Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/ Brian Turner
- Just before a quiz that he later said he had not prepared for, a senior in a lower level humanities course created a small cheat sheet. When the professor noticed the paper in his hand and confronted him, the student admitted that he had made a poor decision. He received a zero on the quiz, a full letter grade deduction in the course and a two year mark on his record.
- While grading an exam, a lower level humanities course professor noticed that in the essay portions of the test, a student had copied large passages verbatim from online sources. The sophomore student who had taken the exam and had surrendered his phone to a staff member in a nearby room before completing the test alone, claimed that he had memorized those online texts and relied on them for the essay questions. The Honor Council doubted his ability to anticipate an essay question relevant to the online texts, as well as his decision to memorize sources outside of the class textbook and notes and gave the student a failing grade in the course and a two year mark on his record.
- After using plagiarism detection software, a lower level social science course professor found that a senior's short response paper almost perfectly matched online sources that he neither referenced nor surrounded with quotation marks. Though the student claimed that he had rushed to complete the paper and had carelessly added the online source while consulting his class notes, the Honor Council did not find his claims credible and recommended a full letter grade deduction in the course, a zero on the assignment and a two year mark on his record.
— Compiled by Lydia O’Neal
