Conversation 38

Listen to a conversation between a university professor and a student in the professor’s office.

P: Hi, Ms. Quinn. Come in, please. Sit down. How are you today?

S: I’m OK. How are you?

P: I’m well, thanks. And thank you for coming in. I’ll try not to take too much of your time.

S: Oh, that’s OK. Uh, thanks. Why, uh, why did you, um…

P: It’s OK. I won’t bite. I need to talk with you for a few minutes about the paper you submitted last week on bull sharks.

S: Uh, all right. Is there, um, something wrong with it?

P: Well, yes and no. First, it was well-researched, and I can tell you put a lot of time in on it. This part, for example, is informative and well-written: “They are found cruising the shallow, warm waters of all the world’s oceans. Fast, agile predators, they will eat almost anything they see, including fish, dolphins, and even other sharks. Humans are not, per se, on their menus. However, they frequent the turbid waters of estuaries and bays, and often attack people inadvertently or out of curiosity.”

S: Uh, thank you. I have a feeling there’s a BUT coming…

P: There is. The “but” is….this wording comes straight from an Internet web site. So does the wording of several other paragraphs in your paper. Oh, don’t be surprised. We professors have ways of checking papers against the Web. There’s a computer program that alerts us if something in a student’s paper matches something on a web site. In this case, the alarm bells were blaring.

S: I know. Um, sorry…I thought you said we could use the Internet to do research for the paper. That website helped me a lot, gave me lots of information.

P: And it was good information, Ms. Quinn. You are allowed to use that information. The problem is, you can’t simply copy it word-for-word and submit it as your own work. That’s called plagiarism. It’s a serious crime. In fact, it sometimes causes students to get expelled from universities.

S: I, uh, didn’t mean…I guess, I mean, I was pressed for time, and uh…

P: It’s OK, settle down. You’re not going to get expelled. When we’re in a hurry, we’re all tempted to take shortcuts. The good news is, your whole paper doesn’t seem to be copied, so I can tell you didn’t simply lift it verbatim off the Internet. In fact, much of it is your own work. Do you know what paraphrasing is?

S: Yeah, it’s when you say, or um write, what somebody else has said, but you say it in your own words.

P: Correct. It’s perfectly fine to paraphrase information that you find online, or in books or magazines. It’s [false start] but it’s not OK to quote others’ work directly in your paper, unless you, uh, credit the original source. Do you understand?

S: Yes. I’m sorry. Will this affect my grade?

P: I’ll tell you what. I’ve highlighted the suspicious paragraphs in your paper. Let’s do this. Take your paper home now, re-write all the highlighted paragraphs as paraphrases, and re-submit it a week from today. Then I’ll grade it based on your revisions. Is that fair?

S: Yes sir. Thank you. I’ll have it back to you next week, no problem!

P: I appreciate your coming in, Ms. Quinn. Enjoy the rest of your day.