It's more a waste of time. Most students go quietly into that good night once it's clear that I have abundant proof. However, I was writing a federal grant proposal with a strict deadline when I had to stop everything to deal with this last case of plagiarism. To report a student, I have to write a letter to the dean's office of the College of Arts and Sciences while presenting the evidence, which includes the student paper or papers and plagiarized sources. A couple of years ago, I was told to highlight the evidence of plagiarism in the student paper AND the original sources, which was a ridiculous waste of time--pages and pages of day-glo yellow ink. Now, I just have to provide links to the webpages--the dean's office may use Safe Assign or something similar to corroborate my accusations.Arthur Dent wrote:I'm curious: do you feel like you are threatened by these crazy student complaints to college administration, or is it more just a frustrating waste of your time?
Once I report the student, typically I'm done with the case. I have no further contact with the student.
With the student who claimed that she sent in the wrong version of her paper, I didn't even know that she had taken the case to the Student Grievance Committee until I received the committee's report. The plagiarism was never in doubt: even the student admitted that the "wrong" version was basically a cut-and-paste job of the lowest quality.
