Questions about intent and plagiarism have predominated the community concerns segment of Honor Committee meetings this semester. Sunday night, Emeritus History Prof. Alan Briceland of Virginia Commonwealth University gave a presentation about the role of intent in plagiarism cases and what steps the Committee should take to address the subject's complexity.
Briceland specifically drew a distinction between grammatical plagiarism and honor plagiarism. Grammatical plagiarism arises when sources are not given appropriate credit in a student's work either because of unintentional errors in citation or from ignorance of the proper method of attribution. Honor plagiarism occurs when a student deliberately misrepresents the work of others as his own. Briceland said the Committee should work to educate professors about these two kinds of plagiarism, as many professors cannot distinguish between the two. "Too many professors are only attuned to honor plagiarism; their knee-jerk reaction is that 'plagiarism is plagiarism,'" Briceland said. He added that as a result, professors often report honor violations before considering a student's intent.
Briceland helped start VCU's honor system about 40 years ago and has experience with the policies of both that institution's undergraduate and medical schools. His words should not be taken lightly, and his recommendations ought to be given due consideration.
He cautioned the Committee about pursuing honor trial offenses dealing with plagiarism. A student's intent can be hard to decipher, and the corresponding evidence can be difficult to gather, he said. Not all Committee members appeared to affirm Briceland's position. "It seems to me that the point of a trial is to answer these questions," Vice Chair for Education Rob Atkinson said.
The intent and plagiarism issues are closely intertwined. The Committee must reconsider its definitions of both terms if underlying concerns with the honor system are to be addressed thoroughly. The consequences of imprecise meanings and confusion about the nature of offenses themselves have already materialized. The 2008 Semester at Sea incident - a case that saw two non-University students found guilty of plagiarism charges during the University-sponsored voyage - continues to be a source of much anxiety about the honor system. The complicating factor of the SAS case was that it occurred away from Grounds, but the fundamental matter at stake was the puzzling nature of intent in plagiarism cases.
Briceland's comments Sunday, as well as statements he has made in the past, indicate there may be a degree of circularity in how the Committee views intent. "Intent doesn't mean 'should have known,'" Briceland said in an interview last year about the SAS cases. He noted that plagiarism, in his opinion, has become one of the most misunderstood of potential honor offenses, not only at the University but at many other higher education institutions across the country. "What has happened is that the people in charge think the physical paper, the plagiarism, proves the moral," Briceland said. "And it does not."
Past editorials have called for reform to both the intent and plagiarism clauses in the Committee's bylaws. The current definition of intent reads that "the actor knew, or should have known, that the act in question was or could have been considered lying, cheating, or stealing." The "should have known" operator makes proving intent during an honor trial startlingly easy; under the current system, charged students are found to have acted with dishonest intent almost by default. Making this particularly troubling is that it is one of three criteria used to determine guilt. As such, the Committee must establish more fair and rigorous standards for plagiarism and intent.
These issues have proven to be long-standing. They will not simply disappear without being properly addressed. The Committee must make a concerted effort to amend these definitions in a manner that is clear and consistent with the ideal of honor.
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