First-Year Writing Academic Honesty
The First-Year Writing Program takes responsibility for educating students about what academic dishonesty is and how to avoid it, and also about what the consequences are for academic dishonesty in our program. Academic dishonesty happens for many reasons and to varying degrees, so it requires discretion on your part. Remember that there are many reasons why plagiarism occurs (including not understanding how to paraphrase, cite, etc.), and we encourage you not to see it as directed at you personally.
For guidance on how to address an instance of academic dishonesty, see below.
Dishonesty Prevention
We as faculty have a lot of options for preventing academic dishonesty. A number of students who commit academic dishonesty do so accidentally (because they don’t understand documentation rules, for example) or impulsively (because they have put off an assignment and feel overwhelmed). Here are some suggestions for how direct instruction can help them:
Point out the academic dishonesty policy in your syllabus during the first week of classes. This policy is part of the standardized front matter for all First-Year Writing courses.
Teach Documentation. In WRIT 105 and WRIT 106, review and discuss the specifics of appropriate documentation. Discuss and, most importantly, practice direct quotation, summary, and paraphrase. It’s helpful to have students practice appropriate documentation on essays in which they use a common text, as then you will be able to make sure they have summarized, paraphrased or quoted correctly.
Structure Assignments. Structure assignments so that there are many sequential elements. Proposals, in-class-writes, early drafts, revision drafts, and final drafts should be assigned and, at the end of the unit, collected. While you need not read all of the material that accompanies the final drafts, collecting these materials dissuades academic dishonesty.
Remind Students Again. When beginning the documented essay assignment, remind students of techniques to avoid academic dishonesty.
Develop paper topics carefully. Consider avoiding very open topics; specific and highly individualized paper topics make it more difficult for students to commit academic dishonesty.
Reporting Dishonesty
Upon finding documented evidence of academic dishonesty, faculty must follow these steps:
- Email the student to inform her/him that the paper is plagiarized and provide evidence.
- Schedule an appointment (Zoom or in person) with the student to talk through the incident and explain how they can avoid academic dishonesty in the future. All students accused of academic dishonesty have the right to a meeting with their instructor. A third party may be present for this meeting at instructor or student request.
- Once the instructor has supplied documented evidence of plagiarism, s/he has the option of failing the student for the paper with a grade of “0.” The student then has the opportunity to revise the assignment for a grade.
- If there is a repeat instance of academic dishonesty with the same student, please reach out to the FYW Director and together you will make a decision about how to move forward.