| Honor Council Rice University |
Abstract of the Honor Council
Case #10
January 26, 1994
Members present: Chad Fargason, Bradley Monton, Sam Cole, Adam
Thornton, Cormac Flanagan, Carolyn Gill, Crystal Gobble,
Abigail Martin, Thomas Page, Dan Grossman (observing), Mark
Teoh (observing).
Ombudsmen: Lan Huynh.
The Honor Council received a letter from the professor of a
lower level Humanities course implicating one student of
violating the Honor Code on the final project. After
studying the project closely, she noticed that the accused
student had lifted passages from several books and had
incorporated them, word for word, into his assignment
without proper citation. The professor felt that plagiarism
had occurred and turned the matter over to the Honor
Council.
The accused pled Not In Violation.
The accused made a brief opening statement in which he
reiterated his innocence and stated that he understood the
definition of plagiarism and in his mind, he hadn't
committed a violation. The accused defined plagiarism as
copying from a text and presenting the work as your own
without proper citation. The student stated that he thought
he did have proper citation because at the beginning of each
passage that he copied from a text and used in his
assignment, he wrote the author and name of the text. He
said that he felt he was doing the assignment correctly,
and that copying the passages from the readings and using
them in his project was what the professor called for. The
accused stated that on a previous assignment that was
similar to the final project, he had lifted a passage from a
book and used it without proper citation and the professor
had not reprimanded him. In fact, he had done well on the
assignment. Thus, the accused felt he was using correct
procedure on the final project. He further stated he
attended class regularly and he had read the syllabus.
The first witness was the professor of the class. The
professor began by saying that she had addressed the class
at about mid-semester and had explained the proper procedure
for how to do the final project, but did not address copying
at that time. Several weeks after the final assignment was
handed out, a student asked if they could copy passages from
texts and use them in the final project. The professor
stated that they could not and then went into detail on the
exact way to go about compiling the last assignment. She
said that the accused attended class regularly and had been
there that day. She further stated that she did not notice
that the accused had used improperly cited material on the
previous project.
The second witness was a student in the same class who had
worked on several assignments before with the accused. The
witness stated that she had used the material she located in
texts as a springboard for her own work, but did not simply
use whole passages from the texts by themselves for the
final project. She also said that she did not remember the
professor saying that students could not copy from the
texts, but agreed that it was possible that the professor
did say that.
In the closing statement, the accused restated his innocence
by virtue of lack of intent to cheat. He said he thought he
was doing the assignment correctly and did not remember the
professor saying they could not copy. He felt that since he
had not been reprimanded on the previous assignment for
using the same procedure, it was allowable. He felt he had
cited sufficiently and was not trying to pass the work off
as his own.
Deliberation:
After the accused was excused deliberation began. A great
deal of debate centered on wether or not it was plagiarism
since the final project was not in essay form. All agreed,
however, that the citation was poor. The issue of wether or
not the accused properly credited the author of the material
was resolved when it was noted that one passage was a direct
quote that was written without quotation marks and was
credited to another author. It was also noted that although
the accused did not recall the class where the teacher spoke
about proper procedure for the final project, she
specifically addressed the issue of copying in class, which
he attended, and was therefore responsible for knowing it.
Three straw polls were then taken to decide guilt or
innocence. The results are as follows:
Straw Poll #l:
In violation: 5
Not in violation: 1 (non voting)
Abstentions: 4 (+l non voting)
Straw Poll #2:
In violation: 9 (+1 non voting)
Not in violation: 0
Abstentions: l (non voting)
Straw Poll #3:
In violation: 9 (+2 non voting)
Not in violation: 0
Absentions 0
The third straw poll was made binding.
After guilt was established, the Council debated penalty.
Consensus penalty for the case was an F in the course and a
two semester suspension. The Council, however, felt the
penalty should be lower. Most of the debate centered on
precedent in penalties and on the mitigating circumstances.
The Council felt that there was a strong degree of
unintentionality and considered that a mitigating
circumstance. The degree of negligence was also discussed as
was the severity of the violation. The Council did not,
however, view those as mitigating. The majority of the
council wanted to see an aspect of rehabilitation in the
penalty and we decided that on any punishment given to the
accused, a reorientation to the honor system and a
reorientation to proper citation would also be given.
Several penalties were proposed and three straw polls were
taken. The results are as follows:
Straw Poll #l:
F in the course: 4
Loss of credit on the assignment: 2 (+2 non voting)
Loss of credit in the course: 0
Abstentions: 3
Straw Poll #2:
F in the course: 5
LCA: 0
LCA and a rewrite: 2 (+2 non voting)
Abstentions: 2
Straw Poll 13:
F in the course: 7 (+1 non voting)
LCA and a rewrite: 2 (+1 non voting)
Abstentions: 0
The third straw poll was made binding and a suspension
clause was attached. The final penalty was an F in the
course, a reorientation to the Honor Code, a reorientation
to proper citation and the suspension clause.
Respectfully submitted,
Carolyn Gill.