Cheater, Cheater, Pants on Fire!: Plagiarism Rears Its Ugly Head

A dean from a university contacted me via email because a student borrowed liberally from the writings of at least three of my entries and submitted the results as her own original work.  I'm unsure as to what my reaction should be. On one hand, someone stole from me! On the other hand, someone considered something I wrote to be worthy of plagiarism! I'm simultaneously both angered and honored, but not very grievously angered, as I have too many real problems in my own life to devote much energy to this non-issue that really doesn't concern me to a very great degree.

The dean who contacted me requested that I submit phone records, bank records,  and passwords for email accounts and social media accounts so that he can determine that I am not actively involved in aiding and abetting students in plagiarism. My guess is that he or someone else suspects that I'm selling compositions or at least wishes to rule out the possibility that I am doing so. I understand why someone would suspect this or desire to rule out the possibility or likelihood. On the other hand, if I intended to operate such a business and expected to make any sort of profit by doing so (And why would I operate such an enterprise if I did not expect to make a profit?), one of the stupider things I could ever do would be to post on my blog the compositions I had sold.  

I have mixed feelings about the degree to which I desire to assist this administrator of this educational institution in his investigation of plagiarism, which now includes an investigation of me. First and foremost, I have nothing whatsoever to hide.  Part of me says that, because I have nothing to hide, it makes perfect sense to hand over everything that is requested. Then again, perhaps I should consider the words of Edward Snowden of Wikileaks infamy, who either said or wrote, "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."  

The bottom line for me, I suppose, is that I made it through my undergraduate studies without resorting to plagiarism, and I'm not especially appreciative of anyone else taking shortcuts to the fulfillment of a degree by using my work. Had someone in some way gained access to any of the work I produced by the sweat of my brow for university or even high school credit, I would be outraged.(This did happen to me once, and I was more than outraged.) That someone was either lazy enough or desperate enough to lift writing off this silly blog, antithetically, is more a source of amusement to me than of outrage. Really, I want to ask the person who borrowed my work, with everything now available on the Internet, you couldn't find anything better than this to steal? Moreover, I truly hope that the person who borrowed my work took the time and trouble to edit for typographical errors, as the entries of this blog are, more often than not, written between the hours of midnight and four o'clock a.m., and, also more often than not, I don't return to the site to fix my typos.

Note: Some universities come down very heavily against the idea of re-using one's own work, sometimes going so far as to refer to the practice as "plagiarism." While an institution has every right to create and enforce policies against the re-use of one-own work, the re-use of one's own work does not constitute plagiarism, and saying it does will not make it so. Institutions do not have the privilege of re-inventing the definition of plagiarism.

I have two legal sources I have relied upon in the past. At some point I'll consult at least one of my attorney friends for advice as to what are my rights and responsibilities in this matter. My instincts tell me that no harm would be done in allowing the administrator to have my password to my blogspot site. Nothing here, whether published yet or not, is either private or personal. I'm more reluctant to hand over email and social media passwords, and more reluctant still to turn over banking information. As far as I know, the administrator with whom I have corresponded has no security clearance. I have no reason to trust him. Suppose I give him the information he has requested, and suppose I am the victim of identity theft five weeks later.  Who is going to help me remedy the damage done? Probably no one. 

Furthermore, giving the university dean my online information would clear me of nothing. All he could conclude after reviewing it would be that nothing incriminating had been found in the accounts I had given him. He would have no way of knowing if I had given him an only  partial listing of my accounts and sites. That conclusion could be reached only after reviewing any and all computers I had used in whatever time period is being investigated. I'm not about to turn over my personal computer or my cell phone to this guy. My medical school is even less apt to grant the man or the university he represents access to their devices.

If, after hearing from the university in question, the F.B.I. were to choose to involve itself in this matter, I would cooperate fully. It would be massively inconvenient for me, but I would suck up the inconvenience in the interest of the common good. I probably wouldn't even ask for warrants, though my educational institution would require them before granting access to any of its devices I might have used. I would not exactly relish the invasion of my privacy, mainly because I would have to change all my passwords once the investigation were concluded, but I would certainly survive it.

I don't know what specific entries were purloined. I hope to have that information at some point just for the purposes of my own entertainment and to satisfy my own curiosity.

To any potential plagiarists who may be reading: If you, for some reason, have spent the last several years in a cave and don't already know this,  when your professor asks you to submit your work to Turnitin.com or whatever anti-plagiarism site or program used, it will detect any unlikely similarities between your work and this blog or almost anything else you may have located on the Internet. You have been forewarned. If you insist upon proceeding in your efforts to use work that is not your own, please plagiarize from someone else other than I. It's not so much that I am especially possessive of anything I have written here, because it's not worthy of any particular possessiveness,  but I don't need the inconvenience of having to deal with your school's dean or whomever else they sic on me. 

Last Night's Post Was Confusing in More Than One Way

So I was called in to the office of one of the deans of academic affairs. The meeting appeared to have something to do with my written work, as she had several of my papers spread out on her desk, as well as one of my papers on the monitor of her laptop. As I looked closer, I was able to recognize for reading titles upside down a couple of papers from high school.  I was beginning to grow concerned. concerned.

Once the dean or assistant dean, or whoever she was  began to speak, I realized I had no cause to be alarmed. She said that initially when professors receive papers  [that they actually read] that seem highly polished, they forward copies to the office of academic affairs. For the most part, the papers are filed, and no one even looks at them. They are only reviewed when more than two or three separate compositions end up in the files. At that point, they are investigated for two reasons. Either the student author has beaten the system and has a parent, older sibling, or someone else close to him or her who has written professionally may be doing work for the student, or the student is a legitimately talented writer. An investigation into possible non-elctronic plagiarism is more likely to ensue if the student is not an English major, as it's less rare for an English major to be a skilled writer.  If the student in question is a math, science, or music major, consistently exceptional papers send up more  red flags.

In my case, both of my parents have been published in journals, but my dad's work in particular wouldn't really pertain as it would fall more closely under the umbrella of technical writing than of expository writing.  My mothr's writings were more suspect, but it didn't take the linguist who was cnonsulted long to conclude while scanning the papers with no names attached to sort them into piles of those authored by mom mom and those authored by me.

Electronic cheating had been ruled out, and any easy method of catching me in plagiarism had also been ruled out. When in-class essay tests were compared, the linguist the consulted told them withn 99.4 5 confidence (I'd love to know how he arrived at that precise figure; my guess is that he pressed random buttons guaranteeing a probability equal to or greator than 98. 5%) and went with it.

When it reaches that point, the negative turns into a positive. The personnel in the office of academic affairs looks at what humanities  foundation awards and other monetary grants most closely mesh with the  particular student's qualifications. Any remaining elective or electives that might give a student a particular edge for a particular award are recommended.

 If it were just a framed certificate, I'd say I have more important fish to fry. There is, however, actual cash in substantial amounts attached to these awards. it's worht my whil to at least listen to what the deans and their assistants have to say.  Since I need totake human phonetics eithr before or during medical school, ifone additional linguistics course would give me a decided advantage in wo separate pravately funded foundation awards, and if winning one does not negatively impact one's chances of winning another, it pays to listen to what these people have to say. moreover, the money ganted with these awards comes with no strings whatsoever attached.

I go back to the office of academic affairs to plan my final courses for the next academic year. With tens of thousands of dollars on the line, I'm open to at least listening to their suggestions.

A friend in my a capella group was awarded in excess of eighty-thousand dollars last year. I'm not counting on anything resembling that amount of money, but I'll take anything that is offered carte blanche.

It's funny how soething that started out as a bit as a negative ended up so positive, although i'm not assuming I'll actually receive anything unil the check with my name on it has cleared the bank from which the check was drawn andhas been deposited into my own account.

I'm really, really glad I knew nothing of any of this until the possibility that I had plagiarized had been removed from consideration as far as the office of academic affairs was concerned. Just the thought of it probably would have brought on a severe attack of trichotillomania, which is the very last thing that either I or Jarede needs. Who wants bald spots all over her head, and who wants the name of a girl with scads of bald spots covering her head  tattooed on his bicep?

All of this may come as something of a shock to someone who stumbles across this blog from time to time. I'm usuallyin a rush when I  blog, and I don't edit with mch care. on the other hand, when doing school work, I print out a hard copy, edit it, and then make the edits on the computer  before printing the final copy.  What you're reading is what comes of the top of my head. I sometimes edit, but seldom are things well-thought before being typed. My academic work is carefully organized.