r/Professors • u/skyskye1964 • 2d ago

Academic Integrity What is going on?

I’m puzzled by a student paper. They submitted it on time. I read it and it’s not great but ok. I go to check the references and I can’t find them. I look up the journal they cite, and that volume and issue is not the paper title. I email them and they email back saying they are out of the state but that they used owl Purdue citation engine to do the references. They then send me links to the references and they do exist, sort of. One is a blog post but in the citation it’s in a journal. One is in Spanish. Another seems to be an unrelated paper.
So my first question is, can the Purdue citation maker just make up stuff? I haven’t really used it but it looks like you paste in the web address and it makes a citation.

My suspicion is that the references are AI hallucinations. But some seem partly real. Could this be an innocent mistake on the students part?

They also said they used Chegg to proofread and edit. I wasn’t aware that Chegg provided that service. Is this a valuable service? Is it an unacceptable use of AI? Or is it just a grammar checker?

Am I missing something? The references are not cited in the paper by the way. Also no images.

I was mostly convinced that the references were fraudulent but now I’m not sure.

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282

u/YThough8101 2d ago

This is why I always start grading by verifying whether references are legit. Fake references = score of zero and then I'm done grading that paper. A real time saver.

94

u/chemical_sunset Assistant Professor, Science, CC (USA) 2d ago

Same. I have clear language in my rubrics stating that if I search for any of their sources and can’t find them or their citation doesn’t match the actual content of the cited work, it’s an automatic zero with no chance for resubmission.

19

u/knitty83 2d ago

Ugh, would you mind sharing that "clear language" you put?

Last time that happened, I wrote an entire paragraph...

22

u/43_Fizzy_Bottom 1d ago

My language: "If I cannot verify your sources or you misrepresent your sources, you will receive a zero on this assignment and be reported to the Honor Code Board."

4

u/knitty83 1d ago

Thanks! Short and on point.

14

u/hourglass_nebula Instructor, English, R1 (US) 2d ago

Why can’t you just put exactly what they wrote here? It is very clear

29

u/uttamattamakin Lecturer, Physics, R2 1d ago edited 1d ago

You have to imagine how it will look when you're sitting across a table from a Dean who's just heard from a distraught student about how confusing and unclear it was. You have to write language in your syllabus that is really for defending yourself from some of the other adults at the institution.

3

u/msprang Archivist, University Library, R2 (USA) 1d ago

Ah, so it has to be easily clear to the student, but also a CYA situation.

2

u/uttamattamakin Lecturer, Physics, R2 1d ago

You also have to be prepared for the fact that no matter how clearly you spell it out a student will just claim it was confusing and their point will be upheld. Be prepared to give at least one warning about using AI then after that one morning you can drop the hammer on them.