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Matthew Coster was expelled from Central Connecticut State University in 2006 for committing plagiarism. . . Except he wasn't really a plagiarist. A state judge has ruled that Coster was actually the victim of another student, Cristina Duquette, who stole Coster's paper from a mailbox, edited it into what their professor decided was a better paper, and turned it in as her own. Duquette, a 2008 graduate, must now pay Coster's $25,792.56 legal fees as well as $100 in damages, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription).
According to The Chronicle's Sara Lipka,
Both of the students and Professor [Ronald J.] Moss testified in the trial, as did several representatives of Central Connecticut State, including the chair of Mr. Coster's hearing panel, the director of the student-conduct office, and the former associate dean for student affairs. Over all, the trial involved significantly more evidence than was presented at the university's hearing. The judge reviewed the students' previous assignments, compared their final papers, and, with the help of technology consultants, examined the electronic histories of those documents as created and revised on the students' computers.
Even though the university clearly failed to investigate the matter sufficiently, I couldn't help but smile when I read about Coster's and Duquette's dispute. Why? I enjoy catching plagiarists. It's sad, I know, but my heart races when I search Google for a phrase match from a student's paper and find it. It means more work for me, yes, as I then have to fill out a form reporting the student to the university, but I really can't stand cheaters.
Plus, as I've learned all too often, plagiarists don't get irony. On the one hand, my first plagiarist was writing about turntablism, sampling, and remix culture, so perhaps I should have given him a commendation instead of a censure. On the other hand, within a week of each other I had two students in different classes plagiarize a paper that required (I'll explain in a minute) plagiarism and a bioethics paper. I'm not sure which is more ironic.
The plagiarized paper was an assignment by Professor Bob Ostertag in a technocultural studies course. (Ostertag discusses the assignment, as well as other topics in teaching with technology, in a video on a UC Davis site.) The students were required to plagiarize every word of the paper while still writing an original biographic essay on an artist, musician, or new media artist or movement. In other words, they were to clip (and cite) from numerous online sources every phrase in their paper, stringing these clips together to form coherent sentences and paragraphs. It's not an easy task--but it does teach students a lot about writing. Yet I caught a student who stole his entire essay from a single source.
Penalties for plagiarism vary from institution to institution, but in the U.S. the typical penalty for a first offender is a stern warning about academic dishonesty, a referral to the university's student judicial affairs office for counseling, and a grade of F or 0 on the plagiarized work. Repeat offenders risk expulsion.
There are more unusual ways of bringing plagiarists to "justice." The Workplace Prof Blog reports on a case of an instructor who "humiliated" students for plagiarizing and lost his job as a result:
Texas A&M International University in Laredo fired a professor for publishing the names of students accused of plagiarism.
In his syllabus, professor Loye Young wrote that he would “promptly and publicly fail and humiliate anyone caught lying, cheating or stealing.” After he discovered six students had plagiarized on an essay, Young posted their names on his blog, resulting in his firing last week.
“It’s really the only way to teach the students that it’s inappropriate,” he said.
Young, a former adjunct professor of management information systems, said he believes he made the right move. He said trials are public for a reason, and plagiarism should be treated the same way. He added that exposing cheaters is an effective deterrent.
This seems like a shaming method of punishment. Does it actually matter whether it works as an effective deterrent or is the medicine much worse than the disease?
Pajamas Media explains why Young's approach is problematic. Young himself rebuts his critics. Patti at Rants from a Disruptive Feminist reflects on the case:
Now, this professor's method probably wasn't the best or most mature way of dealing with cheaters. But what do you do
