The Citation/Plagiarism Trap
An adult more than a decade out of college and working as a staff member in a local public school contacted me about a discouraging experience in an on-line course for a graduate degree.
This person’s story is one I have encountered quite often over almost four decades of teaching at both the high schools and college levels.
This person received a zero on an assignment, identified as plagiarism by the professor. The problem here is that this student was cited for plagiarism on the assignment, yet the citation strategy flagged is identical to a previous assignment that the same professor gave a 95.
As background, this 30-something student has been required in the first classes of their program to cite using APA, but has received no instruction in that citation format (which they had never used as an undergraduate). During the earlier course, I shared with this person some of the materials I provide students when I require and also give direct instruction and support in proper APA format in my courses.
Throughout the first course and including the first assignment in this second course, the student’s citations have not been flagged as incorrect or as plagiarism.
However, the student described for me the section flagged as plagiarism in the more recent assignment: They copied and pasted from the original source, CONTINUE READING: The Citation/Plagiarism Trap – radical eyes for equity
