In our last installment, we learned that engineers can use the internet.  We also learned that sometimes, they have the ability to discern between a research paper and a sales pitch from a website.  Let’s see what exciting, new adventures await our boring, old graduate student.

Saturday night around 10:30, I saw a little flashing indicator on the screen.  I pulled up the new message that had arrived and it was from the guy that sent me his paper.  It said something like “Good thing you checked the file.  Here’s the real copy.”  I opened it up and there were 10 pages, single-spaced.  I figured that it could have been a mistake the first time around and went to bed Saturday night with a Sunday full of editing looming over me.

Sunday afternoon I opened the new document.  The first two paragraphs were indeed written by the gentleman in question.  It was painfully obvious.  I forwarded them to Kelley because I knew that as an editor, she would appreciate this guy’s butchering of the English language.  (I think she cried herself to sleep after reading it.) Subject and verb agreement was out of the question, but it would have been nice if they would at least have been on the same topic.

After the first two paragraphs, a miracle occurred.  The writing suddenly became clear and coherent.  Words like “insidious” and “disproportionate” began to sprout across the paper.  So, once again, I used my keen grasp of the googles and located various websites that had been copied and pasted.  I will give him credit for at least changing his sources this time…but not much.

The most hilarious (sad?) part of the whole thing is that in his revised paper, the conclusion paragraph was lifted straight from a website.  The final paragraph and the last chance to salvage any dignity that remains…from a website.

In about 30 minutes, I completed my long day of editing.  I sent the file out to the offender with my comments and the hyperlinks to the websites that were used.  I also suggested that he contact the professor for some guidance.  My rationale to him was that maybe I didn’t understand the assignment very well and the professor could clear that up.  And then, I took my googling and editing skills and did the only thing that I knew would make a difference.  I went swimming with my girls, had an awesome dinner with some great friends, and played with legos.