Deciding Whether a Draft Translation Is 'Own Work'
For a school-assessed Latin composition task, students must produce a 60-word Latin prose passage in the style of a set author, plus a 150-word English commentary on their choices. Drafts must be submitted with the final version. One student's draft contains a sentence closely matching a line from a published school textbook's model answer, and the final version retains the same sentence with two words changed. The student's commentary describes the sentence as 'my own construction following the pattern of the ablative absolute'. The teacher knows the textbook is on the class resource list but was not assigned for this task. The student has otherwise strong, original work and a clean record.
1. Assess whether this is a breach and what the appropriate response is, distinguishing between the draft evidence and the commentary claim.
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Two separate questions must be kept apart.
The sentence itself. Using a textbook model answer, even one on the resource list, is not automatically a breach if the task rules permit consulting resources. But the commentary asserts the construction is 'my own', which is a claim about authorship. If the sentence derives from the model answer, that claim is inaccurate. The two-word change does not make it original; it makes it adapted.
The draft evidence. The draft shows the sentence present before the final version, which helps rather than harms the student: it shows the work was not inserted late. But it also confirms the borrowing was not a slip in transcription.
The proportionate response is a conversation, not an automatic penalty. Ask the student to identify the source. If acknowledged, the usual outcome is that the commentary claim is corrected and the mark reflects the corrected commentary, since the Latin passage may still be acceptable if resource use was allowed. If denied, escalate under the school's authenticity policy. The clean record and strong original work are relevant to penalty, not to the finding.
2. The teacher proposes to penalise only the commentary, leaving the Latin passage mark intact. Evaluate whether that split is principled.
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The split is principled if, and only if, the two components assess different things and the breach affects only one.
- The Latin passage assesses composition in the author's style. If resource consultation was permitted, a construction modelled on a textbook example is a legitimate stylistic choice; the passage mark should stand unless the rules barred all model answers.
- The commentary assesses the student's ability to explain and justify choices. A false claim of authorship strikes at exactly what is assessed, so the commentary mark should be reduced or the claim reassessed.
So the split is defensible on validity grounds: the penalty attaches to the criterion that was compromised.
However, two caveats. First, if the task rules explicitly forbade model answers, then the passage itself breaches and the split collapses. Second, the teacher must check whether the commentary mark would still be earned once the true source is acknowledged; if the student can explain why the construction suits the context, the commentary may retain most of its credit with only the 'own work' claim removed. The principled outcome is a corrected commentary mark based on what the student can actually justify, not a blanket deduction.