When I catch a student plagiarizing, I have one of two extremely visceral reactions: I cry or throw up.

Then I turn the little f**ker in to the Student Conduct committee.

Sometimes, they don't even take out the blue hyperlinks in what they paste in from the frikkin' internet!

And a friend of mine got a paper that was cribbed word for word FROM THE BOOK THEY WERE USING IN CLASS. I swear to the gods.

I mean, homage, imitation, flattery, cultural zeitgeist, subconscious influence, collective unconscious, whatever. But dammit, if you hit select copy paste, you know what you did!!!

And you should be punched in the face.

Well, there is the fact that Word makes hyperlinks all over the place, unless you tell it not to.

But what these kids don't understand is that people like you and me are going to recognize any passage that made any impression on us at all, if we've ever encountered it before: we notice turns of phrase. If it's worth stealing, it's memorable enough that someone will . . . remember it.

I try to remind myself that there are people who cut corners in certain areas of life who would never do so in any other. For instance, I've never been tempted to plagiarize, because . . . well, I can always do better than the original. Though I do seem to remember pushing my deadlines, and paraphrasing in rather a hurry at 3:00 a.m. the morning before an assignment was due.

But I know I'm tempted sometimes to invade other people's privacy--read their email or whatever. I don't do it, because that is one thing you cannot undo. If you read someone's private correspondence, or their journal, it might alter the way you think about that person forever. To me, it's even lower than plagiarism, and even more destructive. But not everyone I know sees it that way.

Yet I've been "cheating" in my checkbook since the beginning of time: there is always that $8 or $15 or whatever that I can't account for, and I've always just added or subtracted (usually the latter) to make it balance. This is probably shocking to some people, but I'm not good at arithmetic, and I don't have the time to invest in making things balance perfectly. And I have no inclination, either.

I like the "sloppy research" people. Yeah: "I accidentally lifted that passage ". . . gimme a break.

Though, to be fair, I do know a husband-wife composing team who regularly run their work by each other to make sure they didn't unconsciously grab something out of classical music somewhere. Maybe if one is operating far enough from the right brain, it could happen.

Remember, though, Rin: this is a professor and a writing professional. Not someone trying to get through a breadth requirement. This guy has some bad freakin' karma coming to him, which is why I used his real name.

I've always thought that plagiarism is a foolish enterprise, because people like you and me are going to recognize any passage that made an impression on us: we notice turns of phrase, and if it's worth stealing, it's memorable enough that someone will remember it.

And besides, one can usually do better than the original.

Oh. You are bad. ;)

You, on the other hand, are good.

;-)

Then I turn the little f**ker in to the Student Conduct committee.

And then what happens? do they get punished, or do they get a slap on the wrist and get off?

I'm vaguely aware of an incident that happened in my own department - someone reading a faculty member's email surreptiously - that got swept under the rug because the chairman at the time wasn't into confrontation.

Some determined that I shouldn't be notified, even if I where the network admin. If left up to me, I would have dropped the hammer on the perp, and at least cut him/her off from their account for a good, long while.

But that would be confrontational...