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Monday, December 12, 2005

Law - Plagiarism: A serious problem with students at all levels of schooling

"Writing a paper? Make it original" is the headline to a story today by Staci Hupp on the front page of the Indianapolis Star. The printed version of the story starts with this:

pla-gia-rize -- vt., vi. 1: to take (ideas, writings, etc.) from (another) and pass them off as one's own
Websters's New World College Dictionary
The story explains how teachers are using software and the internet to catch cheating students. Some quotes:
Computers open door. About 40 percent of students admitted to "cut-and-paste" plagiarism, according to a Center for Academic Integrity study this year of 50,000 college students nationwide. That's up from 10 percent six years ago.

Maybe it's because cheating keeps getting easier. So-called paper mills such as www.essay chief.com sell term papers for as little as $14 per page. Students also have access to countless academic journals, news articles and other materials with one point and click.

A side-bar gives examples of plagiarism:
• Paraphrasing someone else's words too closely.

• Copying from another person's paper.

• Buying, stealing or downloading a paper from a Web site and claiming it as your own.

• Turning in your big sister's paper from last year.

• Using someone else's ideas or materials without acknowledging them or without crediting the other person.

• Cutting and pasting information from a Web site without saying where it came from.

Sources: Purdue University Online Writing Lab, http://www.collegeboard.com/splash

Plagiarism by law school students is a particularly serious offense, as pointed in this brochure used in a number of schools, titled "Law Student Plagiarism: You Can't Afford It!" A very useful guide to the topic is a 17-page paper, "Plagiarism: A Workshop for Law Students," by Matthew C. Mirow. Some quotes:
Consequences of Plagiarism in Law School.

Law schools take plagiarism extremely seriously. An investigation of student plagiarism is one of the few things that professors feel they are morally required to pursue, even though it means a lot of time, effort, and, if proven, sorrow. Depending on the particular law school and gravity of the conduct, plagiarism might lead to minor punishments, such as failure of the particular course, to severe castigation, such as expulsion or dismissal from law school.(19)

Investigations for plagiarism in law school often reappear when candidates seek bar admission. Cases illustrate that students who have committed plagiarism in law school have been prohibited from taking the bar exam and from practicing law. For example, a Delaware Supreme Court decision (20) stemmed from a petitioner's desire to avoid disclosure of the extraordinary facts surrounding his failed attempt to cover up a charge of plagiarism in law school. Trying to hide his plagiarism, the student apparently forged statements and fabricated testimony. His false materials included the signature of a District of Columbia notary public, several letters from nonexistent U.S. Army officers, and letters that forged the seal and name of the C.I.A. The court upheld the Board of Examiners' determination that the petitioner failed to show that he was a person of good moral character and fit to practice law.

On one occasion, a single act of plagiarism was not sufficient to bar a candidate from admission forever. In 1988, a divided Minnesota Supreme Court (21) admitted a petitioner who confessed to plagiarizing substantial portions of a research paper on products liability. The Minnesota court was swayed by the petitioner's remorse and recounted a painful scrutiny of the petitioner's work this way:

At the hearing, counsel for the Board dissected the paper line by line and phrase by phrase. Again and again, petitioner admitted responsibility as he initialled each plagiarized passage. Petitioner also attempted to explain the incident to the Board at the hearing. He cited his wife's health, computer problems, stress in his family.(22)

Even though the petitioner was admitted to the bar, all would agree that it is best to avoid any possibility of plagiarism while in law school. Furthermore, problems associated with plagiarism do not disappear once you leave law school. As long as you are communicating with others in writing, something attorneys do all the time, you must be concerned with plagiarism. Thus, plagiarism after one passes the bar is also a possibility.*

A fairly recent addition to the law student plagiarism equation is the fact that many law students now have blogs, or contribute to blogs. What should be the ramifications if a law student's blog, not connected to the school, is found to include numerous incidents of plagiarim? Is this within the purview of the law school? An interesting hypothetical.
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*The paper continues at page 9 with a discussion of plagiarism in legal practice.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 12, 2005 07:29 AM
Posted to General Law Related