I did it - I tattled.
I consulted one of my former classmates that is now in the PhD program who will be a professor one day. I asked him since he kind of has the perspective of an instructor. He said all the same things that you guys did. So the way I see it, you can all start putting "PhD" after your name if you want.
This is what I wrote:
Dr. A -
After much thought and counsel with others, I have decided that I really need to tell you that I am almost 100% sure that one of my classmates has been plagiarizing some of her question responses. You may already be aware of the situation, but just for the sake of the integrity of the program I feel the need to speak up.
The only reason I noticed is because one of her responses made absolutely no sense. It was not written in complete sentences - it was almost as if it was just a bunch of bulleted statements copied and pasted together. Well, I copied and pasted her response into google and discovered that it had indeed been bulleted statements from the City of Pasadena's HR website.
She is a group member in another one of my classes and I am very familiar with her style of writing, so when I read another of her responses this past module, I felt sure that she had done it again. She had.
If you would like more specific information (such as her name and examples), please let me know. I really hesitated with whether or not to "tattle" on her, but at the end of the day, I feel that what she is doing is unethical and wrong. I know how hard you work and the thoughtfulness that went into the creation of this program, and I think her actions are an insult to everything it stands for.
Respectfully,
Rachel
I'll let you know if I hear back!
About Me
- Miss Bee
- "Go shorty, it's your birthday. We gon' party like it's yo birthday.
We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday..." You know the song, you either loved it or hated it. I loved it, still do. I don't really have much in common with 50 Cent, but I can relate to this line: "I'm that cat by the bar toasting to the good life." Because all in all, life IS good. I realize that I live a semi-charmed kind of life, so this blog is here to celebrate my blessings.
Disclaimer: It is important to mention that there is a difference between being shallow and being stupid, and I will admit that at times I fall into the "shallow" category. Not on purpose, I just really like things that lots of other people find annoying.
9 comments:
Good for you! I wish more people had the courage and fortitude to stick up for the honest that do not cheat.
Interesting that she/he was too stupid to even really read through the responses.
The way evil prevails is that good people do nothing. As difficult as it was, thanks for keeping your integrity.
I am so proud of you for doing this! You were open and honest about it and I feel like that you could have not handled it any better.
Good work, friend.
He told me that he was aware of the situation but would I send him the name just to make sure I was talking about the same person - he said it was the same person so that I should not feel bad.
I'm glad he knew about it, I think, but wonder why he has not had her removed from the program? Maybe he is gathering evidence.
Um, any good plagerist knows that you rearrange a sentence, or at least the order of a sentence, before submitting it in a paper. If you ask me, she had it coming. Duh. ;)
She should have learned from my former high school students, you *change a word here and there.*
For example:
"We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal."
"I hold these non-falsities to be evident in and of themselves that all people are created unbiased"
See? A little word change here, a little thesaurus use there, and it's your own work! No plagiarism!
(Students really did this crap. Sometimes they'd even just change a pronoun and say it was changed enough to constitute an original sentence.)
You go girl! Glad you did it.
I used to make my English 101 students provide me with photocopies of their sources with the sections they'd paraphrased highlighted so I could make sure none of the sentences matched (unless, of course, they were actually trying to use a direct quote). It was a pain in the butt, but necessary. I once had a student directly copy and paste internet material into his paper, and he didn't even bother to unbold the search words. I didn't fail him for plagiarism, just stupidity.
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