I Won’t Cheat Why is cheating an issue? The following presentation will review the Academic Honesty Policy at La Jolla High School.

What is Academic Dishonesty? What is it? What is cheating? What is plagiarism? How can we prevent it? What are the consequences?

Definition Academic Dishonesty: Acts of academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to, the following:

Cheating—distribution or use of external assistance relating to an examination, test, quiz, homework, project, or the like, without express permission of the teacher.

Fabrication—falsification or invention of data, citation, or other authority in an academic exercise.

Plagiarism—use of another's ideas, words, or work as one's own Plagiarism—use of another's ideas, words, or work as one's own. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the misuse of published material, internet material, and the work of other students.

Theft or Alteration of Materials—unauthorized taking, concealment, or alteration of student or teacher materials.

Is This Plagiarism? Cheating? “Hey, did you do the homework in Mr(s). X’s class? Can I borrow it?” “Sure.” Then the student copies the answers and turns them in as his/her own work. Is It Wrong?

Copying from Another Student This is the most difficult form of cheating for teachers to catch. If the answer for #1 on the homework is A, or 4x, or George Washington, or anything that is a short answer, it is difficult for the teacher to determine if a student found the answer by doing the work, or by copying it from a fellow student.

Did These Students Copy?

Did They Copy? Go back and take a look at the “fill in the blank” at the end of line 3; it’s the part about the length and form of new shih poems. Did you catch the mistake that the second student copied incorrectly?

Did These Two Students Copy? You will see two assignments. Students were asked to select ANY quotes from the book and label them as Traditional or Untraditional according to the directions. What are the chances of picking exactly the same quotes in exactly the same order?

Listen to the Advice of Your Teachers When They Tell You: don’t share your work. if you copy, then you are not doing the brainwork…the brainwork is WHY you were given the homework. the information you did not process (because you copied) will most likely show up again on an assessment you will have to study more because you have spent your study time copying instead of doing the brainwork

What Teachers May Do… Teachers can design a variety of assignments so the majority of your homework assignments are not short answer or fill in the blank. Teachers can: ask students to show work. grade worksheet or short answer types of assignments for credit only, then, to ensure students know the material, give a homework quiz asking students to answer questions relating to the questions that they did earlier on their homework. confront students that teachers see copying homework while sitting with their friends before school or before class. Give the copied work to the student’s teacher.

I Can’t Think for Myself As students, you need to build the skills to feel confident that you have something to say about the topic or assignment. Don’t be tempted to use other people’s thoughts because you can’t think of your own.

Temptation to Plagiarize If you don’t have the confidence to write your own opinions—what you know or notice, you might end up with an assignment like this:

What are all the highlighted color lines? That’s where TurnItIn.com found text that was copied from the internet.

TurnItIn.com Will Catch You How much of the previous assignment was copied from the internet and/or copied from another student? Take a look. Do the math.

Real Life? You may say: “Who cares? No one cares about plagiarism in real life.” Click on the following link (or go to the next slide for an embedded video with no need to have internet access): http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/07/19/melania-trump-michelle-obama-speech-similarities-side-by-side-sots.cnn - http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/07/19/melania-trump-michelle-obama-speech-similarities-side-by-side-sots.cnn

Really?

A Research Paper The prompt asked the student to pick a place he had visited, ask a question about the place, and research the answer. This student selected the Coliseum in Rome, but the title immediately indicates that he has not answered a question about the Coliseum; he has not responded to the prompt completely.

Is This Plagiarism?

Is It, or Not? The introduction is a combination of facts that appear to be written in his own words. He gives credit to two sources. But, does he answer a question about the Coliseum? And what does TurnItIn.com have to say about it?

TurnItIn.com Here is the same paper, with the colored text from TurnItIn.com that indicates that text has been taken from another source. Different colors mean different sources (each has a number). Overall, the report indicates that 69% of the paper was copied from Internet sources.

Know the Assignment Many writing assignments ask questions about a topic--it is more difficult to find a paper on the Internet about “What kind of engineering did it take to have real sea battles at the Coliseum?” then it is to find one about the Coliseum in general. Therefore, it is better to write the assignment to match the prompt--and it’s the right thing to do.

Be a Writer! If you pull facts from various sources, arrange them in your order, rewrite them in your words, give credit to your sources, use direct quotes when appropriate–then the paper becomes your own thoughtful work, and not a copy of someone else’s thought process.

Example of Sentence Combining Practice finding a few facts then combining the facts into a sentence that you write on your own, written in your own words. Still give your source credit. Actors often had to be creative with special effects in plays during Shakespeare’s time, hiding bladders full of pig’s blood under their costumes to create bloody fight scenes, or rolling cannonballs to sound like thunder (Martin).

Note Taking Take notes. Writing one fact per notecard, etc. forces you to paraphrase and creates fewer chances for you to lift chunks of text (plagiarize) from your sources. Notecards also allow you to combine facts from various sources. You can shuffle/organize the notecards by topic, which is a great way to use synthesis.

What Can Students Do This advice is posted in most English classrooms. The poster advertises a book by Barry Gilmore about plagiarism.

Consequences In all instances of academic dishonesty, a referral will be placed in the student's cumulative folder and parents will be contacted

Consequences Any student guilty of academic dishonesty will receive a zero on the affected activity. That zero may not be dropped from the record and will be averaged into the student's grade. No makeup assignment can replace the 0.

Consequences Upon a second instance of dishonesty in either semester of that course, the student will be removed from that course and receive a final grade of F/U.

Plagiarism…Conclusion Ask the teacher’s expectations for an assignment if you are unclear. Learn the consequences and expect to be held accountable. Practice combining/synthesizing facts and asking research questions. Note: Here at LJHS we use MLA format for research papers.

Presentation by Carole LeCren English Department Chair La Jolla High School Revised August 2016