Plaguarism - getting caught?

Question

A friend of a friend, has been caught and suspended for plaguarism, please could anyone advise of the process and what may/may not happen next. They party involved insists they are innocent, but have been unable to gain any support from their student union rep, or any members of teaching staff at the university... any help would be greatly appreciated :o)

Answer 1

Well, basically, your friend is toast. Universities do not lightly suspend for plagiarism. Instead, the professor must provide the plagiarized materials for the board before such a decision has been made. As a college instructor, I've had to do so. I caught 2 students cheating and had piles of papers with highlighted portions pulled off the internet to combat the appeal. Neother won their appeal and the suspension was upheld. We do not take plagiarism easily.

Sorry to be such a wet blanket here, but the accusation is not lightly made and most likely your friend is not innocent. You may want, instead, to just offer a shoulder on which to cry, emotional support, and a sounding board, but not get involved in the entire appeal thing, since he/she is likely guilty as sin. Sorry ---

Answer 2

It depends on the school's policy. One college that I attended required you to write out and sign the honor code to each piece of work you turned in and if the work was not your own you could be thrown out of school. Often times it is academic suspension or loss of financial aid. I really think people should be thrown out of their schools when they submit someone else's work as their own. Too many people do this and it's not fair for other students to spend so much time writing their own papers when some don't. Not to mention people with degrees should only have the degrees because they earned them the right way. Do you want a lawyer representing you that really knows nothing because they never put the effort into their studies or a doctor working on you with the same problem?

Answer 3

The university will have some kind of guidelines for handling plagiarism (Unfair Practice Procedures or the like), and these should be accessible to anyone at the university. They might be on the internet or wherever you get hold of the University Regulations from.

Without knowing which uni they're at, what year they're in, whether this has happened to them before and what sort of plagiarism is being talked about it's difficult to say what's going to happen next, sorry.

Answer 4

Depends on which country he is living in. In some countries, he will just be expelled. In others, he could get the death sentence.

In general, he needs to hire a lawyer and a very good one. Then he has to provide past writing examples that show his writing style is the same as the paper they say he plagurized. And finally, he needs to hire a researcher to find all works that are like or similar to what he wrote and show an extensive example of what is out there and show that nothing is even remotely similar to his.

Answer 5

I am in college and I am always afraid of plaguarism. My professors don't want a lot of quotes so what do you do? If I were the person caught, I would be truthful regardless of the outcome. If they are truthful, they have redeemed themselves even if the college doesn't think so.

Answer 6

Depends on the school... the friend could be given an F on the paper/project, F for the class, suspended, or something worse.

Answer 7

the point is, did they copy it word for word, or are ther merely similarities? for plaigiarism to actually apply there has to be over 800 words of identical text.

and, given all teh coursework you read, it does happen, you think its yours, and three months later you find out it isnt...

plead mea culpa...

Answer 8

Plagarizing on someone's work can earn your friend expulsion

Answer 9

when all else fails take the American resolution: get a lawyer.