Thing Ten

Thing Ten - Copyright and Plagairism

When I was a student and a student teacher/long-term sub, I used to see plagairism as a sort of game. I would almost be able to smell when a paper was being copied, and actually enjoyed figuring out where it came from. This was when I had time to do that sort of thing. I still make time if something seems plagairized (and, in my experience, if it seems plagairized, it usually is), but no longer enjoy the hunt as I should be doing so many other things. My students know that I take plagairism extremely seriously - nearly personally - and have failed a small number of students because of it. If our school has a plagairism policy, I don't know about it. Mine, which has been backed by the administration, has been that if I catch plagairism once, the student gets a zero on the assignment. If it happens again, they fail the class and I will turn them in for academic misconduct, if there is such a thing in this district. Forunately, I have yet to have it happen twice.

When explaining copyright and plagairism, I spend about twenty or twenty-five minutes detailing it to my students as if they had never heard of either before. By the end, my goal is that they could have no possible excuse for not understanding that plagairism is wrong. I also have a handout regarding the subject, which seems to help some of the students. However, one thing I noticed from taking the quizzes is that I haven't been clear that using pictures without permission is plagairism as well. I fixed that for my current classes, and will need to incorporate that into my plagairism talks in the future.