As teachers of writing, we are also teachers of the conventions of source usage and citation, and the norms of academic integrity in our particular North American university context. Therefore, all courses in the WR sequence should discuss source usage and plagiarism early and return to these topics at key points in the semester.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Students and faculty should review the relevant sections of the <\/span>Academic Conduct Code<\/span><\/a>, which is also linked on all syllabi templates for WR courses. However, a \u201cone and done\u201d admonition to avoid plagiarism is not sufficient to teach students to use sources appropriately. Indeed, teaching students to use sources appropriately is a goal of every assignment we give; the <\/span>Teaching Writing site<\/span><\/a> contains resources that can help us as instructors, including Flipped Learning Modules and exercises designed to help students learn to use sources carefully and appropriately. Librarian partners working with WR 15x sections can also provide excellent guidance to students who are actively doing research about the appropriate usage of sources for their particular projects. <\/span>Plagiarism checking programs or apps, such as Turnitin or SafeAssign, are available to you as instructors if you choose to use them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Note that as of Fall 2023, the Writing Program has a standard policy on the use of generative AI in courses. Please refer to our syllabi templates<\/a> (Section 2) for that common language; review the \u201cAI Syllabus Language Heuristic\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0when thinking about additional guidelines tailored to your own class; and look at our Teaching Writing resources on generative AI<\/a>\u00a0to learn more about teaching students about AI-mediated writing and responding to unauthorized uses of AI.<\/span><\/p>\n When faced with a case of suspected plagiarism, instructors should consider how they wish to approach the situation. In many cases–particularly early in the semester, or on paper drafts, or with some international students who are new to the conventions of source usage at BU–instructors may decide to approach a case of \u201cplagiarism\u201d as an opportunity to teach, clearly and contextually, appropriate usage and citation of sources to an individual student.<\/span><\/p>\n In other cases, instructors may feel that they need to levy a grading penalty and\/or proceed to a full hearing before the Academic Conduct Committee. <\/span>CAS has developed a carefully articulated protocol for formally reporting and adjudicating cases of suspected plagiarism. The protocol is described in detail in the <\/span>CAS Academic Conduct Resources <\/span><\/a>website along with additional resources, instructions, and the <\/span>Instructor Report for Academic Conduct online form<\/span><\/a> you will need to officially report to CAS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n PLEASE NOTE: The Writing Program guidelines outlined below do not in any way attempt to contradict or work against the CAS policy. Rather, we hope to contextualize the CAS policy within our particular setting, as teachers of writing and information literacy, and support our instructors through the steps of this process for each individual case.<\/b><\/p>\n Review the <\/span>CAS policy and resources here<\/span><\/a>. Assemble all evidence that has led you to suspect plagiarism. Reach out to one of the directors to provide an overview of the situation, talk with the student to gather information, and then follow up with the directors to discuss the following:<\/span><\/p>\n TALKING WITH STUDENTS ABOUT SUSPECTED PLAGIARISM<\/b><\/p>\n Plagiarism in Writing Program classes may be either intentional (perhaps as a result of desperation, when students either feel pressed for time or challenged by the particular language and\/or research requirements of an assignment) or unintentional (sometimes as a result of inefficient reading, research, or note-taking strategies, or sometimes as a result of different cultural understandings of the acceptable scope of borrowing words or ideas). Shawna Shapiro, in her January 2022 talk<\/a> to Writing Program faculty, reminded us of the importance of \u201cdistinguish[ing] between intent and outcome\u201d when discussing cases of suspected plagiarism, and not \u201cmak[ing] assumptions about the former.\u201d Approaching the idea of plagiarism from a Critical Language Awareness<\/a> framework, Shawna noted, means \u201crecogniz[ing] that there are particular academic cultural values at play,\u201d including the boundaries between \u201ctextual \u2018ownership\u2019 and \u2018borrowing,\u2019 […and] \u2018collaboration\u2019 versus \u2018stealing.\u2019\u201d You might also want to consider watching the short video at the bottom of this page<\/a>, illustrating a way of discussing source use pedagogically rather than punitively (Tomas & Marino).\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n To review: if you want to levy a grading penalty of any sort for the suspected plagiarism, you must go through official chann<\/b>els and report to CAS. If you believe that this is a teachable moment, you may consult with a director. In either case, you as an instructor make the decision about how to proceed.<\/b><\/p>\n Plagiarism or academic misconduct cases in WR classes vary widely, but might include any of the following, among other examples. Remember, too, that student intent might vary in all of these cases.<\/span><\/p>\n Additional Resources:<\/p>\n SECTION I: TEACHING STUDENTS ABOUT PLAGIARISM AND HOW TO AVOID IT As teachers of writing, we are also teachers of the conventions of source usage and citation, and the norms of academic integrity in our particular North American university context. Therefore, all courses in the WR sequence should discuss source usage and plagiarism early and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5515,"featured_media":0,"parent":38,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wpnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wpnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wpnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wpnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5515"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wpnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6386"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wpnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7995,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wpnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6386\/revisions\/7995"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wpnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wpnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}SECTION II: RESPONDING TO CASES OF SUSPECTED PLAGIARISM<\/b><\/h3>\n
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SECTION III: GENERAL REMINDERS ABOUT PLAGIARISM<\/b><\/h3>\n
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