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 freshman student in a lower-level science course responsible for providing false information to gain an academic advantage on an exam. The student’s professor makes photocopies of completed exams for recordkeeping purposes and also allows students to submit exams to be re-graded if they believe the exam was graded incorrectly. The student submitted their exam for a re-grade, and upon comparing it with the photocopy, the professor realized that some answers had been changed. The Honor Council recommended an F in the course and a two-year mark on the student’s personal performance record.
- The Honor Council found a student in an upper-level humanities course responsible for plagiarism on a midterm paper. The professor reported that the student’s paper drew heavily from online sources with some variation, but the ideas remained the same. The student said that they were experiencing an extreme personal circumstance that impacted their ability to complete the work on time and provided documentation to support their circumstance. The student said that instead of asking for an extension, they rushed the assignment and failed to properly cite sources. The Honor Council recommended a zero on the assignment, a one-letter grade deduction in the course and a two-year mark on the student’s personal performance record.
- The Honor Council found a sophomore in a lower-level social science course responsible for plagiarism on a paper and providing false information to gain an academic advantage. The professor noticed a change in the author’s voice in later portions of the paper, noticeably fewer grammatical errors and portions of the paper that went far beyond the level of writing that would be expected from an undergraduate student. The professor also added that the student signed in for class as present, then left the room and did not return. The student denied that they plagiarized the paper and insisted that they must have remembered phrasing from an outside source they studied when preparing for the paper. They also said they felt sick the day they signed into class. The Honor Council recommended an F in the course, a two-year mark on the student’s personal performance record and a mandatory educational program.
