University Writing Center

Matt Fry encourages faculty to contact his office with any questions about responding to plagiarism.

Dealing with plagiarism is an inevitable part of teaching writing, but according to Matt Fry, Director of the Aggie Honor System Office (AHSO), it doesn’t have to be an ordeal.

Fry estimates that 85 to 90 percent of the plagiarism cases reported to his office are handled autonomously by the faculty member. “We put a lot of faith and trust in the faculty. They know what they’re doing,” says Fry. “If it’s a cut-and-dried case, there’s no reason an honor council has to get involved.”

If an instructor’s initial investigation suggests that a student has plagiarized, Fry advises faculty to arrange a one-on-one meeting to explain the violation and give the student a chance to respond. At that point, says Fry, “most students come clean.”

The instructor should then go to the AHSO Web site and file a report, ideally while the student is there. Filing the report, which takes about five minutes, serves three key functions. First, it allows the university to identify students who have multiple violations. Second, it clarifies the situation if there are later grade disputes. Third, it protects instructors against any future claims that they acted outside the scope of their employment.

Fry understands that some instructors prefer not to file a report, believing that acknowledging the violation through official channels is too extreme for what may be a minor infraction. Fry, however, has found that seeing the charge described in official language often helps impress upon students how seriously the academic community views plagiarism. “Filing the report with them present is a teaching moment,” Fry says of students. “It’s a chance to let them know that if they do this in the ‘real world,’ it will get them fired.”

Next, instructors need to determine the sanction. The usual penalty for a first violation is an F in the class and an honor violation probation. That means the student loses certain rights, including the right to represent the university off campus, hold office in a campus organization, or receive an Aggie ring. Students can remove those restrictions by successfully completing a remediation course. 

While that’s the usual penalty, instructors are free to impose a different sanction if they feel circumstances warrant, such as when they think the act was unintentional. They can, for instance, give the student a zero for the assignment or lower the student’s overall course grade. Instructors can also require students to complete the remediation course as a sanction in itself.

Of course, instructors can and should choose to refer the case to an honor council if they feel too personally invested to handle it themselves, which Fry says does sometimes happen. “Plagiarism can feel like an affront to instructors who are giving their all to teach their subject and then find a student is taking short cuts,” he explains.

While Fry and his staff have handled over 1,000 honor code cases in the past five years, much of their work focuses on educating faculty and students on what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it.

One of the best teaching techniques for discouraging plagiarism is requiring students to meet interim deadlines. Fry notes that most cases of plagiarism “happen toward the end of the semester.  Students get in a rush, go to the Web, and begin to cut and paste.”

Faculty can also lessen the chance of students’ plagiarizing by designing writing assignments that specify the number and type of sources students must use. If possible, instructors should also consider reviewing basic research skills like how to take notes, cite sources, and summarize material. Fry and his staff are available to give class presentations about academic integrity.

Fry believes Turnitin.com can be another effective deterrent, depending on how it’s used: “Turnitin.com can be beneficial to students, if they use it proactively. They need to turn in a draft and get a report back; then, if there are any problems, they can fix them before the final submission.”

While Fry is a licensed attorney, he sees his role at AHSO as an extension of the university’s teaching mission. “This is an educational system, not a punitive one,” he explains. “We’re trying to educate students and make sure that every person who walks across the stage to get a degree from this university is a person of integrity.”

For more information on preventing and responding to plagiarism, go to the AHSO Web site: aggiehonor.tamu.edu.