Plagiarism

[jammin]

hey!

Regarding plagiarism, what's the official vcaa policy on plagiarism, and to what extent of copying/stealing defines plagiarism? is it one nice word or a phrase or a sentence, etc?

and also, what are the maximum and minimum respective penalties for:
-borrowing a few words off a sample essay in a Sac/exam or someone reports you for stealing 'their phrase'
-a few phrases
-a rote learned paragraph 'someone else's'


for English 3/4 btw (asking for a friend)

[heids]

It'd be utterly ridiculous to call plagiarism for words - we all use the same words, more or less, it's the way we put them together to express our ideas that's unique.

Phrases - a phrase or clause would seem fine to me; full sentences are tipping it a bit for me, but maybe okay.  (In probability terms, the more words in the chunk, the less likely it is that multiple people would come up with something very similar.)  But English is all about mutually learning from each other, give-and-take; that grade-1-spelling-test attitude that says 'mummy he copied myyyy phrase wahahahah' is ridiculous.  Totally up to your teacher really what they do about it in SACs, so ask them - I doubt VCAA policy would come into play.

Paragraph - now that is plagiarism; you're copying their ideas in the exact order and way that they wrote them.  Nothing wrong with taking something very short and adapting it into your own ideas and writing, but the bigger the chunk, the less it is your adaptation of it and the more it is just their work.  The point of English is developing your own opinion/ideas/stance, so it's just not okay to copy.  They should at least cross out the stolen paragraph when marking.

But will you get caught in the exam?  Probably not.

But examiners aren't idiots.  My sister (proofreads scientific journals) catches plariarisers because of stylistic differences.  Examiners will recognise any weird disjointed style as it's almost impossible to adapt stolen phrases/sentences/paragraphs appropriately to your own style.  In other words, if you want to cheat, develop some skill and finesse.   If you get caught in an exam (it'd have to be more than phrases, more like paragraphs), I imagine you risk a big fat 0 for the essay.

[jammin]

It'd be utterly ridiculous to call plagiarism for words - we all use the same words, more or less, it's the way we put them together to express our ideas that's unique.

Phrases - a phrase or clause would seem fine to me; full sentences are tipping it a bit for me, but maybe okay.  (In probability terms, the more words in the chunk, the less likely it is that multiple people would come up with something very similar.)  But English is all about mutually learning from each other, give-and-take; that grade-1-spelling-test attitude that says 'mummy he copied myyyy phrase wahahahah' is ridiculous.  Totally up to your teacher really what they do about it in SACs, so ask them - I doubt VCAA policy would come into play.

Paragraph - now that is plagiarism; you're copying their ideas in the exact order and way that they wrote them.  Nothing wrong with taking something very short and adapting it into your own ideas and writing, but the bigger the chunk, the less it is your adaptation of it and the more it is just their work.  The point of English is developing your own opinion/ideas/stance, so it's just not okay to copy.  They should at least cross out the stolen paragraph when marking.

But will you get caught in the exam?  Probably not.

But examiners aren't idiots.  My sister (proofreads scientific journals) catches plariarisers because of stylistic differences.  Examiners will recognise any weird disjointed style as it's almost impossible to adapt stolen phrases/sentences/paragraphs appropriately to your own style.  In other words, if you want to cheat, develop some skill and finesse.   If you get caught in an exam (it'd have to be more than phrases, more like paragraphs), I imagine you risk a big fat 0 for the essay.

So if there's direct evidence of plagiarism of 3-5 unique 2-5 word phrases within the paragraph from a sample essay and this was detected, what do you feel a likely consequence would be? And this only occurring in one para.

As in words that express a certain idea in an unique way that is copied to boost expression. So these phrases are definitely found to be plagiarised


edit: likely consequence as in what's the maximum reasonable penalty a school can enforce on the student

[heids]

So if there's direct evidence of plagiarism of 3-5 unique 2-5 word phrases within the paragraph from a sample essay and this was detected, what do you feel a likely consequence would be? And this only occurring in one para.

As in words that express a certain idea in an unique way that is copied to boost expression. So these phrases are definitely found to be plagiarised

edit: likely consequence as in what's the maximum reasonable penalty a school can enforce on the student

Not a clue.  I don't know of any VCAA rules; I think that like schools decide SAC conditions, they also decide what SAC cheating is and what the penalties are.  They could cross out that single paragraph and mark based on the rest of the essay, or decide to take off a couple of marks (anything more, like a fail/0, would seem ridiculous to me).

Again it depends on a few things: like, are all the phrases derived directly from one single paragraph in one other essay ('plagiarism'), or gleaned from multiple sources ('research' )?  How much of the bulk of the paragraph does it make up?  Is it five 5-word phrases, or three 2-word phrases?  (They're quite different, the latter should be 100% fine).  Was there already knowledge that it wasn't okay?

Tactful negotiation with the teacher is their only option since I'm pretty sure it's not VCAA-linked.  Plus the 'I'm sooo sorry, I totes didn't realise that was plagiarism... won't ever do it again!' etc.

[keltingmeith]

edit: likely consequence as in what's the maximum reasonable penalty a school can enforce on the student

Some places will expel you. I'd imagine the worst you'll face is a stern talking to for a first time, but consistent plagiarising could get you kicked out.

[_fruitcake_]

Plagiarism of phrases or words can be in my opinion useful. Paragraphs? No, long flowing sentences copied from a good kid? No. The problem lies within having the capacity to write well and the inability to formulate ideas/phrases. A good student who is able to get 90+ on SACs could benefit from picking up good ideas or phrases from exemplary students but one who is getting below 80% would be better off learning how the top students are writing. At the end of the day you will be marked better if you know how to write well than just having the ability to throw in an exemplary phrase into a badly-written essay.

[fwdslxsh]

So if there's direct evidence of plagiarism of 3-5 unique 2-5 word phrases within the paragraph from a sample essay and this was detected, what do you feel a likely consequence would be? And this only occurring in one para.

As in words that express a certain idea in an unique way that is copied to boost expression. So these phrases are definitely found to be plagiarised


edit: likely consequence as in what's the maximum reasonable penalty a school can enforce on the student

I'd only imagine getting detected for plagiarism in this case if a teacher gave you a sample essay / resources and you copied '3-5 unique 2-5 word phrases' directly from that. Also, if you were supposedly a low-scoring student but one of your phrases stood out, then your teacher may get a little suspicious and investigate. Phrases like "Against the backdrop"  was initially unique in my year level, but now almost everyone uses it. I generally don't think it'd be an issue if you did 'plagarise' certain phrases, but really be careful. If you do get caught, worst case scenario, like Euler said, would either be expulsion... Or you may even fail English, and, if i'm right, if you fail English you fail your VCE (please correct me if i'm wrong). So don't get into that habit of copying word-for-word from someone else.

I wouldn't risk copying too much. If something sounds extremely fancy and you absolutely love it, at least tweak it a bit. Don't make it too obvious.

[jammin]

Some places will expel you. I'd imagine the worst you'll face is a stern talking to for a first time, but consistent plagiarising could get you kicked out.

it's highly unreasonable if they expel you for copying 3-4 phrases on a sac right?

I was more asking about the problems regarding the sac score itself

[keltingmeith]

it's highly unreasonable if they expel you for copying 3-4 phrases on a sac right?

I was more asking about the problems regarding the sac score itself

I've seen people kicked out of school for things that have seemed pretty minuscule. Plagiarism is quite serious in the academic world - it can legitimately mean cheating people out of millions (hell, even billions) of dollars, hence why its a large "no-no", even for just general schooling.

Problems just regarding the SAC score? You could have entire paragraphs, or even the whole SAC, entirely discounted. Unless, as bangali said, you can make the stolen phrase/sentence flow well (which is *very* hard to do), the sentence will stick out like a sore thumb, and you'll lose marks on essay flow/fluency, anyway.

Basically, plagiarism is a bad idea - you should work on developing your own sentences. Drawing inspiration from others is fine, but there's a big difference between inspired and stolen.

[Orb]

I've seen people kicked out of school for things that have seemed pretty minuscule.

Plagiarising 5 phrases on a SAC won't get you kicked out and you can certainly appeal that. It's a mistake, a bad mistake at that and something you will certainly regret but no, no school will kick you out for plagiarising 15 words.

Plagiarism is quite serious in the academic world - it can legitimately mean cheating people out of millions (hell, even billions) of dollars, hence why its a large "no-no", even for just general schooling.

Perfectly agree, but let's be honest, there's often a case of plagiarising a phrase or to, in fact if we really tried to delve deep into most essays, you'll find that a phrase or two has been 'plagiarised' off a book somewhere that's been published. But yes, I agree that this circumstance is different, and that intentional plagiarism should be punished, but certainly not by expulsion, especially since most punishments for cheating blatantly by copying answers off a book is punished by a 0 SAC score, not by expulsion. Worst case scenario is maybe a Saturday detention.

Problems just regarding the SAC score? You could have entire paragraphs, or even the whole SAC, entirely discounted. Unless, as bangali said, you can make the stolen phrase/sentence flow well (which is *very* hard to do), the sentence will stick out like a sore thumb, and you'll lose marks on essay flow/fluency, anyway.

That is certainly possible.

Tl;dr You will not get expelled, not with people punching people and bullying the hell out of kids and not receiving anything more than a suspension, but there are serious implications regarding plagiarism.

[spectroscopy]

by plagiarism im going to assume you mean that in a written english sac in test conditions, your friendplagiarised another student, because students very often memorise or try to memorise sample essays and ive never really heard for a punishment for that

borrowing words or a phrase almost definitely wont get you done for plagiarism,
borrowing a string of sentences where they are copied word for word from someone elses sac will DEFINITELY raise some eyebrows and depending on the school and who notices it the punishment(if any) may vary
if you take a carbon copy of another persons paragrah in a sac then im almost sure there will be an investigation because having exact/almost exact same wording in a paragraph is very rare.

this is all for sacs of course, the examiners see heaps of kids who memorise sample essays every year, i wouldnt really worry about it too much in the exam. its not a good strategy and the examiners will know you dont have any original ideas but i dont think theyll do anything

for punishments, it depends on the school and everything, but fun fact: dont know how true this is but ages ago on this very site there was a thread about a guy or something where he was in uni and they found out that he had cheated on a bunch of sacs in year 12 and they retroactivley failed him and he ended up getting kicked out of his uni course
plagiarism is kind of cheating so tell your friend to just study

[pi]

(asking for a friend)

Nice try buddy