ANSWERING STUDENT EXCUSES1
When confronted with plagiarism or cheating, students may respond with any number ofexplanations, excuses or denial. The Undergraduate Program Committee has drafted somesample responses to help you deal with some of these questions.
Q: There’s only one way to say it/They said it so well, if I tried to paraphrase it, it would justsound worse/ I didn’t really understand it so I figured I should just say it exactly the same waythe original authors did.
A: This assignment was designed to help you learn to understand original sources and writeabout them in your own words. Committing plagiarism defeats the purpose of the assignment,and students who plagiarize are not learning from the assignment. Whether you can say it betterthan the original authors is not important; what matters is demonstrating that you learned fromthe assignment by completing it without any plagiarism.
Q: It’s just a punctuation error. I only forgot to put quotes in.
A: APA style dictates that the only time it is OK for something to be word-for-word identical iswhen the author wants to illustrate how something is being said, not what is being said. It’s notclear from your writing that the way the original source was worded was critical to yourargument. As such, the quoting was unnecessary and a violation of APA style. If the author issimply trying to say what someone else said, and it is word-for-word identical, the author hasplagiarized, whether or not there are quotes.
Q: Why is this such a big deal?
A: This assignment was designed to foster the goals of learning how to understand originalsources and write about them in your own words. Committing plagiarism defeats the purpose ofthe assignment, and students who plagiarize are not learning from the assignment. Also, this isacademic dishonesty, and I am required to report instances of academic dishonesty to theuniversity.
Q: I only did it a little bit
A: This is like saying “I only stabbed him a little bit.” It doesn’t matter how much you did it;you still plagiarized.
Q: I didn’t mean to/I meant to rephrase it, I thought I had changed the wording/This wasn’t myfinal draft
A: Whether you meant to or not, what you submitted contains plagiarism and doesn’tdemonstrate that you learned from the assignment.
Q: I changed a few words, so it’s not word-for-word.
A: This is improper paraphrasing and still constitutes plagiarism, as we discussed many times.
Q: I didn’t know this was plagiarism/Nobody told me this was plagiarism/ No one has ever toldme there was a problem with my writing
A: The department’s policy on plagiarism is in the syllabus. We had a lecture and class exerciseon plagiarism, and you took a plagiarism quiz. All of these sources explain what constitutesplagiarism and you signed a document indicating that you understood what plagiarism is.
Q: Other teachers say this is OK/This is how I was taught to do it in another class
A: It is unfortunate if another teacher taught you differently. However, the department’s policyon plagiarism is in the syllabus. We had a lecture and class exercise on plagiarism and you tooka plagiarism quiz. All of these sources explain what constitutes plagiarism and you signed adocument indicating that you understood what plagiarism is.
Q: That’s not MLA style/I learned MLA, not APA
A: As this is a psychology class, we write using APA style. The lecture on plagiarism hadexamples of how to cite using APA style.
Q: I don’t know how to avoid plagiarizing
A: You signed a contract saying you knew how to avoid plagiarism and that you had talked tome if you had any questions.
Q: You didn’t give us enough time to do this properly/This is too hard
A: Writing takes time, and part of your responsibility as a student is to manage the academic timecommitments you choose.
Q: I’ve never written a paper like this before/ I don’t know how to write “scientifically”/No oneever taught me how to do this, so it’s not my responsibility
A: That’s what we’ve been learning about in this class, and if you had questions about thisassignment you should have asked me before submitting the assignment.
Q: But I’m a really good student
A: Then you should know how important it is to meet the course learning goals of understandingoriginal sources and writing about them in your own words
Q: I’ve never done anything like this before
A: It is still a problem, whether you’ve done it before or not.
Q: Can’t I just write a whole new paper?
A: It wouldn’t be fair of me to let you submit a different version unless I let everyone submit adifferent version. Also, this is academic dishonesty, and I am required to report instances ofacademic dishonesty to the university.
Q: I’ll just take a 0. Can we pretend like I just never turned it in?
A: It is my responsibility to report this problem.
Q: I’m experiencing extreme personal tragedy and it’s too much to deal with this as well
A: It is unfortunate that you are facing these challenges. You may want to consider a hardshipwithdrawal. However, your external circumstances, as unfortunate as they are, do not change thefact that I am required to report this. You may also want to consider going to the counselingcenter to help you manage what sounds like a highly stressful experience.
Q: I won’t be able to graduate.
A: This assignment was designed to help you learn to understand original sources and writeabout them in your own words. Committing plagiarism defeats the purpose of the assignment,and students who plagiarize are not learning from the assignment. By plagiarizing you did notmeet the course goals, and therefore have not earned a passing grade. The fact that this bars youfrom graduating is unfortunate, but not relevant.