Are cases of plagiarism being properly handled?

a argument essay for Comp 1. everyone had to write about plagiarism.

I believe that most cases of plagiarism are being properly handled, but some are not. When reading the short feature section of the CQ Researcher Combating Plagiarism site, I came across two different examples of cases of plagiarism that were handled wrong. In both cases the administration didn’t support the teacher or professor and the students that plagiarized didn’t have much of a punishment. I think that this is horrible and should not be happening. Why are there laws about plagiarism when they are not being enforced by either the administration or the educators? What is the point of having students learn about plagiarism when they are not getting punished at all or only getting a small punishment?

The fact that I am asking these questions means that something is wrong with the education system with concern to plagiarism. Both the students made to learn about plagiarism and the educators made to teach them should have problems with this. If the students that plagiarize don’t get the proper punishment, they why will they not plagiarize? If the teachers and professors don’t give the students the proper punishment, then what is the point of teaching plagiarism? Plagiarism in not only the fault of the students that plagiarize, but also the fault of the educators that don’t teach them exactly what plagiarism is and enforce what they are teaching by giving a proper punishment.

Then what exactly is plagiarism? Plagiarism is “using someone else’s ideas or words without giving them credit” (Cooley 645). What is the proper punishment for plagiarism? I believe that the proper punishment for plagiarism changes depending on the circumstance. For example if someone is caught in court of taking part of your song or book, then they usually have to pay a decided upon amount of money. If someone is caught plagiarizing part of a book, article, or essay in their essay, then they should either get a zero as the grade, a chance to revise their essay in order to get rid of the plagiarism, or something similar.

When cases of plagiarism happen in schools and colleges, you would assume that the administration would support the teachers and professors. Usually that is the case, but one example of this happened in 1995 at St. Thomas in Miami, Florida when John L. Hill filed plagiarism complaints on five of his law students. The five students failed to cite materials used from places like the Stanford Law Review. Hill was quoted saying, “A number of faculty just refused to accept that plagiarism was a significant problem … One colleague insisted that I was on a ‘witch hunt.’ And the president of the university ordered the dean to punt ---- to basically do nothing ---- because he didn’t want to deal with any possible legal implications” (qtd. in Hansen). When the five cases went to trial, only two students were convicted and later had to write a five-page paper on plagiarism (Hansen).

Another example happened in 2001 at Piper High School in Piper, Kansas when a biology teacher, Christine Pelton, assigned her 10^th-graders a project to write a scientific report which represented half of their semester grade. Section seven, of a contract that she had both her students and their parents sign, said that “Cheating and plagiarism will result in the failure of the assignment” (qtd. in Hansen). After learning that 28 student plagiarized, by using TurnItIn.com, she flunked them. Later their angry parents said she didn’t explain what was considered plagiarism well enough so she should change the grades. After Pelton told them “I made a big point in telling them that plagiarism would cause them to fail,” (qtd. in Hansen), the parents went to the school board. The board and District Superintendent Michael Rooney decided that the project would only count for 30 percent, not 50 percent, of the students’ final semester grades which allowed every student that should of failed because of their plagiarized report to pass. When Pelton found out she resigned. Her authority over her students was gone since the district would not support her. Later about nine other teachers quit, three of the school board members lost their positions, and Rooney had to resign because of pressure. Pelton was later honored with a certificate of appreciation from Kansas lawmakers, because they relized that she did the right thing and deserved credit (Hansen).

Cases like this should not be happening. The sad thing is they do mostly because the administrations either don’t want to waste their time on what they consider to be not a big, important problem or don’t want to have to go to court. What is the point of them being in their positions if they are not following the law? They are showing students that the law doesn’t matter.

Most believe that cases of plagiarism always go wrong because those are the examples they remember, but there are some cases that went right that everyone remembers. In 1990 everyone knew that Vanilla Ice used an altered rhythm of the baseline from Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” without permission for his song “Ice Ice Baby”. The case didn’t go to court because it was so clear how a sample from each song’s baseline was the same and settled with a probably large amount of money. Since then, Vanilla Ice has released many changed versions of “Ice Ice Baby” that follow the laws of copyright (Famous Copyright Infringement Plagiarism cases in Music).

Another plagiarism case that went right was just recently in the newspapers. In February of 2010 J.K. Rowling was brought into the lawsuit against Bloomsbury Publishing, Rowling’s publisher, for taking the concepts �" wizard contests, wizard prisons, wizard hospitals, and wizard colleges �" from Adrian Jacobs’ 1987 The Adventures of Willy the Wizard: No. 1 Livid Land to use in Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. A spokesperson for Rowling released the statement “I have certainly never read the book” (qtd. in Kehe “J.K. Rowling faces another plagiarism suit”).

On Thursday October 14^th, 2010 British Justice David Kitchin did not dismiss the plagiarism suit, brought by Paul Allen the Jacobs’ estate trustee; because he believed that the case had “a chance for success” even though it is “improbable”. Rowling called the claims “unfounded” and “absurd” because she had “only learned of the 16-page volume in 2004” (qtd. in Hui) 14 years after she claimed to get the idea for Harry Potter in 1990 while she was riding a train. Rowling’s lawyers said that the similarities between Willy the Wizard and Goblet of Fire are only there by chance. Nick Kounoupias responded saying “If the claim does proceed, then J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury will be required to explain how the similarities between the two works came about, when to date there has been a refusal to disclose key manuscripts and notebooks” (qtd. in Hui).

On Thursday January 6^th, 2011 US District Judge Shira Scheindlin said that J.K. Rowling did not steal “key wizardry concepts” from Adrian Jacobs. Scheindlin was quoted saying “The contrast between the total concept and feel of the works is so stark that any serious comparison of the two strains credulity” (qtd. in Kehe “J.K. Rowling cleared of plagiarism charges in the US”). Scholastic’s spokesperson said that the two books were not enough alike for a credible plagiarism claim and that “The court's swift dismissal supports our position that the case was completely without merit and that comparing 'Willy the Wizard' to the 'Harry Potter' series was absurd” (qtd. in Kehe “J.K. Rowling cleared of plagiarism charges in the US”).

In both of these cases, it was very easy to see who was plagiarizing and who was not. The main reason we know of these cases and other plagiarism cases that went right is only because it involved someone famous and was in the newspapers. Most people don’t want to hear about a high school of college student who was too lazy to properly cite in their essay, got caught, and was forced to redo their paper, unless something controversial happened. This is not necessary wrong, but part of our world today.

The main problem with plagiarism is how to stop it. Unless every educator and administrator enforces the plagiarism laws, plagiarism will never be stopped. Don’t only look to the plagiarizers. While part of the fault lies with them for plagiarizing, they won’t stop unless they are made to. If you knew that you wouldn’t get in trouble for plagiarizing, would you? Most would probably answer yes, just because it would save time on such a complicated process. While I don’t agree with this because it is against the law, I understand why they would and hope that one day I won’t have to be asking questions on if plagiarism cases are handled.