| Honor Council Rice University |
Abstract of the Honor Council
Case #9 (carried over from Fall 1993)
19 January 1994
Members Present: Larkin McReynolds, Steve Hackney, Heather
Morschauser, Abby Martin, Sam Cole, Christopher Stokes, Alex Cestero,
Andrea Johnson, Chad Fargason
Ombudsman: Katie Krolikowski
The Honor Council received an accusation from the professor of a lower
level humanities class discussing the possibility of plagiarism in a
final paper. The professor contended that the paper showed writing
capabilities far above those shown by the accused in previous papers.
The professor suggested that the paper was not written by the accused
but instead written by someone else with the necessary citations added
later. The professor noted that the paper and the bibliography were in
different fonts. While the books in the bibliography were avaliable
in the Rice library, the letter said, the books either have not been
checked out in the recent past, are "lost", or have nothing to
do with the topic of the paper. One book, whose title was listed as a
movie as well, will not be published until 1994. Alter noticing
discrepancies and checking the sources in the library, the professor
approached the accused about the problem. The accused told the
professor, according to the letter, that indeed the paper was a
product of his/her work and was based on a paper completed by the
accused in high school. The professor then approached the Honor
Council about his case.
The evidence submitted included the letter of accusation, the paper in
question, a "correct" works clted list, and copies of the
articles on the corrected list. All other materials from the class
-- old papers and rough draft -- were not available.
The accused entered a plea of NOT IN VIOLATION.
In the opening statement, the accused explained that s/he had wanted
to write the best paper possible and that s/he decided late to write
on a topic s/he had written on in high school. S/he had tried to find
the sources for his/her paper in the Rice library but finding them
unavailable, instead went to the library at the University of Houston
(UH) and found the articles and books there. Because s/he had to rush
the writing of the paper to meet the deadline, s/he entered the
correct page numbers into the text but did not finish the works cited
page until the last minute. When the accused visited the Rice library,
s/he had a list of sources from LIBRIS s/he planned to use. S/he also
had a list of sources from the UH library. When s/he rushed to finish
the works cited page of the paper, s/he accidentally typed in the
wrong list, which, according to the accused, explalns why the books
listed on the works cited list page do not correspond to the in-text
citations or the actual books available at Fondren. Therefore, the
name in the in-text citations are incorrect but the numbers are
correct. S/he said many of the quotes could be found in the articles,
listed on the "corrected" works clted page, that the accused
entered as evidence. The Council then noted that not only was the
works cited page made up of incorrect references, the in-text
citations had names that corresponded to the incorrect works cited
page, not the correct one presented by the accused as evidence. When
the Council asked the accused if s/he had typed the works cited list
and then went on to put those incorrect names into the citations, the
accused said yes. When members of the Council questioned the accused
if they had first typed the paper and then later entered the
citations, the accused responded that basically the page numbers were
made up as the paper was typed and then s/he went back and filled in a
range of names.
Witness #1
Witness #1 was the professor for the class and the accuser. The
Council began by asking what about the paper caught the professor's
attention. The professor said that the students in the class were
supposed to have a rough draft on two different occasions for this
paper and that the accused did not have one either time. While the
accused had improved throughout the class, this paper was far higher
quality writing than any previous paper the accused had turned in.
Even the tutor for the class noticed and was "blown away". The
accused had not had any help on the paper before s/he went to the
tutor with an almost finished paper. The professor went on to say that
in the class footnoting, citation, and paraphrasing procedures had all
been covered extensively and that the Honor Code policy for the class
had been made very clear. The professor claimed the accused had told
him/her that the topic of the paper was a topic the accused used in
high school for a paper. The accused responded that s/he said that in
the conference because s/he was scared of what s/he had done. Indeed,
s/he had written a paper on this topic before but had not used the old
paper to complete this paper. The professor stated that in the
conference s/he had with the accused, s/he had asked the accused to
explain some of the terms s/he used in the paper and the accused was
unable to, saying "They were just in the book." The accused
explained this by saying that the conference had occurred during
finals and that at the time s/he could not remember everything about
the paper. The professor went on to say that the paper was worth 25% of
the final grade. A Council member then asked the accused why s/he was
so rushed to complete the paper if only the tutor was looking at it at
first and the actual deadline was a couple of days after the meeting
with the tutor. The accused responded that s/he had rushed to give the
tutor a final copy and that the deadline was not much longer after the
meeting with the tutor. The professor reviewed the articles that the
accused had brought in and noted that several sentences from the
articles were in the paper and not cited. The Council questioned the
professor if whether using incorrect citations was tantamount to not
citing at all and the professor responded that it was worse because
incorrect citation was deceptive. To conclude, the professor read a
segment of the paper and explained that the information included was
not common knowledge and was not cited.
Witness #2
Witness #2 is the accused's roommate. S/he began by explaining that
they both were in the same class and working on the same paper and
that it was noticeable that the accused spend a great deal of time on
this paper, more than on any other previous paper for the class. When
questioned, the witness could not say just how long was spent, but
that it was more time than they themselves had spent on the paper. The
accused had previously explained that the font within the paper was
different because s/he had used his/her roommate's printer for the
text but it had broken so s/he had used a different printer to finish
the works cited list. Witness #2 stated that indeed his/her printer
was broken frequently.
The Council then questioned the accused further. One member asked why
the accused included sources in the paper that s/he knew were wrong
when s/he presented the paper to the tutor. The accused responded that
s/he was just lazy and neglected that part of the assignment because
s/he was more concerned with the quality of writing than the
citations. The accused was then asked why s/he needed to rush if the
deadline was after the meeting with the tutor and the accused
responded that s/he rushed because the meeting was directly before the
deadline. One member asked why, if s/he took the time to type and
print out the bibliography page after s/he had spoken to the tutor,
why s/he did not change the citations. The accused responded that s/he
had just confused the two works cited lists. The Council then asked
the accused how s/he knew what names matched with which citations and
if they basically just guessed how to match the page numbers and the
names. The accused responded yes, they just matched the numbers up on
their own. When the Council asked whether it was a completely random
match up, s/he sald yes.
At this point, the Council took a break and several members left to
check the works cited lists on LIBRIS and on the UH catalog. When
they returned the trial resumed.
One member reported that he was unable to find any of the sources
listed by he accused through various subject searches in LIBRIS.
Another member reported that one of the books listed on the corrected
works cited list was neither at the Rice library nor at the UH
library. It could only be found at the Houston Public library and the
accused claimed not to have visited there. One member then asked the
accused how s/he had done his/her research. The accused answered that
they simply went to the computerized catalogs at UH and found
everything on his/her topic. At this point one member expressed his
concern that even though the accused stated that s/he did his/her
research at UH library, that could not be the case simply because the
UH library did not have one of the books. Another member then asked
the accused how one particular reference appeared in an in-text
citation, did not appear in the works cited list with the
bibliography, and then reappeared in the "corrected" works cited
list. The accused answered that s/he had "just put it in." The
member then asked if the accused knew the purpose of citation and the
accused responded that citation was necessary to show where you got
information, to prove your facts. Another member then asked the
accused to define plagiarism and the accused responded that plagiarism
was turning in false information as your own and not being honest
about your own work. The accused was then asked if s/he had committed
plagiarism and s/he responded that yes, they had used false notes, but
that the work was his/her own and went on to say that they didn't do
this to be dishonest or "slick", but instead because s/he was
just lazy. The accused said then that they have great respect for the
Honor Code and love the University and wouldn't do anything to
jeopardize his/her standing here. S/he just screwed up and had been
careless.
In the closing statement the accused said that s/he had worked hard on
this paper and had wanted a good grade. The accused said that s/he was
not trying to fool anybody, but had been just careless. S/he said that
it was just a foolish mistake and s/he admitted to typing in the wrong
bibliography and wrong page numbers.
The Council then began deliberation. One member began by saying that
regardless of the degree of penalty, the testimony clearly showed
plagiarism and suggested a straw poll immediately on whether the
accused was in violation or not in violation of the code. Another
member went on to say that plagiarism is the presenting words and
ideas as one's own without proper citation and that the accused made a
feeble attempt to avoid plagiarism. Even if s/he had was not violating
maliciously, the fact, by the definition, was that s/he had
plagiarized.
The first Straw Poll was taken.
Straw Poll #1:
In Violation: 9
Not In Violation: 0
Abstentions: 0
The First Straw Poll was made binding and the accused was found guilty
of violating the Honor Code by plagiarizing. The consensus penalty
for a violation worth more than 10% of the final grade is an F in the
course and a two semester suspension. The Council then discussed
penalty.
One council member stated that the paper appeared to him like someone
else had written it. Another member replied that no matter what was
their personal opinion, there was not proof that anyone else wrote the
paper. One member noted how the paper contained vast quantities of
wrongly cited quotes and sections that were not cited at all. One
member then stated that the consensus penalty for this type of
violation was an F in the course and a two semester suspension and
questioned the other members if they felt there were any mitigating
circumstances. In considering the severity of penalty, one member said
that just the rampant dishonesty in the citations was enough to
justify a severe violation and penalty. All members agreed that this
was a major assignment. One member then said that the best case
scenario was that indeed the accused had written the paper, but even
with that given, there were so many citation errors that the violation
was still severe. One member then picked a page of the text and went
though saying that 3/4 of the first paragraph was copied from one
article, and that two completely different sentences from the article
were thrown together to make one sentence without citation. This could
not just be accidental, he said. Other facts in the paper were not at
all common knowledge and therefore required a citation. It was also
noted that the violation did not occur in the heat of the moment, but
was calculated. A straw poll was called.
Straw Poll #2
F in the course & 2 semester suspension (consensus) 7
F in the course & 1 semester suspension 0
Abstentions 2
One of the abstaining members then said that the accused had had a
couple of days to think about the violation before turning in the
paper and chose not to correct it, and instead continued the
deception. Another member then said that they did not think this was
just sloppy scholarship, but instead was academic fraud. Another Straw
Poll was called.
Straw Poll #3
F in the course & 2 semester suspension 9
F in the course & 1 semester suspension 0
Abstentions 0
With no objections, the results of Straw Poll #3 were then made
binding and a suspension clause was attached. The Honor Council
therefore recommends to the Dean of Students that the accused student
receive an F in the course as well as a two semester suspension. The
Council also recommends that a suspension clause be attached to the
accused's record.
Time of trial and deliberation: 3.5 hours.
Respectfully Submitted:
Andrea Johnson
Trial Clerk