On the Warpath

My partner is on the warpath today. She was reading her last paper from her technology and contemporary culture course when she noticed a rather peculiar writing style. From her experience, she decided to google the first sentence of the student's paper and the results indicated that it was the first sentence from an abstract of a journal article about digital media. She read the abstract and the student's first paragraph and the similarities in structure, style, and order were irrefutable. This student copied the first paragraph. Now the question was how much of this student's paper was plagiarized from this article. It can mean the difference between a drop in a full letter grade or a direct action from the honor code committee that oversees cases of student plagiarism. Obviously, the drop in grade is more preferable than an action from the honor code committee which will maintain a record of this incident.

How do we know when a student's paper is plagiarized? There were a couple of signs that I picked up when I first read the paper. First, the sentence spacing was set to 1.5 instead of double-spaced. It's rare that a student will have too much to say in a research paper. Usually it's the opposite. Students will generally find ways to artificially expand the paper length instead of adding substance such as adding an extra break to a paragraph, increasing the margin size, adding 0.5 point to the font size, increasing the leading, etc. It helps to be a former graphic designer to know these particular tricks. In this case, it was a 12 page paper with tightly packed paragraphs, sentences, and spaces. Visually it stands out compared to other papers.

Second, word choice was another major indicator. Every discipline and field of study has their own indigenous vocabulary that we have to master. In common parlance, it's called professionalization. Every word is a specific reference to a theory, concept, or body of knowledge. Of course, the usage has to be contextualized with the field and the course. So for example, if I use the word "policing" or "surveillance" in a class such as global terrorism, it's going to have a specific reference to law enforcement, rights and protections of individuals, etc. However, in a class on , for example, "Postmodern Theories of Culture and Society," the words will mean something totally different that is about practices of regulation, knowledge/power relationships, etc. which are specific references to Michel Foucault. We use these words, concepts, and theories to discuss our research with other colleagues in the field as a kind of shorthand. As you can imagine, we don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining basic ideas when we could use these shortcuts to get to our main points and move our conversations forward and quickly. Anyways ...

So when the student uses words like "film apparatus," "ideological apparatus," "consumer interactivity," or concepts and methods in political economic critique, those are specific references in film theory, production, and criticism. Now in a class about film theory, it will be acceptable because the course would survey those concepts. But the class is on technology and culture and although the emphasis was on film, she didn't cover anything in regards to ideological "apparatus" or advanced readings in political economy that the student was using. So already, my partner was alarmed at this very specific usage of this theoretical language.

Third, writing is like your signature. It has a particular cadence, style, structure, and pattern that is easily distinguishable from one student to another especially when you have multiple writing assignments. My partner is in the English Department and so correcting papers is her main preoccupation and she knows by virtue of reading them that she can tell when a student is writing excellently or poorly, when it's a first draft or a well-thought out paper, and so on. As a matter of fact, anyone who assigns frequent writing assignments will see these patterns emerge. In this case, when a student has been writing at a decent level throughout the semester, uses a predictable sentence structure, remains at a general level of argumentation, and then all of a sudden writes a well-constructed, theoretically rich, and structurally coherent argument on par with a graduate paper, then something is definitely way off.

Fourth, your word choice and construction are your fingerprints. Like writing, words are another way of identifying your unique character, and by extension, declaring ownership of your work. I don't mean any word but specifically some authors develop their own terminology or combination thereof to describe a different usage of a concept or theory. For example, "governmentality" or "governmentalization" will automatically reference Michel Foucault. The concept is not only his, but also he created the damn word. The same with "simulation," or "simulacra/simulacrum" that automatically points to Jean Baudrillard and it is his creation. So when I read a student's use of those concepts there had better be a citation.

So taking all these factors, and I'm sure there are many techniques that other professors use, my partner felt that this paper could not have been written by the student. Her suspicions were confirmed when we found the original article which was published in the Atlantic Journal of Communication, printed it out, and lo' and behold not only was the abstract copied, but almost the entire article was taken by the student that included similar word phrases, theoretical concepts, sentence structure, argument structure, market data, etc. Some passages were substituted with different vocabulary words, but left the basic structure intact. Some were taken straight out from the article word for word! Even the student's bibliography was taken from the author's list! What's more is that the original author coined the term "consumer evangelist" in which she took for her own!! And the student never once gave credit to the author who she was stealing his research!!! At least footnote the original author somewhere! It might give us room to maneuver to say that you ought to properly cite the material and rewrite the essay. But to not acknowledge him and to take almost all of his article and concept verbatim is too intentional and, in the end, unforgivable.

This same student sent an email right before finals (which is always somehow a dead giveaway) saying how much she enjoyed my partner's course and that she was simply amazed at how much effort my partner put into her lectures and her working with the students (By the way, this same student had a quite a few absences which is why her email was met with some suspicion. Wouldn't you?). This very student who praised my partner is doing the most dishonorable thing by stealing another person's hard work for their own, and to lie to her face. It's a very disingenuous and dangerous game to play with our good will like that.

But that's not the worst of it ... My partner's course was offered in the Honors Program where enrollment is strictly limited to honors student. THIS STUDENT WHO PLAGIARIZED IS AN HONORS STUDENT!!!

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING GODDAMN MIND?!?!? DO YOU REALIZE HOW BAD THIS LOOKS FROM OUR PERSPECTIVE?????

It would be too easy for me to say, these honors students are just like every other student who is under pressure to succeed, to get the good grade, and so on. My answer is "NO." They are not like any other student. They are exceptional students. They have earned the distinction of "honors student" suggesting not only an academic caliber above and beyond everyone else, but more importantly, a higher standard of conduct as a result. Admittedly, and in a very bad way, I kind of expect other students to pull a stunt like this because I've seen it happen all the time. I'm not kidding myself about that notion. But an honors student? Either you're desperate and you had no other option (which I find problematic) or you're just an idiot and don't care for the consequences. Either way, this student is screwed and thanks for fucking it up for everyone else.

I think my partner will send the student's paper to the honor code committee. She's reading and comparing the paper and the journal article line-by-line, paragraph-by-paragraph and the similarities are undeniable.

What a terrible way to end the semester.

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UPDATE: I came home and my partner was dropping F-bombs like crazy. She showed me a comparison of the student paper with the journal article and more than 95% of the paper is plagiarized. One of the things my partner can do is to recommend to the committee a failing grade for the course and to have her be kicked out of the honors program. She also made this interesting observation about plagiarism. The average student will use Wikipedia to copy. The honors student will use academic articles instead.

Also, check this out. Compare the original paragraph ...

Cinema began as a 19th century, industrial age diversion, an illusion created by mechanical means. Even as it matured into an art form, it remained tethered to the manufactured tools that made its existence possible, and to the cumbersome distribution and presentation apparatus that brought it to huge worldwide audiences. Every piece of the cinema process required capital investment: the manufacture and purchase of cameras, projectors, and film stock; the services provided by photographic labs, and the exhibition mechanism contained in theater houses.
-- James R. Irwin, "On Digital Media As a Potential Alternative Cinema Apparatus: A Marketplace Analysis" (2004).

... with her paragraph and the bolded sections indicating her "original" changes ...

Cinema began as a 19th century, industrial age entertainment, a fantasy created by mechanical means. Even as it matured into an art form, it remained closely connected to the standardized manufactured tools that made its existence possible in the first place. The distribution and presentation apparatuses that brought it to huge worldwide audiences remained the same as well. Every part of the cinema process required capital investment: the manufacture and purchase of cameras, projectors, and film stock; the services provided by photographic labs; and the exhibition mechanism contained in theaters. There were also significant labor costs and marketing expenses involved. It is not surprise, then, that the creation of the feature films - cinema's most popular, influential, and codified form - quickly became almost exclusively a corporate enterprise.

... and what do you get? PLAGIARISM!!! LIAR!!! CHEATER!!!

And get this, she's a criminal justice major. Un-friggin'-believable.