Speaker 1: Sometimes, we will be reading student essays and we'll come across an essay and we think, I think there's some plagiarism here, there's something about this that doesn't sound like this student's work. And when this happens, I think most of us will go to the web and see if we can find some of the sentences that are in the essay on the web, and a certain amount of the time we will be able to do that. In which case, we know that we have an instance of plagiarism, that the student has taken work that's not their own and put it into their essay. At this point, it's really important that we meet with the student. Every student has a right to explain what happened. And I think that, as faculty, that's the most helpful way to think about these meetings is to think about them not as a confrontation with the student, because we don't, that's not how we teach, is to think about this as information gathering. We're trying to figure out how this happened, and so we want to meet with the student to get their side of the story. So when this happens, I recommend that you email the student and say, I need to meet with you about your essay. If it's too late for that and you're already handing back essays, you can say to that student, I need to talk with you before I give back your essay, and then make a time to meet with the student. So when the student comes to your office, if in fact you have evidence, you have a web page or something that's showed up in the student's essay, then I will show the evidence to the student. I don't hide, sort of hide my cards on this and say, tell me how you wrote your paper. I will say, here's your essay, and here's some material that I found on the web. I need you to explain to me how this happened. And that's a chance for the student to then explain their side of the story. And in my experience, you learn a lot as soon as you start asking questions, and I would think about the meeting as a chance to ask all the questions that you have to understand what happened. And in that way, this is a pedagogical moment with the student, is what were they thinking as they went through this? And sometimes students will say, I panicked and I made a terrible decision, and sometimes students will have a different story, so you can understand what happened. Some language that may be helpful, some students will get upset in this situation, very understandably, and I will say things like, I'm really sorry that we're in this situation. Because that's true, I am really sorry that we're in this situation. I will sometimes remind students that they made a choice here, if they chose to turn in work that was not their own, I will say, you made an unwise choice here, and there are consequences for that choice. And so that the student remembers, this is not me being mean and somehow trying to call them out. This is a choice that they made, and there are consequences for that choice. Then there's the wrapping up the meeting, which I think can feel hard if we think that we have to have the answer at the end of the meeting. I would say you absolutely don't have to have the answer. If you think about this as information gathering, you can then say at the end of the meeting, this has been very helpful, I have a much better understanding of the situation, I'm going to think about this, and I will get back to you tomorrow about what's going to happen from here. Now, of course, if you already know, you're sure this is plagiarism and you know what's going to happen, you can then say to the student, okay, here's what's going to happen from here. But if you don't know, don't feel that you have to come up with the answer in the last two minutes of the meeting. You have the chance to think on it and then talk with the student about what happens. After the meeting, if you do need to figure out what you're going to do, I would consult with your colleagues, with the Director of Undergraduate Studies, and other resources on campus to talk through what have other people done in similar situations. How does this need to get reported to a dean's office or something like that. But again, I think the most important thing is to think about this meeting as much as you can as a teaching opportunity, as a chance to try to understand what happened here and how you can help the student learn from this, even if the consequences may be difficult ones for the student.