Remember our saga with The Plagiarist?  You don’t?  Well, let me refresh your memory….click here.

This afternoon, I checked the school’s website and our grades were posted.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.  This evening, I received an e-mail from the “alleged” copy-cat.  I thought that you might enjoy what he said to me.  I have only removed the professor’s name.  The rest is exactly as it was written in the e-mail.

John,
Why u going around my back make comment to prof [REDACTED] without let me know. U r task to do peer review, any comment u have on my paper o need to before I have it finalize for him. Why u have write him and make comments without my keying me know, ur job is to comment on the and so I cam improve, ur job is not to around me and talk prof [REDACTED] on my paper.

Now do you see how I was able to easily identify what portions he had written and what portions were copied from the internet?  I had several ideas for responses, but I couldn’t come to a definitive conclusion that would make an impact.  I kept coming back to the fact that if this guy was mad at me because he got busted for plagiarizing, even when I warned him twice, then the use of logic probable wouldn’t help.  A lecture on ethics or integrity was out of the question, as well.  I even thought a few moments about turning it around and saying something like “Me?  You want to talk about what my duties were on this assignment?  How about you actually try to write a paper instead of copying whatever Google gives to you and then come lecture me.”  But, again, based on my dealings thus far, I figured it wouldn’t have the impact that I’d hope for.

So all I could come up with was this:
[REDACTED],

My initial thought was to dismiss your e-mail, but I think that you deserve some response.

I copied Dr. [REDACTED] on all communications between you and me.  If you’d like to look over the instructions that were provided for the peer review, I believe that you will see that it was a requirement of the peer review assignment.  If you think that I have not performed my assigned task adequately, then I fully encourage you to bring that to Dr. [REDACTED]’s attention.

If your concern is that Dr. [REDACTED] was made aware of something that you were not, I believe that your are mistaken.  My review of both of your submissions indicated a sever lack of citations and some problematic use of text from internet sources.  Those comments are included on the documents that I returned to you.

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance,
john

I’ve got $50 riding on “he still doesn’t get it.”  Any takers?