Published by JPLand on 05 Aug 2009 at 10:03 am
Who owes me $50?
Since Alana and Kelley enjoy taking moral dilemmas and questions of ethics and reducing them to tests of grammar, I figured we might as well continue along our journey and see how far down the rabbit hole this goes.
Within 30 minutes of sending the response that I posted (click here to refresh your memory), I received an e-mail in response. The wise thing to do in this case would be to simply ignore it and wash my hands of the whole ordeal. But I have a sneaking suspicion that you know me better than that:
John,
I appreciated your comment on my paper, but what i dont appreciate is you go around my back and make comment to prof. [REDACTED] about my paper without letting me know. Prof [REDACTED] tell me you wrote him an email about my paper. If you email him about my paper you need to let me know, because those paper is not finalize yet. If there is anything i need to fix you need to inform me on the review. But instead you go around me and email prof. [REDACTED] without my knowledge. What you try to do? what is your intenstion?
What you doing is inappropriate.
Two things should be obvious to you by now.
(1) This guy does not have the best grasp of the English language. (Granted, Kelley and Alana would argue that I do not possess this grasp either, but this is my story so we will assume that I am a pillar of academic and moral excellence.)
(2) He’s not happy with me. Of course, his words seem to indicate that he doesn’t like the fact that I corresponded with the professor. I’m not a psychologist, but I would venture to guess that his anger is displaced to something that is beyond his control instead of the obvious things that he could have done to prevent the situation.
As I said earlier, the wise thing to do is to let all this pass and to just ignore it. But have you checked the web address of my blog recently? It certainly ain’t “smartboy.com.”
[REDACTED],
My correspondence with Dr. [REDACTED] was to determine what actions I should take and how best to proceed with the peer review. This is the same advice that I gave to you. If you’re not sure of the assignment requirements, contact the professor and make sure that things are clear. My communications with Dr. [REDACTED] were neither inappropriate nor out of scope. The notion that anything I do needs to go through you is just silly.
Once again, if you think that I have done something inappropriate, then please feel free to notify Dr. [REDACTED], or if warranted, contact the department chair, Dr. [REDACTED]. My suspicion, however, is that you are not so much concerned with my asking for guidance on the assignment. I would suspect that you are probably upset that I easily identified your sources and that I did not keep quiet about it. There is only one person that determined the outcome of this situation. Your actions forced me to seek guidance when your report was simply a compilation of internet sources. Your actions determined whatever final standing you have with the class. If you are going to be upset about how this has turned out, your anger should not be directed at me.
Again, I encourage you to speak with the proper authorities if you feel that my actions are inappropriate or that I have perpetrated some type of academic misconduct. Until I hear from a formal review board, I will consider this matter closed.
john
Will I get another response? It’s tough to tell. When you try to handle things tactfully, you run the risk of the other person not completely understanding the gravity of the situation or the intensity that you wish to convey. I have opted to run that risk and refrain from just replying “You are a stupid cheater, you cheating McStupidHead!”
There is one other piece to this puzzle that you may interest you. My employer, as well as the employer of the person in question, offers tuition reimbursement for graduate programs. The caveat is that you have to make an A or a B in the course in order to be reimbursed. I don’t know what this guy’s final grade was in this course, but I’m going to guess that it didn’t warrant getting a check from his employer. If that is indeed the case, this was a $2,000 mistake that he made. A mistake that I warned him about twice.
Moral of the story: If at first you don’t succeed, try again. If you don’t succeed the second time, find someone involved and blame them because, clearly, your plagiarism was of good quality and deserved a better grade than the 0ne you received.
Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m off to crush some more hopes of academic success!
Chris on 05 Aug 2009 at 10:43 am #
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this plagiarism drama — where did this clown earn his undergraduate degree? At both my undergrad and grad institutions, such blatant appropriation of another’s work usually got you an F in the course and referral to the dean on academic misconduct charges. He’s lucky if he even passes, in my opinion.
Kaylee on 05 Aug 2009 at 11:01 am #
My reaction probably would have gone
“Dude get off your butt and write the paper without plagiarizing. If you had I wouldn’t have had to ask advice on how to get you off my back”
I guess that brand of honesty would have gone over well
Queen Kelley on 05 Aug 2009 at 12:20 pm #
Will you have any additional classes with this guy? He might shoot you or something.
Alana on 05 Aug 2009 at 2:31 pm #
Oh, great. Now when this guy goes postal at the university, I’ll shake my head as I tell the news, “I remember his wife said, ‘He might shoot you or something.’ If only we’d listened to her…”
JPLand on 05 Aug 2009 at 3:08 pm #
Chris,
I don’t recall where he got his undergraduate degree, but I’m thinking it was in the northeast and the university wasn’t overly notable. Alana posted a good point on the first entry of this saga about the battle that professors face with things like that. I tend to think that he probably just got a C or a D and that’s it.
Kaylee,
I really struggled with how to approach it. I really wanted to say something along the lines of “Inappropriate? You want to lecture me on what is proper? I think that you should let me know what your intentions are.” But, I figure if anything ever happened, I’d want my response to him to be relatively cordial.
Queen Kelley,
It’s a small school, so I suppose that we may have additional classes together in the future. And, he may indeed choose to discharge a firearm in my direction. But has your marriage to me taught you nothing? I am agile and swift, like the puma.
Alana,
I believe your actual words will be “I remember his wife warned about this. Now, if you’ll pardon me, we’re off to the celebration. I’ve got to get my cheese dip ready before we go.”