The following reports are based on real cases adjudicated by the Emory College Honor Council. Any personally identifiable information has been omitted to protect the privacy of all parties involved unless involved parties have granted the Wheel permission to identify them.

  • The Honor Council found a sophomore in an upper-level science course responsible for plagiarizing on a report. The student used significant portions of course materials and tried to pass it off as their own analysis of the experiment without proper citation, stating that they believed that the materials did not need to be cited because the professor had provided students with the information. The Honor Council did not think that the student intentionally violated the Honor Code, but because all external sources need to be attributed in assignments, the council recommended an F in the course and a two-year mark on the student’s record.

 

  • The Honor Council found a freshman in a humanities course responsible for plagiarizing online sources on an essay. The professor identified several portions of the essay that had been poorly paraphrased from online resources. The student said that they had originally sought out online resources to better understand the essay topic and that they believed that the plagiarized portions of the essay probably came from their notes on the online resources. The Honor Council recommended a zero on the assignment, a one-letter grade deduction in the course, an educational program and a two-year mark on the student’s record.

 

  • The Honor Council found that a sophomore in a lower level science course was not responsible for cheating on an exam. The professor had identified similarities in the student’s and a neighboring student’s exams, but the student on trial explained that the other student was a regular study partner and that the two had worked on problems together prior to the exam. The student provided joint study materials to explain the common mistakes made on the exam. The Honor Council determined that the student was not responsible for cheating.
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Executive Editor | cyan24@emory.edu
Christina Yan (21B) is from Monmouth Junction, N.J., majoring in business administration. She previously served as assistant news editor and news editor. She won a 2018 Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in the General News Reporting category for her coverage of Emory Law Professor Paul J. Zwier II’s use of the N-word in class and also placed as a finalist in the same category for her investigation of the 2018 Student Government Association elections. Outside the Wheel, she is an academic fellow, QTM100 lab assistant and a member of Emory China Care's marketing team. In her spare time, she enjoys flexing on others with her ability to eat spicy food.