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Well, I have emerged from beneath the cruel mountain of term paper obligation, bruised but alive. Three papers in twelve hours. I have figurative balls of iron. The pitiless irony of the situation is that just as I was running the papers through newfangled plagiarism software, I checked my university e-mail and discovered that the deadline for one of the papers had been extended by a week. So there was no need for me to stay up until three o'clock in the morning to finish it.
~headdesk~
That'll teach me to neglect university mail.
I kept the paper and decided to spruce it up. It's not bad, but there are places in the text where you can plainly see I was in the "Hit a key, any key" mode of paper writing, which, as you all know, is a scant rung above brain death on the cognitive ladder. Segues were rough or nonexistent, reasoning was sketchy, sentence structure took a detour into the Twilight Zone, so this reprieve is a godsend.
This was the first time I've ever run a paper through plagiarism detection software, and frankly, I'm insulted. I have never plagiarized anything in my life. Not a single word. Every bit of brilliance or stupidity, as the cases may have been, were mine and mine alone. I thought of the words, and I wrote them down, and barring perfectly legal-and requisite, might I add-citations, I never took them from anyone. Sure, I've been tempted. But I don't think there is a college student alive who hasn't been, especially when a grade is on the line and it's 4AM and you're out of ideas and inspiration. But thought has never crossed the line into deed, and it never will. I don't want what I didn't earn.
I suppose he has no choice, but it's sad that things have come to this.
What was even sadder was the lecture he gave today on proper essay organization. There he stood, a brilliant man before college seniors, and explained the mystery of...the thesis statement. I wish I were kidding. Really. My heart cries for it to be jest, but it's not. A genius, reduced to explaining proper paper organization to people thirty hours or less from graduation. He also had to explain that statements like the following are not in-depth critical analysis of source material:
Die Weisse Rosse is a film that explores conformity in the Third Reich. In his book, Defying Hitler, Sebastian Haeffner discusses conformity under Nazi rule as well. Clearly, it was an important issue.
Father God and Sonny Jesus, the stupidity burns.
~headdesk~
That'll teach me to neglect university mail.
I kept the paper and decided to spruce it up. It's not bad, but there are places in the text where you can plainly see I was in the "Hit a key, any key" mode of paper writing, which, as you all know, is a scant rung above brain death on the cognitive ladder. Segues were rough or nonexistent, reasoning was sketchy, sentence structure took a detour into the Twilight Zone, so this reprieve is a godsend.
This was the first time I've ever run a paper through plagiarism detection software, and frankly, I'm insulted. I have never plagiarized anything in my life. Not a single word. Every bit of brilliance or stupidity, as the cases may have been, were mine and mine alone. I thought of the words, and I wrote them down, and barring perfectly legal-and requisite, might I add-citations, I never took them from anyone. Sure, I've been tempted. But I don't think there is a college student alive who hasn't been, especially when a grade is on the line and it's 4AM and you're out of ideas and inspiration. But thought has never crossed the line into deed, and it never will. I don't want what I didn't earn.
I suppose he has no choice, but it's sad that things have come to this.
What was even sadder was the lecture he gave today on proper essay organization. There he stood, a brilliant man before college seniors, and explained the mystery of...the thesis statement. I wish I were kidding. Really. My heart cries for it to be jest, but it's not. A genius, reduced to explaining proper paper organization to people thirty hours or less from graduation. He also had to explain that statements like the following are not in-depth critical analysis of source material:
Die Weisse Rosse is a film that explores conformity in the Third Reich. In his book, Defying Hitler, Sebastian Haeffner discusses conformity under Nazi rule as well. Clearly, it was an important issue.
Father God and Sonny Jesus, the stupidity burns.