Hacker News Reader

Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

How on earth do you get caught plagiarizing and still pass with a C+?

I once had a student in a U.S. history class that literally copy-pasted almost the entirety of a paper from a Wikipedia article (incidentally, an article that was only tangentially related to what he was supposed to write about, which only made it more glaringly obvious something was wrong). After confronting him he told me he "had no clue" how the copying could have happened! I gave him a 0 on the paper, which caused him to fail the course, and reported the incident. But the school admins changed his grade so that he would pass. This was at a for-profit college that thankfully no longer exists (I quit after that experience).

This is how it works at most universities it seems.

I think it depends. At least at the major public university I went to grad school at, if an undergrad had pulled that there would have been extremely serious repercussions. Failing the class would have been the minimum. The bigger issue then was that students with money could just buy their papers and take-home work, which was often impossible to catch. This was before LLMs started hurting paper mills' bottom lines, and a lot has changed in the past few years though.

I used to pick up pocket money writing essays for dumb rich kids in college. If I cared, there’s enough of a paper trail to invalidate more than one degree, at least by the written rules. In the real world I doubt that the cheaters would face real consequences, and have concerns that I would lose my own credentials.

It's high school, and a public one at that. Cheating can be rampant in some schools or with some individuals.

What I find ridiculous is the parents are suing over a C+ vs B grade and a detention on the record. Like where do you see your cheating kid going in life that you're going to waste your resources and the district resources on this?

I find it completely unsurprising that parents who would sue to change a C+ into a B raised a kid who would cheat.

We elected a felon and frequent financial cheat as President, so the sky is the limit, I suppose.

Presumably, this one assignment wasn't the entire grade and the C+ was for the entire course.

> he received Saturday detention and a grade of 65 out of 100 on the assignment

The student still received a passing grade for the assignment despite some of the assignment being AI hallucinated text. From my experience, plagiarism is an automatic zero for the entire assignment or course, but there are tons of counterexamples when the teacher/professor doesn't want to deal with the academic integrity process.

- "but there are tons of counterexamples when the teacher/professor doesn't want to deal with the academic integrity process"

That's a good point: in this particular case, the teacher of the course was subpoenaed to federal court and compelled to testify about their grading. Incredible burden, for someone else's problem.

also disciplinary action and very probable expulsion

At a university that takes their rules seriously, perhaps. Absolutely not expulsion at any k-12 school.

Last I checked, 65 was a D-, not a C+. So the C+ was for the course.

Grading scales vary. 65% could correspond to any letter grade.

I have had the rare privilege to see up close examples of how at several US universities, when professors are presented with irrefutable proof that a student has cheated (well beyond any reasonable doubt) the professor will most often do nothing. In the best case they will meet with the student and give them a stern talking to.

The whole system is set up to disincentivize any effort to actually hold students accountable for cheating in a significant way (fail assignment, fail course, expulsion, etc.)

When we read about cases of students being held accountable it's generally the exception not the rule.

Fail to meaningfully discipline students due to fear of litigious moron parents, get sued by litigious moron parents anyway.

There need to be counter claims to cover these costs instead of it falling on taxpayers.

There are times I have passed students simply because it isn't worth it to not.

Is it plagiarizing when you copy stuff that isn't even factual? Merriam-Webster: > : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

I guess so.

No, it's academic dishonesty: representing work that you did not do as your own work.

ETA: "Academic dishonesty" also covers things like falsifying data and willfully misattributing sources, which is a closer approximation to this case.

I think you briefly forgot the whole genre of fiction exists

We wonder why our society is going to shit. This is one of those thousand cuts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com