Honor Council Rice University  
 

Abstract of the Honor Council
Case #13, Fall, 2003
April 23, 2004

Members Present:
Chris Edwards (presiding), John Britt, Saskia Fuerst, Loyola Gressot, Keith Henneke, John Horstman, Geneva Rhee, Becky Thilo, Zach Thomas, Jonathan Jackson (non-binding vote), Andrew Koller (non-binding vote), Karoline Pershell (non-binding vote)

Ombuds:
Michael Hardy

Letter of Accusation:
The Honor Council received a letter of accusation from a professor of a lower level social sciences class. The letter accused Student A of plagiarism and improper citation, which are violations of the class’s Honor Code policy. Since the work in question was part of a group assignment, Students B, C, and D were also accused since they received credit on an assignment that was accused of violating the Honor Code.

Evidence Submitted:

Plea:
Student A plead In Violation. Student B pled Not in Violation. Student C pled Not in Violation. Student D pled Not in Violation.

Testimony:
Opening statements: Student A claimed sole responsibility for the portion of the assignment in question. She claimed she had no intention of violating the Code and tried her best to write the paper under the professor’s outlined Honor Code policy. She believed she had cited the sources correctly and sufficiently paraphrased passages from the article in question. Student A stressed that she was unaware that she had violated the Honor Code upon turning in the assignment. Student B stated that she believed the Honor Code allowed for a mutual trust between students, and that she trusted that none of the other group members would violate the Code on their portion of the paper. Student B also claimed that it was unreasonable to expect students to go “policing” through another group member’s portion, as if expecting a violation was committed. Student C stated that she had no knowledge of the improper citation and/or plagiarism before the assignment was turned in. Student C emphasized that without reading the article in question and Student A’s portion of the assignment, there would be no way to catch a violation. Student D summarized that the paper was divided equally amongst the four group members- each claiming responsibility for their own portion. While the students did hold collaborative sessions for editing, each student had no knowledge of the other students’ references. Student D relied on “the implicit understanding to place trust on fellow students in a group setting.” She trusted the other group members not to violate the Code and could, therefore, assume no violation had occurred.

When questioned on the process of the assignment, Student D stated that the group was told to work together but could submit sections to the overall paper independently. When asked for clarification of the professor’s specifically requested citation style, the Council was referred to the publication manual and a website printout. Student A offered that after the fact, she realized that she should have indented paraphrased sections, though she did note that the source was cited in the paper at the end of each paragraph. Student A claimed that she did not just copy and paste the material in question and made a conscious effort to paraphrase. She also stated that she did give credit to the source and had no intention of claiming the ideas as her own.

Witness A was sworn in and testified that while there was no way of knowing Student A’s intentions, the section in question indicated plagiarism on the part of the author since the source was improperly cited. Witness A stated that “the long, paraphrased section of the paper in question should have been offset or delimited in some sense and include exact page numbers” from the original work. When questioned, Witness A speculated that had the work been cited properly, the paper would have been technically ok, but in its current form, “an extensive portion of the paper was made up from another person’s words.” Witness A verified that it was only the subsection of the paper in question that had problems and had no intention, and that “it wasn’t so much a citation issue as much as an overuse of someone else’s words without being properly denoted.”

In their closing remarks, Student A reiterated that she had no intent to plagiarize and thought her work was done correctly. Students B, C, and D summarized that they could not have been held reasonably responsible for the work in question.

Deliberation:
The Council deliberated over the reasonable expectations that could be drawn from the course-specific Honor Code policy, the resources for the course-specific citation, and the Rice Honor Code. While the Blue Book states that “…intentionally failing to credit one’s sources constitutes academic fraud and would, therefore, violate the Honor Code,” it also states that plagiarism is “quoting, paraphrasing, or otherwise using another’s words or ideas as one’s own without properly crediting the source.” Some members of the Council felt that Student A intended to properly cite the source and made a significant effort to avoid improper citation by reviewing her work, offering some citation in the paper, and calling the professor. These members also felt that the source was sufficiently credited and thus did not constitute plagiarism. A straw poll was taken to assess where the Council stood on whether or not a violation occurred.

Straw Poll #1: Did a Violation Occur?
Yes: 0
No: 5 (+ 2 non-binding) Abstentions: 4 (+ 1 non-binding)

The abstentions felt they needed more time to discuss the accusation. Some members of the Council reiterated their stance that the flaws in the citation were not substantial enough to warrant that a violation occurred. Other members of the Council felt that since the paraphrased portion was improperly cited, a violation of the Honor Code occurred.

Straw Poll #2: Did a Violation Occur?
Yes: 2 (+ 1 non-binding)
No: 7 (+ 2 non-binding) Abstentions: 0

Straw poll #2 was made binding. Thus, the Honor Council finds Students A, B, C, and D Not in Violation of the Honor Code.

Time of hearing and deliberation: 2 hours

Respectfully Submitted,

Becky Thilo,
Clerk

Last modified Wednesday, May 5, 2004 7:45 AM
Reach the Honor Council at honor-council@rice.edu