Cite Your Sources That Don’t Cite Their Sources

(I’m grading projects that my students just turned in, and notice a striking similarity between the projects that two students submitted. I call them over to my desk and showed them both projects.)

Me: “So… these look really similar. Either you worked together, in which case, you should have put both names on the same paper, or you both copied-and-pasted the same website, which is plagiarism, or one of you copied the other one, changed a few words, and hoped I wouldn’t notice. Which one is it?”

Student #1: “Yeah, I got all the information from Google Definitions.”

Me: “Then you should have cited your sources. I’d rather let you re-do this correctly than give you a 0 and discipline consequences for plagiarism. Do you want to re-do it?”

Student #1: “Yeah, I’ll re-do it and cite my sources. I’ll turn it in tomorrow.”

(Student #1 returns to his seat and I look at Student #2.)

Student #2: “I copied off of him.”

Me: *laughing* “Thanks for being honest, I guess!”

(We work out the details of how he’s going to re-do the assignment, and I have to ask:)

Me: “So, did you actually think I wouldn’t notice?”

Student #2: “Yeah, I did, actually!”