiment, fudging data, citing
nonexistent articles, contriving sources, etc.
D. Multiple submission: submitting, without prior permission, any work submitted
to fulfill another academic requirement.
F . F acilitating academic dishonesty: knowingly helping or attempting to help
another violate any provision of the Code. Example: working together on a takehome exa m, etc.
G. Unfair advantage: attempting to gain unauthorized advantage over fellow
students in an academic exercise. Example: gaining or providing unauthorized
access to examination materials, obstructing or interfering with another student’s efforts in an academic exercise, lying about a need for an extension for an exam
or paper, continuing to write even when time is up during an exam, destroying or
keeping librar y materials for one’s own use., etc.
2) Assign frequent in-class writing, as a means of comparing outside work and work
done informally in class. Significant disparities often signal plagiarism.
3) Introduce and discuss intellectual property and its relevance to research writing
and intellectual work more generally
4) Introduce differences between scholarly and popular sources of knowledge
5) Provide practice and guidance in handling citations (indirect and direct quotation,
paraphrase)
6) Introduce the protocols and function of academic inquiry and discourse in the
seminar’s disciplinary field 7) Provide additional support to underprepared and international/multilingual
students, helping to place these in appropriate courses or tutoring situations.
English 011: Global English, is the writing seminar designed for
international/multilingual students and meets four hours per week. Please
encourage your international students to enroll. Multilingual native speakers are
also encouraged to enroll if they are having any English proficiency issues. The
Writing Center will arrange a weekly standing appointment for any student
having more than customary challenges with writing, which includes
underprepared, writing-phobic, and some multilingual students.
8) Cultivate a close partnership between the writing instructors, writing tutors, and
students. Encourage students to visit the Center (e.g., having a peer tutor perform
one of the class’s peer review assignments; suggesting tutors as another form of
feedback and guidance for papers in other classes, as well as our own).
Encourage instructors and students to take advantage of student/instructor/tutor
communication via email, so that all are working in concert on the same issues.
9) Use your writing diagnostics, in-class writings, portfolio assessment as tools to
diagnose and address writing problems, but also as a means of identifying
significant disparities between the quality of work being done in class and in
outside work. Such disparities can be an indication of plagiarism.
Detecting Plagiarism
Some of the signs:
 outdated allusions or sources -- references to Ronald Reagan; bibliographies
primarily drawing upon texts published in the 1960s-1980s.
 odd formatting; changes in formatting (cut and paste jobs)
 footnotes or bibliographies indicating online research: http:// (often students will
give you the source of their plagiarism)
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sudden onset of sophistication, either in terms of the writing or the topic
(occasionally this is the result of a genuine leap in learning, so tread cautiously)
change in voice from student’s prior writings, in-class and out-of-class (tread
cautiously)
notable disparity between in-class writings and those produced outside of class
assignments that are off the topic or only loosely related to the assignment; papers
with outside research when you haven’t asked for any (sometimes this can be the sign of a great student: again, tread cautiously)
a student who seems to be paying little attention in class, demonstrates scarce
interest in assignments, but is turning in strong work, particularly in combination
with any of the above.
Assignments and situations that invite plagiarism:
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Recycled assignments invite recycled papers
Canonical authors and familiar debates
Inappropriately sophisticated topics or methodology
Broadly open-ended assignments (“Write a research paper related to this course”). Excessive demands. Students who are overwhelmed by coursework will
cut corners.
Unclear assignments; unclear goals or purpose; little or no guidance or
assessment criteria provided
Tenuous connection between the coursework and the assignment
Impression that the professor does not read papers carefully
Lengthy papers due at semester’s end, rather than due in stages and
evaluated periodically throughout the semester.
Classes that require little or no in-class writing or drafts and revisions, and
therefore provide no measure of comparison between the student’s demonstrated competence as a writer in your class and the sophistication
of work being produced outside of class.