Shallow Thinker

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!

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.

[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

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.

Want to hear a boring story with a funny ending? Well, actually, it’s a funny middle part, but I don’t know the ending yet, so for our purposes, it’s the ending even though it’s really the middle. So, we’re all on the same page of the middle-ending. Boring. Right?

One of the classes that I’m taking this semester is called “Workplace Research Methods.” It’s a good overview of the different types of research that are common in industry and it goes through things like how to present numerical data, how to properly reference sources, how do do a literature review, etc. (See, I told you it had boring parts. But hold on.) We spent a week talking about how to do sources and the importance of proper references. We provided two assignments the were based on the premise of finding, using, and properly citing sources. Our professor wrote the book on how to do sources. Literally.

For this class, we have one last assignment with multiple parts. (1) Write a 10-12 page research paper, (2) turn it in for peer review, (3) review someone’s paper (the professor assigns who we look at) (4) edit our own paper per our peer’s help and (5) submit the final draft. I was under the impression that #1 was due this upcoming Sunday night. When I looked at the course website yesterday, I found that this was not the case. The paper is actually due this evening at 8:00. AaaaaAAAAAAhhhHHHHHHH! I cobbled together my best BS and voila…..8 pages. Not good enough. I threw in some not-very-helpful graphics and modified the formatting a little and, WOO-HOO, 10 pages.

This morning, I e-mailed my paper off for review and a few minutes later, I received the paper that I am to review. I knew it going into this, but my weekend wasn’t looking too good. I essentially have 48 hours to read and critique a colleagues 10-12 page paper.

But lady luck was on my side.  First, the guy I’m reviewing didn’t read the instruction very well. His 10 pages were double-spaced instead of the single-spacing that was required. Sweet, my work-load just got cut in half. Ah, what’s this?  The 10 pages counts his title page and references. Even less to read now!

I got about three paragraphs into the paper and realized that the tone and style were very odd. I highlighted a sentence, pasted it into Google, and…wow. Just wow. 70% of the paper was lifted verbatim from a website. I did a little extra pasting from the areas that didn’t match the first source and found that another 20% came from a different website and the remaining 10% from a third. Not rephrased, not quoted, not glanced at in an awkward manner.  Lifted straight from the internet.

Let me stop here and ask if I’ve mentioned that our professor is familiar with how sources should be handled? I have?  Maybe I should mention that this guy copied from readily available on-line sources. It’s wrong to plagiarize, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re going to do it, why copy from something that’s so easily traceable? I suppose that those who aren’t smart enough to do it without getting caught are stupid enough to do it in the first place. At any rate, I slapped a big note across the entire paper that said something about the proper way to use and reference sources and I sent it on its way. And as a reward for his stupidity, my weekend just got a lot better!

In reality, my paper probably stinks. I’m sure that I rambled on incoherently (a trademark of my writing style) and came to conclusions that were completely irrelevant to my research. It’s what I do.  When the final grade is issues, I will probably lean closer to an F than an A.  But, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will hold my head high and quote my Uncle Joel: “At least it was an honest F.”

PS - Did I mention that the professor is a bit of a stickler for not plagiarizing?

Image is from a post on West Georgia's website regarding plagiarism. I hope it's not plagiarism for me to "borrow" it here.

From time to time, I might fall into the trap of using this blog to complain about certain things that I don’t like.  (I could take the opportunity to find all of the links where I complain, but who has that kind of time?) It’s a convenient outlet, I admit, but I also have to keep in mind that I have it pretty good.  Recently, I posted about the rigors of this summer’s schedule.  Two graduate-level classes jammed into the summer semester is tough, but when I look at it, I have to admit that I’m very thankful for the opportunity to take these courses and to be working on another degree.  I shouldn’t whine and cry so much…but don’t expect that to stop me anytime soon.

I noticed this weekend that I’ve only been in class for 2-3 weeks and my mid-term is this upcoming Monday.  Most classes drag on so much that I’m begging for the final just so that I can end the misery.  Heck, some classes start so bad that I’d rather take the final on the first week just to be done with it.  But, with the summer’s accelerated pace, I’ve been so far behind that I haven’t had a chance to be miserable.  How awesome is that?

Some people may think that this is proof that there are good things in every bad situation.  Not me.  I take it to mean that if I’m going to crash and burn, I’d rather do it full speed.

I have a gift/curse that has been with me for a while.  My parents would probably indicate that it was absent during my childhood years, but it was definitely present during college.  When it comes to doing things, I tend to go over-board.  Projects for class?  Overboard.  My boss tasked me with tracking a couple of programs.  My response?  I went way overboard.  (I set-up an automated spreadsheet with correlations between budgets and task completions and planet alignments and ants crossing the parking lot.  It’s got detail.)  Another example is my attendance to classes in college.  I could not stand to miss a class, even if I knew that my presence wasn’t vital.  I don’t think that I intentionally missed a class until my junior or senior year.  When I take on a task, I go all-out.  That’s a good thing…right?

The problem with my approach is that I tend to burn out much faster than most people.  I set-up a killer spreadsheet, now I don’t want to see it anymore.  By the time college was winding down, I was down to a dull roar and barely made it across the stage to get my diploma.  In like a lion, out like a lamb.

This semester is testing the limits of how much I’m willing to give.  I’ll be the first to admit that signing-up for two graduate-level courses wasn’t a smart thing to do for the summer session.  The classes as separate entities wouldn’t be that bad during the summer.  Both courses together during a normal-length semester wouldn’t be unbearable.  In my efforts to get my degree and get out, I’ve hit a speed bump.  There’s a lot of effort required for this summer.  My nature says to give it 100%.  But that’s taking too much of my time with family and work.

So, here’s the brain-twister that I’m trying to work-out.  My mentality is to work with a hard-core pace and try to get 98.75% in both classes.  But, I’m looking at the mountain in front of me and wondering if this might be a good time to try out the cruise control on my brain and settle for a B-.

My mom always said “just do your best.”  Is it OK to do my “just good enough”?

I’ve complained (at length) about my graduate classes this semester.  Realistically, my class titled Advanced Materials was mentally challenging, but didn’t consume too much of my time.  Each week, I could count on a difficult-to-follow, but highly-informative lecture.  The exams were a good mix of concepts and applied theory.  The other class, Facilities Planning, was the exact opposite.  The concepts were easy to grasp but the time spent on the course was insane.  The class was cross-listed with an undergraduate class.  So, for some strange reason, the professor felt the need to assign tons of busy work.  The final exam was ridiculous, as well.  Time-intensive problems that are wrought with opportunities for small errors that can greatly affect the outcome of solutions.  YAY!

In the Facilities Planning course, we had a final project to put into practice the concepts that we had learned.  When I say “learned”, I mean things that we did over-and-over in homework.  I suppose teaching the concepts would have been too much to ask of the professor, so repetition seemed to be his method of instruction.  At any rate, we were supposed to design a facility.  Here are a few of the images that I created to illustrate the building that I designed/planned.  Click ‘em if you want to big ‘em.

I will be the first to admit that I’m not an architect.  There were a lot of things that I did not consider in my facility, and I knew that when I was putting together the final report and presentation.  I knew that the professor was going to find these details and dock my grade heavily for it.  And then, I sat through some of the other presentations.  Magically, I began to feel really about my work.  This is one of the graphics from the a group of undergrads:

Yeah, I think I spent too much time on my project.

Yesterday was my first Marathon-O-Exams.  I was indeed able to start the first one on Monday and then finish it up on Wednesday.  This probably put me at a slight advantage to the other students because I was able to see what was on the test.  However, the way I worked through it probably minimized that impact.  But the final tally on the first exam was right at 3 hours.  A standard exam…3 hours.  I’m one of those people who seems to take tests well and I guarantee that some of the other students in that classroom needed more than 4 to complete it.  I’ve heard numerous accounts that this professor’s final exam can last more than 6 hours.  I think he needs some help.

Exam #2 was e-mailed to me around 10:00 AM, and I finished the last problem around 11:00 PM.  I probably put about 4 hours in on that one.  The good news is that it was a mid-term, so I won’t have another one like it until the final.  The downside is that there are really only two exams and I hope I did well on this one!

So, no more exams for a few weeks.  The swirl of academics is now yielding to the swirl of meetings and business.  My advice to you youngsters out there is if you want to get an additional degree, do it while you’re there.  In some ways it’s easier to get the master’s now, but in others, it’s harder.  Time constraints being one of the “others.”  So, stay in school.  And don’t do drugs.

Today and Wednesday will be interesting exercises in my academic agility.  On Wednesday, I have a test scheduled in my first class. This professor is well-known for giving tests (and final exams) that last well into the night.  In my second class, I have my mid-term exam.  I know what you’re thinking, “Daggumit, John.  Why do you get all the fun?”  I don’t know, but here’s how I’m trying to portion it out.

I’m supposed to meet Professor LongTest this afternoon to so that I can go ahead and put in about an hour towards the test.  Then, on Wednesday, I’ll hopefully be able to finish it up within my normal hour-and-a-half that I sit through his class.  Professor OtherClass has decided that our midterm will be take home (woo-hoo) so I’ll receive that one via e-mail sometime Wednesday and will be expected to get it back to her within 24 hours.  Not to mention that Wednesday is my weekly Day-O-Meetings.

So, in theory, I’m going to be able to hash all of this out and make it through these exams with no problems.  I expect, however, that I may be burning the midnight oil on Wednesday in order to complete the midterm exam.  Oh, and I looked at the schedule and realized that both of the final exams are scheduled for the exact same time.  Excellent….just what I need.

On the plus side, I sent in my registration for the summer semester.  If this semester turns out OK and those classes mesh well with my schedule, I’ll be half-way done with my master’s by the time summer is over.  Of course, I’m sure that Kelley’s patience will be 97% worn through, but I’ll try to buy some more of that with chocolates and ice cream delights.

My second semester as graduate student is underway and is shaping-up to be a tough one.

Previously, see the link above, I detailed the awesome manner in which I will be sitting through 1.5 classes in an attempt to receive credit for 2.0 classes.  For the first week, this didn’t seem too bad.  The professor that I am sitting in for the 0.5 class let class out early and I didn’t miss anything.  This was not the case last week.  He went over some pretty important concepts that I had to miss.  After talking with the professor, he has decided that he will be in his office every Monday when we are supposed to have class so that if I have any questions, I can come by and see him.  I made a visit this past Monday and it’s shaping up to look like I’ll be visiting this upcoming Monday as well.

In addition to constantly playing “catch-up” in class 0.5, class 1.0 is intense.  The professor uses the full extent of the 3 hour period to drop knowledge upon us.  Teach one concept, build on it.  Teach another, build on it.  Put the two together, build on that.   I can’t decide if I should be thankful that I’m missing the other class instead of this one or not…

I think an illustration might be better.  Have you ever tried to walk through mud so thick that it tries to pull your shoes/boots off?  That’s what this semester feels like.  Does anyone have any tips for walking through academic mud?

To all three of my loyal readers, I apologize for my hiatus.  I’ve been in class all week learning how to use some software.  If you are bored enough to care about what it is, you can read below.  If not, just ignore the following and go buy yourself something fancy on amazon.

We purchased a laser scanner.  It’s pretty awesome.  We run this thing over a part and it gives us a bunch of little points in 3D space that represent what the laser saw.  Here’s an example of what the points look like from far away -

If you zoom in close, you can tell that it is made of a bunch of tiny dots -

One of the really neat things that we can do is use all of these dots to compare a part that we have to what is should be.  Since we have a model of this part on the computer, we can see how well they match.  Green is good, red means that the part is higher than what the model says that it should be and blue means that the part is lower.  Here’s what it looks like:

So what does all this mean?

It means that when I get some time, I’m definintely going to scan my face!  I’ll post some pictures when get the chance.

Last night, I started back to class.  I expected it to be a little choppy on the first night and then a ton of information from there on out.  Here’s what the schedule is supposed to look like (yes, that’s foreshadowing that you see):

Mondays
4:30-5:45 - Facilities Planning

Wednesdays
4:30-5:45 - Facilities Planning
6:00-9:00 - Materials

I arrived at my first class of the night.  This one will be taught by an Indian gentleman (as in India, not America).  His accent is still very heavy, but I can follow him if I pay close attention.  He informed us that he’s going to do our entire class a favor and only have class once a week.  Wednesdays from 4:30-7:30.  “Any problems?”  he asks.  Since the class had some undergrads in it, they all yelped with joy.  Using my keen sense of mathematics, I quickly realized that the new end time of 7:30 is after the start of my next class.  I informed the professor of my conflict.  Immediately, in his strong Indian accent he simply said “It will be Okay.”

What?  That’s it?  Just “It will be Okay”?  I tried to talk with him after class, but I think that my southern accent must have confused him.  At the end of it all, he finally said that he would do lectures during the first half of the class, which I will attend, and do problems during the second half…which I will not.  So, an hour and a half into the first day, I have learned that I can only be present for half of the course time and will have to make-up all of the rest on my own.  Great (said in a Charlie Brown kind of way, not Tony Tiger.)

The Materials class is taught by a lady that is a native of Poland.  Her accent is very strong, as well.  For some reason, though, I can understand her much better.  Our first class was a review of a bunch of stuff that I should remember from my undergraduate Materials course…10 years ago.  I can’t remember where I put my wallet this morning.  Recalling the lattice structure of polymers is definitely out of the question.  While this class will be difficult, I think that the material will be very helpful.

So, there you have it.  I’ll spend Wednesdays attending 1.5 classes and the rest of the week stressing about the other 0.5.  YAY!