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All About Plagiarism: DC Colleges and Universities

By July 29, 2024No Comments

The discussion of plagiarism has increased over the decades. 

In March 2020, ICAI researchers administered an updated version of the McCabe survey to 840 students across various college campuses and discovered that 58% of the students admitted to plagiarism. Nowadays, this percentage might have increased—as access to information online has exponentially grown, so has the number of plagiarism cases in colleges.

Easily accessible information is too tempting for some students to resist taking advantage of. But what happens if your school catches you plagiarizing—or accuses you of it? You’ll need the help of an experienced DC student defense attorney to ensure your education is not at stake.

Our team of student defense attorneys at DC Student Defense is here to help. Led by Shanlon Wu, we provide the best tactics and strategies to minimize disruptions to your studies and protect your academic and future professional career. This blog will guide you through the steps you can take to handle accusations of academic misconduct.

What Is Considered Plagiarism?

Plagiarism involves using someone else’s work, ideas, or expressions without proper acknowledgment.

There are many examples of plagiarism, and students can be charged with it even if they didn’t intend to plagiarize. Here are some surprising facts about plagiarism:

  • Plagiarism isn’t limited to written text; it also applies to music, art, and photography if copying someone else’s work without credit.
  • Plagiarism also includes direct copying and pasting, paraphrasing, and papers from online sources and other students.
  • Self-plagiarism, too, is considered unethical in both academic and professional settings.
  • Mimicking someone else’s work’s style, tone, or structure is also considered plagiarism, even if it’s not a word-for-word copy.
  • Paraphrasing doesn’t exempt you from plagiarism; you must appropriately credit the source, even when rephrasing in your own words.

Plagiarism can have legal, academic, professional, and ethical consequences. Plagiarizing on purpose is wrong, and students receive punishment when they’re caught stealing someone else’s work. However, accidental plagiarism can happen and can be avoided.

How To Avoid Accidentally Plagiarizing

A helpful tip to avoid accidentally stealing someone else’s work is to plan your papers in advance. Do not wait until the night before to write a research paper. If stress and lack of sleep are factors, there is a higher chance of accidentally plagiarizing.

Here are some tips to avoid plagiarism and online cheating accusations:

  1. Cite Properly: Know how to cite according to your school’s required style, such as Harvard, APA, MLA, Chicago, or Turabian. Include in-text citations for every quote, fact, statistic, graph, diagram, and photo from another source, and fully reference them in your reference list. Use quotation marks for direct quotes, and remember to cite paraphrased text.
  2. Use a Citation Generator: Online citation generators can help you cite correctly and save your references. Keep them open in a tab and update them with each new source. However, always double-check for accuracy.
  3. Highlight Copied Text: If you need to copy and paste information to refer to later, highlight the text in a distinct color (e.g., red) until you’ve cited it. This helps prevent accidental inclusion of copied content.
  4. Proofread: Read your entire document to ensure you’ve included in-text citations and reference list entries for all sourced information and that direct quotes are in quotation marks.
  5. Use Detection Tools: If you’re concerned about accidental plagiarism, use an online detection tool before submitting your work. It can estimate your plagiarism score and highlight content to be edited.

What Happens if I’m Accused of Plagiarism?

More than ever, there are systems to detect plagiarism in colleges. Tools like Turnitin, Quetext, Dupli Checker, Copyleaks, and PaperRater compare student submissions with millions of websites and highlight sections that match other content on the internet. This report is then sent to the professor, who uses their discretion to determine whether a student has committed plagiarism.

Most, if not all, universities explicitly prohibit plagiarism in their code of student conduct and consider it a severe violation of the academic honor code.

Consequences vary by university, but they usually include:

  • Failure of the assignment,
  • Failure of the course, 
  • Suspension,
  • Limited extracurricular activities,
  • Expulsion from college

No one wants to be in this situation, so educating yourself on proper citation techniques and accurate information is imperative.

If you are accused of a university conduct code violation and believe your student rights and academic record are in jeopardy, it is crucial to contact a defense attorney with decades of experience working with college students accused of plagiarism to help you navigate your defense in a university disciplinary hearing.

How Can a Student Defense Attorney Help?

If you’re accused of plagiarism at school, contacting a student defense attorney is vital, especially if your degree is at risk. Here’s how they can assist:

  1. Guidance Through the Disciplinary Process: They’ll guide you through your school’s procedures and develop strategies to counter disciplinary actions.
  2. Knowing Your Rights: They’ll ensure you understand your rights and school policies, clarifying any misconceptions.
  3. Communicating with School Officials: They’ll advocate for you, aiming to keep your academic record clean.
  4. Crafting a Defense Strategy: They’ll create a plan to challenge plagiarism allegations.
  5. Collecting Evidence: They’ll gather proof to contest the accusations and correct errors from plagiarism checkers, if any.
  6. Protecting Your Reputation: They’ll work to minimize the impact of these charges on your reputation and future career.

Our team at DC Student Defense will answer your questions and provide the support and guidance you need to navigate charges and accusations against academic misconduct—ensuring your education and future remain secure.

Contact DC Student Defense if You’ve Been Accused of Plagiarism

Once again, it is imperative that if a student is accused of plagiarizing, they retain a qualified lawyer. Proving someone’s innocence in plagiarism cases requires the knowledge and research only an experienced lawyer can provide.

Thankfully, DC Student Defense is here to help. It is much wiser to seek professional help early on rather than waiting until it’s too late.

Contact us at 855-965-3253 today so we can start building your defense!

Shan Wu

Author Shan Wu

Shan’s professional and personal background gives him a unique understanding of academic institutions and the criminal justice system. A former federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., he is at home in D.C. Courts and very familiar with all of the Washington, D.C. law enforcement agencies, especially the Metropolitan Police Department. His parents were university professors so he grew up in a university environment. He understands the mindset of academic institutions. As a prosecutor, he supervised in the misdemeanor crime section. This is the section of the Washington, D.C. prosecutor’s office that handles most college student cases. His understanding of charging decisions and how judges view these cases is invaluable to his student clients and their families. Shan served as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia for over ten years. During his tenure there, now Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. appointed him to supervisory positions in the Misdemeanor Trial Section and also in a police corruption task force. His outstanding legal work in the government was recognized through numerous Special Achievement Awards from the Justice Department as well as awards conveyed by law enforcement agencies and community groups. From 1999-2000, Shan served as Counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno, advising her on criminal and civil investigations, E-Gov, E-Commerce (electronic signatures, internet gambling, internet telephony, privacy & public access issues in electronic court filings), congressional oversight, and legislative review. His responsibilities included serving as liaison to the FBI, DEA, Criminal Division, Executive Office of United States Attorneys, National Institute of Justice, and White House Counsel’s Office. Shan serves on the D.C. Bar Association’s Hearing Committee of the Board on Professional Responsibility and is a past president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association for the Greater Washington, D.C. area. He is a 1988 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, where he graduated Order of the Barristers, edited two law reviews, and was Co-Director of the Moot Court Program. He holds a B.A. in English Literature from Vassar College as well as a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Following law school, he clerked for the late Hon. Jerry Buchmeyer, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, and the late Eugene Wright, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and Connecticut.

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