Arts & SciencesCollege of Arts & Sciences First-Year Writing Program

First-Year Writing Program

Academic Misconduct

  • If you have a suspected academic misconduct case see guidelines below and email the appropriate staff person.
  • On-campus classes EN 101, 102, 103, 104: Contact Jessica Kidd (kidd005@ua.edu).
  • Traditional distance learning classes EN 101, 102: Contact Dr. Natalie Loper (nloper@ua.edu).
  • EN 120, 121 (TESOL classes): Contact Dr. Dorothy Worden (dlworden@ua.edu)
  • For their protection, all teachers must follow A & S policy for handling academic misconduct. Teachers who don’t follow the policy may be liable if students pursue legal action.

These guidelines are for final draft essays. For information on how to talk to students who have problems at the draft stage, please see “Draft Stage Issues” below.

  1. Don’t accuse your student or discuss the paper in question with her/him/them.
  2. Compile the following materials as electronic files and send to your appropriate FWP contact. See the sample case for an example of what yours should look like.
    • Memo using this format
    • Copy of paper in question, highlighted and labeled to correspond with evidence
    • Turnitin report if using Turnitin
    • Copy of supporting evidence (usually copies of webpages or a matching student paper), highlighted and labeled to correspond to paper in question.
    • Course syllabus including policies and class calendar
    • Assignment sheet
  3. A FWP administrator will review your materials, write a supporting memo, and forward the complete packet to the A&S dean’s office.

The FWP encourages teachers to use Turnitin at the draft stage so that teachers and students can have a conversation about any problems with source usage. If a student paper seems problematic at the draft stage, you can offer advice on how to correct source usage problems. Don’t accuse the student of plagiarism or academic misconduct, but explain how the draft does not meet assignment guidelines and how important it is to use source correctly to avoid plagiarism in a final draft. Provide additional instruction about correctly citing sources and developing original ideas. Contact the associate director or the director of FWP for advice on talking to students with problematic drafts.

While you and FWP admin are reviewing the case, if the student asks about the paper, you may say only that you have some questions about or problems with grading the paper and you have asked someone else in the department to look at it. After the case has been turned over to the dean’s office, use the following statement if students ask about papers under review:

“I have submitted your paper to the dean’s office for review, and they will be contacting you to set up a meeting. While the dean’s office reviews this assignment, I cannot discuss the paper with you, so please wait for contact from the dean’s office.”

You may also print out the above language if you need to return papers to your class while a paper is being reviewed by the dean’s office.

Please don’t give students this notice until the FWP  has notified you that your paper has been submitted.

  • Students found guilty of academic misconduct are not allowed to withdraw from the class.
  • If you have a pending plagiarism case at midterm or the end of the semester when grades are due, that student’s grade will need to be reported as “I.”