My dad's student...
Much like Enzyme's story, really.

My father is a university lecturer, and had to haul one of his students up for a quiet word.

Prof Fossil: "Before I finish marking this thesis, is there anything you'd like to add to it?"
Student: "Umm, no."
Prof Fossil: "Sure? No...footnotes...for example?"
Student: "Nope. Everything's in there."
Prof Fossil: "Well, ok then. You've failed the course and won't be awarded your PhD."
Student: "WTF?"
Prof Fossil: "I'm failing you for the very serious offense of plagurism."
Student: "No, I never!"
Prof Fossil: "Yes, you did. You plagurised from one of the books that I recommended you read before starting the thesis. You copied huge paragraphs of said book into your thesis, with no citations at all. And you did it from a book that I WROTE."
Student: "...shit..."

Moral of the story: don't teach at an American University. The students will plagurise from the book that their own Professor wrote, and when failed for this, accuse him of sexism. (She tried to sue for discrimition but was summarily dismissed, thankfully).

EDIT: might not have been a PhD. I dunno 'cos I'm not myself an academic. It was some course that involved marking a large essay which would meant she would either pass or fail. Moral is still the same though!
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 13:21, 11 replies)

How on earth
did she get far enough to even do a PHD?
(emcake putting a donk on it since, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 13:26, closed)

It happens in the UK too
A girl who was doing a PhD in the same research group as me (I was by this time a post-doc) wrote her first year report and handed it in. My boss let me see it. It consisted primarily of the introduction chapter of my PhD thesis, complete with diagrams and all.

She hadn't even bothered to renumber the diagrams to make them fit with her chapters.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 13:28, closed)

except
you can't fail one of your own PhD students. And you certainly don't mark or viva your own students thesis. You have absoultely no say in whether they pass or fail, that's down to the internal and external examiners. the most he could have done is tell to the student that he wouldn't support the submission of the thesis as is, and even then it's difficult to stop the student submitting anyway. The student would then probably fail for plagiarism, of course, vivas are very thorough, but not by their tutor's hand.

Does telling fibs on a QOTW answer about lying create some kind of recursive loop?
(loutre I've said too much, been too unkind, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 13:32, closed)

um
i did that with an essay on ecology once, copied almost word for word from the lecturer's book - got an A+ and a nice comment - 'exactly how I would have put - excellent writing style, well done'.

haven't risked it since... :-)
( ascorbate, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 13:33, closed)

...
Nowhere, in any university in the English-speaking world, is there any rule against plagurism.

Plagiarism, on the other hand, is rightly treated very harshly.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 13:36, closed)

I don't even plagiarise.
Sometimes I rely heavily on one source but never copy it word for word. Even then I have the common sense to omit it from the appendix and claim I used several other sources.

I also have the common sense, when using wikipedia to explain a term (I'm not daft enough to use it to explain a whole concept) I omit that too.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 13:41, closed)

Namedropper
I interviewed Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia not long ago.

He tells me he gets several dozen emails a week from students who have got an "F" for cutting-and-pasting from Wikipedia and "could you have a word with my teacher about it please?"

His usual reply: "No. That'll teach you."

I'm meeting him again next week. My 13-year-old daughter wants me to pass on a message about an F grade she got recently...
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 13:56, closed)

Dude...
Your dad is a compulsive liar...

You can't fail your own PhD student. Your supervisor has no say in your PhD, it goes to a panel of experts within your field.

A PhD isn't a "course" - you don't study a course and fail it with a PhD.

A PhD doesn't get "marked" as such, and again not by the supervisor in question.

Lying in a lying QOTW is messing with my head. Critical errors abound.
(lofichic, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 14:47, closed)

PhD/Masters/undergrad - whatever.
It might not have been a PhD (this was a while ago, and it happened to my Dad, so it's a second-hand story). It doesn't matter though. The girl was still stupid enough to copy from the book written by the man who could pass or fail the essay.

And yes, I misspelt "plagiarism". My father is the academic. I'm a musician (proof-reading not essential for career). Please accept my profoundest apologies, from the bottom of my heart. I will weep bitter tears over my mistakes later.*


*this might be the part where I'm lying...
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 15:13, closed)

Correction
Actually, lofichic, it depends a lot on what country you're in. Yes, a PhD is not marked in the UK, it's either accepted, accepted with corrections, or rejected (but you can often resubmit). But in a lot of European countries a PhD is marked. You don't just get pass/fail, you get grades. And yes, you can fail it.

However, if this is a UK story, there might be a few porkies told by the father, supervisors don't formally examine their own students work.
(calamarain just invented dehydrated water, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 16:36, closed)

"supervisors don't examine"
... there may well be university regulations that enable (proven) plagiarists to be summarily failed before the external examiners are involved.
(haberman is singing in the changes, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 18:16, closed)