Cheating Students Spark Scrutiny

After an incident of plagiarism in the Government Department’s sophomore tutorial, students in the course will be required to turn in copies of all the drafts of their essays before they can receive their final grades.

Head teaching fellow Jacob M. Kline announced the new policy in an e-mail sent on Tuesday to students in Government 97b, the second semester of a required year-long tutorial for sophomore government concentrators.

“Because of a recent plagiarism incident, we have decided that it would be irresponsible not to maintain copies of every paper completed for this course,” Kline wrote.

Kline declined to comment on the specifics of the plagiarism incident.

Kate C. Gluckman ’07, a student in the course, said her teaching fellow told her that two students recently submitted the same essay that had been turned in by a student in a previous year.

In Gov 97b—which currently enrolls 217 undergraduates—students submit four papers each semester, and have the option of revising each one after receiving feedback.

Students will now be required to turn in copies of the first drafts and revisions of each of the four papers so the department can maintain an archive of papers.

Because assignment topics are similar from year to year, this procedure will allow the department to better monitor the authenticity of students’ work, according to Kline.

“We want current and future students to be assured that their substantial efforts in this course are not being undermined by any possible plagiarizing,” Kline wrote in the e-mail to The Crimson.

Teaching fellows initially required students to turn in photocopied versions of all papers and revisions but have since changed the policy to allow for the submission of electronic copies.

Kline said that he has received e-mails from students saying they have discarded the first drafts of their papers.

“Without elaborating a specific policy for such circumstances, I can say that we have been more than flexible,” Kline wrote.

Gluckman said that she thought it made sense to put together a database and that such a precaution would deter students from plagiarizing in the future.

“I’m glad they’re doing what they’re doing,” said Edward H. Thai ’07, also a student in the course. “I don’t think the inconvenience outweighs the necessity.”

But Perry G. Barlow ’07, another student in the course, said that the department should just change the essay questions instead going through all the effort compiling archives of students’ work.

According to Barlow, some students are even considering not submitting their drafts, claiming that they lost the drafts to protest what she called a “witch hunt.”

Gov 97b student John P. Chambers ’07 agreed that the essay questions should be changed from year to year.

“[Considering] the fact that the course has remained pretty much the same for the last three years, I can see where the temptation would come from to use other people’s papers,” Chambers said.

Kline told The Crimson that some students have told him they think plagiarism “occurs with some frequency” in the course.

“No one has expressed to me any surprise that this occurred, although several have been surprised that we were able to detect it,” Kline wrote.

Buttenwieser University Professor Stanley Hoffman and Assistant Professor of Government Cindy Skach, the faculty members who lead Gov 97b, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

—Staff writer Ying Wang can be reached at yingwang@fas.harvard.edu.