An Education in the Dangers of Online Research

One student wrote, after reading Routman's paper, that the online encyclopedia Wikipedia was one of the few resources that students had (despite an 8,000-some-volume library and the digital online collection with access to more than 300 databases) and that "it is hard to remember what your thoughts are and what was from Wikipedia."

Here's what Gruntz, a 20-year-old kinesiology major at California Baptist University, and Routman, a 21-year-old Ohio University student, said happened when they turned in their first papers in their Global Studies class. They had been asked to watch a movie and tie it to what they had been learning about Europe and World War II.

Routman said she looked at Wikipedia to check some facts about the movie, then wrote a summary of the film and her experiences growing up Jewish. The paper came back with long sections bracketed and the note "from Wikipedia" in the margin. Only a few fragments were identical, she said.

Gruntz cited Wikipedia a couple of times in his paper. "I got in trouble for not citing it enough, I guess," he said by phone from the airport, where he was spending the night because he couldn't afford a hotel room. "I think I was supposed to put quotations around it."

Gruntz and Routman said the professor, citing previous problems with plagiarism, had spent a class talking about how to write, and cite, properly. They said he reminded students that they could make a conscientious retraction, admit to him in confidence that they had done wrong and essentially wipe the slate clean. Several students did that, Routman said. But she didn't realize she had done anything wrong.

"It's not like we copied and pasted," Gruntz said, "or bought it online."

Routman, who was waiting for a flight home, too, said: "They got us for paraphrasing. It's a plot summary of a movie. How many different ways are there to tell it? "

The professors involved could not talk about the case. David Gies, a University of Virginia Spanish professor who was academic dean in the summer 2007 trip, said, speaking in general: "I tell my students Wikipedia is not a good source. I would prefer you don't use it. That said, if you do, cite it like you would any book or journal." Be honest, he tells them, and don't try to pass off others' thoughts as your own.

The honor system is administered differently on the boat, partly because there isn't time to train students. So faculty members judge students.

Separately, Gruntz and Routman faced a panel of faculty members at a table. Routman said, "I was scared out of my mind."

Gruntz was shaking. "It was like a kangaroo court. . . . I just felt like I was being hammered. I had no hope." He asked for a break part of the way through to try to calm down. His roommate, Ben Magnone, told him to stay calm, not answer leading questions and stick to what he wanted to tell them.

Magnone said later that it was unfair, especially compared with the much less stringent punishments given to students caught drinking.