Sample Case in Ethics and Communication

ENGL 7705

First Summer Session 2016

The "Sample Case" assignment had students pick a case of questionable ethics related to
communication. I wrote about a student who was given a zero for plagiarism and analyzed what
communication and ethical issues were at hand, how to remedy the situation, and the
implications for technical and professional communication.

This paper was enjoyable to write because it involved my own experience with a case of
questionable ethics at hand. My content and personal story were given to the reader so that no
questions about the situation were left unanswered. I believe that I did this well and analyzed
both ethical situations through a lens in which communication would have been beneficial. The
section Implications for Technical and Professional Communication could have been expanded
upon to include ways in which technical communicators should express their policies and
procedures to employees or students.

The sources I used helped to add to the evaluations I made on the situation. I gave the reader a
definition of plagiarize and the scholarly articles add to Shelias defense that students are
unaware of all facets of plagiarism. The other sources back-up my claim that instructors as well
as students need to understand plagiarism and have open communication on classroom
expectations.

Highly Dissatisfied Highly Satisfied

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Communication and Ethics in Plagiarism Case

Situation of the Case
I work at Wilkes Community College as a writing mentor in our Academic Support Center.
Every day, I help several students with their papers, but one student stuck out to me. The student,
Shelia, had been spending countless hours in the Academic Support Center working on a
literature review for her English class. My colleagues and I helped Shelia on her paper for a solid
week, but she turned in her paper before any of us had a chance to look over it. Two weeks later,
Shelia is back typing furiously on the computer. I sat down next to her and asked what paper she
was working on and how she did on her literature review. Shelia turned to me, holding back
tears, and said she received a zero on her paper because of plagiarism.

I asked Shelia what happened and she said that she included a direct quote, complete with
quotation marks, but forgot to include an in text citation. Her instructor considered this
plagiarism and in turn, gave her a zero. Shelia was not allowed to correct her mistake and
resubmit her paper, but she was allowed to write a four page paper on why plagiarism is wrong
for partial credit.

Communication and Ethical Issues

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines plagiarize as to steal and pass off (the ideas and
words of another) as ones own: use (anothers production) without crediting the source (2015).
Shelias case fits this definition perfectly, but she was not trying to deceive her instructor in an
attempt to get away with not including an in text citation. From Shelias perspective, she had
made an honest mistake and was unfairly accused of plagiarism. From the viewpoint of Shelias
instructor, Shelia had obviously committed an act of plagiarism. Shelia and her instructor had
two completely different definitions of plagiarism and there was no communication between the
two parties before the case about what constitutes plagiarism.

A study by Heidi Radunovich, Eboni Baugh, and Elaine Turner focused on student knowledge
and understanding of plagiarism and found that students are foggy about what is considered
plagiarism (2009, p. 30). The students in their study could identify plagiarism in cases such as
turning in someone elses paper and claiming it as their own, but they had more difficulty
identifying cases like Shelias. Survey question five of the study was the opposite of Shelias
case in that it asked if a sentence copied verbatim with an in text citation, but no quotation
marks, would be considered plagiarism. The article stated that Surprisingly, only 36.9% of
students were able to identify this behavior as plagiarism, while 58.7% did not believe that this
was plagiarism, and 4.4% were unclear (2009, p. 32). Like the majority of students who did not
see question five as plagiarism, Shelia did not consider her paper to be plagiarized. However,
Shelias instructor took her case as plagiarism and did not take any special consideration for her
situation.

Ethically, Shelias instructor did what she considered to be the right thing. She treated Shelia the
same as any other student and stuck with her definition of plagiarism. But, Shelias instructor did
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not tell her students how she defines plagiarism and the college does not have an honor code to
uphold academic integrity. Without knowledge of more in-depth versions of plagiarism or an
honor code, it is hard to say that Shelia knew she was doing something wrong. Shelias instructor
graded her paper on an accurate and ethically sound basis. Unfortunately for Shelia, her ethical
misstep proved fatal to her English grade.

Occurrences and Recommendations to Correct the Situation

Shelias instructor had the policy that if a student turned in a paper that was plagiarized in
anyway, then they would receive a zero and have to write a four page paper on why plagiarism is
wrong for partial credit. Shelia completed the paper, but stated that it was unfair that she had to
write a paper on why plagiarism is wrong when she did not mean to plagiarize. This paper that
Shelias instructor assigned was supposed to be a learning lesson for her students, but Shelias
situation made the paper seem like an unjust punishment.

Even after Shelia wrote her paper on why plagiarism is wrong, she still did not have a good grasp
on what constitutes plagiarism. Being a community college, the school does not have an honor
code and leaves the majority of the policy decision making in the hands of the instructors.
Shelias instructor had her own policies, but did not clearly define plagiarism to her students. It is
not expected that instructors write-out all aspects of their academic policies to their students, but
having a document or link to a website regarding plagiarism could help prevent future issues.

Dey and Sobhan (2006) agree that students should be taught about plagiarism and they also
suggest tips for teachers. No matter the individual, whether it is a student, teacher, or researcher,
the authors stress that they all must have an awareness of plagiarism. For students, this means
having a course on computer ethics at secondary and undergraduate level and teaching them
that if there is a need to use a resource, using appropriate citation indicating the source is
absolutely mandatory (p. 391). For teachers, it is suggested that they should be aware of the
ways students adopt to produce plagiarized work and also that students might be indirectly
tempted to plagiarize because of teachers imposing imbalanced teaching modules (p. 391).

To help future plagiarism issues, the community college should create an honor code or system
of academic integrity. This will take the responsibility of policy creation out of the hands of the
instructors and help to make a uniform definition of plagiarism. But, the college needs to be
careful when creating an honor code. Their focus needs to be on ethical rights and
responsibilities rather than criminal law (Sutherland-Smith, 2011, 136). By focusing on ethics,
the college can create academic policies that are fairer to the faculty and students.

Implications for Technical and Professional Communication

Although related to the academic field, Shelias plagiarism case could be used as a lesson to
technical and professional communicators. One of the biggest issues in this case was a lack of
communication between Shelia and her instructor. Shelia was not aware that her lack of in text
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citation was such a serious case of plagiarism and found her grade and punishment to be unfair.
If the instructor had established to her students what she considers plagiarism or the college put
into place an honor code, then this lack of communication could have been better resolved. For
technical and professional communicators, they learn from this case that effective
communication could prevent potential misunderstandings not only between teacher and student,
but also between employee and client.

This case also highlights the ethics of plagiarism and the choice instructors, and technical
communicators, have to make about their own ethics. Shelias instructor continued with her
ethical beliefs to not make Shelia a special case and to treat her as she would any other student.
Technical communicators need to understand the ethics of the situation as well as evaluate their
own ethical beliefs in order to better handle problems in the workplace. Plagiarism can affect the
writings of technical communicators and it is important that one knows the distinctions between
the ethical implications of copying, borrowing, reusing, and repurposing text and plagiarism
(Reyman, 2008, 63). The ethics of plagiarism go deeper than simply stealing anothers work
and it is crucial that technical communicators are made aware of the possible ethical
implications.
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References

Dey, S.K., & Sobhan, M.A. (2006, July). Impact of unethical practices of plagiarism on learning,
teaching and research in higher education: Some combating strategies. Paper presented at
2006 7th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education
and Training, Sydney, NSW, pp. 388-393. doi: 10.1109/ITHET.2006.339791

Plagiarize. (2015). In Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved from http://www.merriam

webster.com/dictionary/plagiarize

Radunovich, H., Baugh, E., & Turner, E. (2009). An examination of students' knowledge of what
constitutes plagiarism. NACTA Journal, 53(4), 30-35. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.jproxy.lib.ecu.edu/docview/214376817?accountid=10639

Reyman, J. (2008). Rethinking plagiarism for technical communication. Technical

Communication, 55(1), 61-67. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43092396

Sutherland-Smith, W. (2011). Crime and punishment: An analysis of university plagiarism

policies. Semiotica, 2011(187), 127-139. doi: 10.1515/semi.2011.067