| Honor Council Rice University |
Case #27, Spring 1995 (carried over to Fall 1995)
Abstract of the Honor Council
September 19, 1995
Members Present: Alex Cestero, Jay Fundling, Carolyn Gill (presiding),
Dan Grossman, Erin Kellam, Lauren Kern, Jennifer Rich, Floyd Walker,
Stefanie Wardwell. Courtney Kelso (observing).
Ombuds: Emily Johnson with Jon Gillum (observing) and Dan Whiteson (observing).
Letter of Accusation
The Honor Council received a letter of accusation from a faculty
member (the grader), accusing the accused of plagiarism on a paper in an
upper-level humanities course. The letter explained that the he had
suspected plagiarism when initially reading the paper. He asked an
assistant to check the paper against the sources listed in the
bibliography. Upon doing so, the assistant noticed that several passages
in the paper were nearly identical to passages in the book and that the
structure of the paper followed a structure contained in one of the
sources. The assistant's notes were included in the letter of accusation.
Evidence Submitted
Letter of accusation (with assistant's notes)
The accused's written statement from the investigation
A copy of the paper submitted with the grader's comments and the
assistant's marks
A copy of the paper submitted with only the grader's comments
Six (6) depositions from members of the class about the nature of the assignment
Relevant lecture notes of the accused (incomplete)
Course syllabus (which included instructions for the assignment)
The books cited in the paper
Plea
The accused entered a plea of Not In Violation.
Opening Statement
The accused felt that the accusation was the result of a misunderstanding.
Because the grader was not the professor for the course, he was not
familiar with the assignment. The accused felt that had the professor
graded the paper, he would have known how the resources were used and
would not have considered it a violation of the Honor Code.
Questioning
The accused explained that the professor had recommended the sources used
in the paper and that the professor was familiar with them. No specific
policy for citing sources for the paper was discussed in class. No other
papers of this type were previously assigned in the course. No rough
draft of the paper was turned in. The idea for the paper came directly
from the class notes. These notes were often ideas coming directly from
relevant sources. The accused had met with the professor to discuss the
topic and direction of the paper. When asked why some quotations in the
paper were quoted while others were not, the accused explained that the
professor would recognize the unquoted material because it had been
presented in class. The sources were not al ways mentioned in lectures.
Although this assignment was a, "research paper," some of the lecture
was
specifically devoted to the topic. The structure for the paper had been
discussed with the professor.
Witness -- the grader (a faculty member)
The grader explained that he had graded some of the papers submitted for
this assignment because the professor was unable to do so. Although he
felt "uncomfortable" with the accusation because the accused was not
his
student, he found two kinds of plagia rism in the paper. First, phrases
and passages were lifted nearly word-for-word without quotation or
citation. Second, and more importantly to the witness, the structure of
the paper came from a source without proper citation. The grader had
spoken to the professor before assuming the grading, but he did not
specifically know the guidelines for the assignment.
Further Questioning
The accused explained that he thought the correct process for writing the
paper was to take ideas presented in lecture and then use additional
resources for more ideas. Since the themes were presented in class, he
did not feel they needed citation. When reading passages in the sources,
he recognized them from the lectures. The paper was written in a short
period of time before it was due.
Closing Statement
The accused explained that he did not feel that he had violated the code,
but that there were also mitigating circumstances surrounding the matter.
First, the any plagiarism would be unintentional becauase the professor
would have known where all the pas sages and ideas came from. Second, at
the time the paper was written, the accused was undergoing multiple
personal crises involving family, friends, and health. These were
explained to the Council.
Deliberation
The Council generally felt that the paper contained many examples of
straightforward plagiarism. These included the uncited use of ideas
particular to a source and the unquoted use of passages from a source.
Although not all of the accused's class notes were available, the notes
which did cover some of the ideas in the paper were not detailed enough to
produce passages so similar to the sources. That is, the paper was much
more like the sources than the class notes. It did not seem possible,
then, tha t the passages that should have been quoted came directly from
the class notes. One Council member pointed out that had such poor
citation been acceptable for the paper, then surely the professor would
have told the grader. A straw poll was taken:
Straw Poll #1
In Violation 8 (+ 1 observing)
Not In Violation 0
Abstentions 1
The abstaining member was not yet convinced that the accused violated the
Honor System. Because the professor was unable to testify, he felt that
the Council should have specific reasons why it was convinced that the
accused had violated the rules of the assignment. The other members
provided such reasons which included: the assumption is that sources must
be cited, a faculty member reading the paper felt it was plagiarized,
citations were specifically mentioned in the printed instructions for the
assi gnment, passages in the paper were simply too much like passages in
the sources, this paper would be considered plagiarized in any
"typical"
course, the professor gave no indication to the grader that this paper had
an extraordinary citation policy, none of the depositions indicated an
extraordinary citation policy for this paper, the accused explained that
the paper was done hurriedly and would have been done differently under
normal circumstances, and the accused explained she would have written the
paper in the same way even if the sources had not been recommended by the
professor. In short, all of the material evidence suggested plagiarism
and the absence of testimony from the professor did not make this evidence
less convincing. A second straw poll was taken:
Straw Poll #2
In Violation 9 (+ 1 observing)
Not In Violation 0
Abstentions 0
Thus, the Council finds the accused In Violation of the Honor System.
Penalty Deliberation
Because the assignment was worth more than 15% of the semester grade, the
consensus penalty is an F in the course and a 2-semester suspension. The
Council did not feel the plagiarism was unintentional; the uncited use of
passages and ideas was done inten tionally and this was the violation.
The Council did believe that the accused was under extreme emotional
stress at the time the violation occurred and that this stress directly
affected his actions. Because this type of mitigation is difficult to
quantify, different penalties were suggested and a straw poll was taken:
Straw Poll #3
F in course and 2-semester suspension 0
F in course and 1-semester suspension 2
F in course 6 (+ 1 observing)
Loss of Credit on the Assignment 0
Abstentions 1
The abstaining member had not decided whether the plagiarism on the paper
should result in a course failure. After deciding, a final straw poll was
taken:
Straw Poll #4
F in course and 2-semester suspension 0
F in course and 1-semester suspension 2
F in course 7 (+ 1 observing)
Loss of Credit on the Assignment 0
Abstentions 0
With no objections, the results of straw polls #2 and #4 were made
binding. The Honor Council thus finds the accused In Violation of the
Honor System, and recommends to the Dean of Students that the accused
receive an F in the course in question. The Council also recommends that
a suspension clause be attached to the accused's record.
Time of trial and deliberation: 3 and 1/2 hours
Respectfully Submitted,
Dan Grossman
Trial Clerk