Occasionally a band is sued for sampling music without permission or a writer is caught claiming someone else’s work as their own. “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life” by Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan was pulled off shelves in April, not because the novel contained explicit material, but because some of the book’s passages were plagiarized. The 19-year-old student’s coming of age novel closely followed the words and themes of Megan McCafferty’s stories “Sloppy Firsts” and “Second Helpings,” as well as Meg Cabot’s “The Princess Diaries.” As a result, Viswanathan’s publisher retracted her $500,000 contract and DreamWorks halted a movie deal inspired by her novel. Of course, plagiarism does not start at the professional level. The LSU Code of Student Conduct also addresses such matters. It defines this form of “academic misconduct” as “the unacknowledged inclusion of someone else’s words, structure, ideas or data.” There are many reasons why students and even professional writers plagiarize. Viswanathan told the Associated Press the plagiarized portions of her novel were the result of subconsciously retaining the language and themes used in McCafferty’s and Cabot’s stories. Little, Brown and Company, Viswanathan’s publisher, said they did not believe her claim. English Department Chair Anna Nardo said pressure plays a big role in plagiarism. “Pressure gets great, people grab something and try to pass it off as their own,” Nardo said. Kineseology senior Tylyn Corona said larger classes make it more difficult for professors to detect plagiarism. Corona also said increased internet use has facilitated plagiarism. “I think that most students have the tendency to procrastinate, so they may plagiarize because of that too,” she said. Nardo and Associate Director of Judicial Affairs Rosemary Blum agree that plagiarism is a common problem at the University, but some students differ on the issue. “I haven’t seen any actual evidence of plagiarism,” said Thu Vu, psychology senior. “Plagiarizing is one thing, but copying from other students is probably a more common problem.” The English Department has taken steps to enforce its policies regarding plagiarism. New professors and graduate students who teach introductory level English courses are required to attend a series of seminars called “Teaching College Composition.” “Anybody who teaches English is prepared to handle plagiarism because it is so common,” Nardo said. English professor Carolyn Ware encountered two suspected plagiarism cases during her first semester teaching at the University. Ware had assigned an interview-based research project to her class. She said one student heavily borrowed information from a Web site and another student fabricated a fake interview. Ware said both cases were “fuzzy,” so she gave the students a chance to rework their projects. “Since then, I’ve modified my assignments to make it almost impossible to plagiarize, and I require tape-recorded interviews,” she said. Blum said every instructor is responsible for reporting academic misconduct, including suspected plagiarism. The instructor must present an explanation of the issue and supply evidence supporting their claim. The consequences for plagiarism differ for undergraduate and graduate students. For example, if an undergraduate commits a first offense, the minimum sentence for the student would be an “F” for the course or at least one year of disciplinary probation. A second offense results in a year’s suspension and a third offense results in expulsion from the University. Consequences for graduate students are more abrasive. If a graduate student commits a first offense, the student is suspended for one semester and must obtain departmental permission to return to their studies the following semester. A second offense results in expulsion from the University. Despite these consequences, Blum said she devotes more than half of her time to dealing with plagiarism issues during midterm and final exam weeks. She said these are the peak periods for plagiarism because of time management issues, poor citation skills and last minute attempts to submit term papers. “Students tell me it’s out of desperation a lot of the time,” Blum said.
Contact Angelle Barbazon at [email protected]