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Chase said:

At the small state college where I taught, each incidence of plagiarism was dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The very general rule of thumb of graduated consequences in the English department:

In 101, basic expository writing, where the basics were being practiced, the type of "common knowledge" plagiarism where the student cited specific "remembered" facts such as distances to the two nearest stars or exact dates and locations Civil War battles, the paper got an F with a stern warning. Second instances received an F for the course. Any out and out copied papers rated an F for the course and up to two years academic probation.

In subsequent first-year English 102 and 103, any undocumented information on papers (not from direct experience) was an automatic F for the course and two years academic probation. Any copied materials rated expulsion and two years probation.

Any proven plagiarism in upper division classes got a student booted from ours and any state college for two years.

I completely agree with Veinglory that fraudulent ID, diploma, and essay businesses should get the owners and operators prison time--even if they manufacture get-out-of-jail-free cards.

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I'm glad I'm not the only one found this a little horrifying.

Was there at least a check? Did you ask the student with that type of uncited fact to come in and quiz them on that area/knowledge? That'd seem fair. If they can explain why and how they know it and repeat it and a similar type fact, then it's legit.

This is bringing up bad memories of the poor foreign student in grad school who asked some of us to help her by going over her papers to make sure the English was correct, as it wasn't her first language. We did. No one did anything but go over her grammar and word choice *with her* but a professor figured the correct English meant she couldn't have possibly written the paper herself and flunked her.

The church where Luther nailed his theses was in Wittenberg. Hamlet (and Horatio) went to school in Wittenberg. As did Dr. Faustus. (Thus I add some literary merit to an otherwise prosaic discussion.) It's easy to remember the name of the church, too: October 31 is All Hallows' Eve (Halloween), and the church was All Saints (All Hallows) Church.

Facts, as all know, cannot be copyrighted.

I did say every incident was handled case-by-case. Not all classes are the same? You think? There are always remedies for papers flunked on suspicion. Our department insisted on proof positive and had a well-established system of review, but I'm repeating myself.

Without printing the full syllabus here, in the specific learning situation I mentioned in passing, students were asked to write seven essays in the quarter from personal experience and observations. For Pete's sake, if you did the math to get 525,600 minutes in a year, then you had the experience needed to include the fact in your paper. Same goes for seeing the sun rise in the east every morning. If you walked past Pompey's Pillar and saw William Clark's signature under "July 25, 1806," you can very well attest to when and where the co-leader of the Voyage of Discovery was on that date.

The magic most seemed to grasp quite well in that particular class was to meet the assignment to write on first-hand experiences. Those few who insisted on relating specific information outside of their own lives could say in the body of the work how they got the information. When they didn't was when the issue of unintentional plagiarism was discussed.

Most writing teachers are more interested in teaching by other means than failing papers. In my personal experience, most students made wonderful progress following assignments; only a handful didn't think their own work was worth the effort (when, for instance EssayTown was easier), then bitched forever about being called on it.

James D. Macdonald said:

The church where Luther nailed his theses was in Wittenberg. Hamlet (and Horatio) went to school in Wittenberg. As did Dr. Faustus. (Thus I add some literary merit to an otherwise prosaic discussion.) It's easy to remember the name of the church, too: October 31 is All Hallows' Eve (Halloween), and the church was All Saints (All Hallows) Church.

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Well la-de-da, Mr. Know-it-all.

Facts, as all know, cannot be copyrighted.

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This.

James D. Macdonald said:

The church where Luther nailed his theses was in Wittenberg.

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One history major disagrees with one of your facts.

From Professor Anders Henriksson’s A Brief History of the World (taken word-for-word from students' essays):

"An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door."

Could have been worse. He could have nailed 95 feces to the door.

(What did you expect after the Diet of Worms?)

Chase said:

One history major disagrees with one of your facts.

From Professor Anders Henriksson’s A Brief History of the World (taken word-for-word from students' essays):

"An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door."

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I knew there were some violent moments in the history of Catholic/Protestant relations, but I didn't realize that the beginning of the separation was this grotesque!

OK, so right now for the term paper I've got 95 theocrats with worm-infested feces nailed to the church door.

A+ here I come!

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Buddy I went down to EssayTown
An' lookin' to get an A
You had to work to get your grade
But all I did was pay.

Look at the high bill
Look at that low grade
Goin' to plagiarize
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