Plagiarism threshold?

[ciao_yall]

I am completely sure that both sentences came from the sources. In the first case, the source is cited and then two other quotes from the source are placed in quotation marks. In the second case, no source is cited in the paragraph.

Ok, but the second source doesn't show up anywhere else in the paper at all?

Sounds careless but not plagiarism.

My students are so obvious about it they take entire articles. I drop one suspicious sentence into Google and voila.

Or they copy/paste from wikipedia and don't bother to remove the little citation marks.

My favorite was the student who did a business plan for a florist but decided to take one he found online for a pizza delivery service and change the word "pizza" for "flowers." Nothing else.

Yep. Use your imagination on how that turned out.

[Hegemony]

I am normally a take-no-prisoners responder to plagiarism, but this does sound like that rare bird, an instance that might genuinely be a mistake.  I think in your shoes, what I would do is bring it up to the student, in a conference in your office (rather than in class), point it out, emphasize how this could mean failing the class because that is the penalty for plagiarism, and it should be reported to your student plagiarism office, and how two such reported instance would mean the student being kicked out of the university (that's true here; substitute whatever is true at your place), and scare the heck out of the student.  Then say that because you feel that it might have been a careless error, you will merely reduce the grade by half. (E.g. an A paper gets a C.)  At this point, if you have scared them enough in the first part of the conference, they should feel relieved and grateful.  Tell them that if they don't feel this is fair, you are happy to report the offense formally to the plagiarism office and let the officials there decide, which would of course mean failing the course if they rule against the student.  Then, after hearing their cries of "It was a mistake!  I swear!  I swear!", reiterate how important it is not to make such mistakes, and send them on their way.

[Caracal]

The second source does not show up in the paper, although a different type of quote from the same source (placed within quotation marks yet with no source indicated) appears in the same paragraph. In this case, a quote from an interviewee is placed in quotation marks, but a sentence-long description by the writer of the piece is not placed in quotation marks.

Oh ok, I don't think that rises to the level of plagiarism either. The only difference between that and the first sentence is that the student forgot to properly cite the quote the first time. Obviously you can cite a source and then plagiarize deliberately from it, but based on the overall context here, I don't think that is what is happening. This seems very much like someone who was sloppy and either just forgot to put in quotes and citations in a couple of cases, or took notes carelessly, or some combination of both.

I would either send the student an email or talk to them personally. You can start by explaining that you don't think they were trying to do anything wrong, but I'd also tell them that they really need to be careful with citations, because this kind of thing could get them in real trouble.

As for grading, if you decide this is just sloppy citation, then treat it like that.

[Vark]

I have my doubts about mere sloppiness because if the student placed quotation marks around the other sentences, he certainly knew enough to place quotation marks around these. I think that some grade reduction is in order but not rising to the severity of reducing it by half.

[Caracal]

I have my doubts about mere sloppiness because if the student placed quotation marks around the other sentences, he certainly knew enough to place quotation marks around these. I think that some grade reduction is in order but not rising to the severity of reducing it by half.

That what carelessness is. I understand capitalization rules, but if I don't proofread my work carefully, I tend to capitalize all kinds of random words. The difference is that you really, really don't want to be careless with citations. If I have incorrect capitalization, that is embarrassing. If I don't properly quote, I put my credibility and honesty in doubt. As professionals, we've internalized this and developed practices that greatly reduce the chance of citation errors. Our students haven't always learned how to do this, so I think it makes sense to be understanding when they make honest mistakes. To my mind, a full on grade reduction isn't really appropriate because of this. A serious discussion and taking the mistakes into account in the grade seems more proportional.

[nescafe]

Echoing others that this looks like carelessness to me. Were this my student, I would not place a grade on the paper. Instead, I'd highlight the problem sentences and write "see me" on the page, then have a candid conversation about why these "errors" can put you in the awkward position of having to decide whether to drop their grade or not. Then, I'd give them some agreed-upon amount of time to fix the problem and resubmit the work. THEN I release their grade.

As long as it only happens once, and it's a case that doesn't look very clearly intentional, I don't reduce the grade. If you feel more strongly, you could knock it down a letter; that will get the point across, but it will also kill any possible goodwill you might instead garner by giving the student a mulligan.

[polly_mer]

In contrast to recent advice, I had a colleague who graded until he found the first instance of a sentence that looked paraphrased, but wasn't cited and then he put a big F on the front and reported for plagiarism.

What you do should be in line with local norms, but local norms can vary widely.