Our first essay (the final copy) in our ethics class is due two weeks from today. What the professor had us do was bring 2 hard copies to class last week, one goes to him, the other you trade with someone else to edit it, and bring back to class next week.
Well the person's i took home, her wording wasn't easy to understand, so typed in a string of words at a search engine to see if i could clarify a few things, and the first result got it word for word at a website (another site popped up a result as an "essay for sale"). When i clicked on the link and compared, apparently this person has plagiarized their WHOLE essay word for word and signed it as their own (the persons "works cited", which i checked throughly as we were told to, does not contain anything other than some magazine articles).
Now, it's likely that the professor didn't just fall off the turnip truck, and might do some checking of his own and discover this (since we have an honor code, and rules spelled out for this sort of thing), but now i'm kinda stuck on what to do. I don't feel right looking over this like i'm not aware that this isn't original work, yet it doesn't seem like it's my place to be a whistleblower.
But yet in the nursing world, if you know something wrong is going on and you don't say anything, you're just as guilty. :stone
He sent an email back along the lines of "thank you for alerting me to this. She will not know that we had this conversation, as it is not necessary, since the information you found is available online for everyone to see. "
He sent an email back along the lines of "thank you for alerting me to this. She will not know that we had this conversation, as it is not necessary, since the information you found is available online for everyone to see. "
Hmm.
Students who cheat only really cheat themselves since education is not about passing but about LEARNING.
Glad you did that, Marie. When you work hard for a grade and someone else steps in with a loser idea like that and gets full credit, it just burns my shorts.
I had a dilemma in school about if I should or shouldn't say something. It was a huge group project and I was the one putting it all together. I got this one girl's part two days before it was due. I was checking her sources to make sure they were right because I am a freak about plagiarism. A couple of them seemed off so I went on the internet and ended up finding her whole essay. I didn't have time to get her to fix it, so I just wrote it myself and turned it in on time. The thing is, I couldn't accuse her of plagiarism because her part never got turned in, and she could accuse me of being a control freak and not letting her do her part of the assignment if I claimed that she didn't do her part and didn't deserve a grade. Plus, this came out of nowhere with this girl. I'd worked with her before and she'd always been completely reliable and I didn't want to see her fail her last semester. On the other hand, nurses who cheat are scary! I was furious too because if I hadn't caught this, our entire group could have been accused of plagiarism and failed. What the world should I have done in that situation? It still bothers me six months later.
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Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN
12,126 Posts
We need that :stone