Macam2 ada... (Part Two)

Today I met up with three of the four amateur plagiarists as retold in the previous post (Part One), sans the kid who failed last semester. Confronted with their deed, and shown the evidence of plagiarism, they caved easily. Aku pun buat lah muka garang dan cuba untuk tidak tersenyum sama sekali. Hey, you have no idea how hard it was since I am such a softie! :-P

Faced with insurmoutable evidence, they looked bashful and admitted that they did not check the assignment before it was submitted. However, they did carry out the actual interview and they did have the necessary data transcribed. Their biggest mistake was that they just left everything else with their other group mate (the one who failed the class last semester). He was supposed to compile their assignment and they trusted him without even checking the assignment before it was submitted. Then, one of them showed me an e-mail, sent by the kid who had failed, dated today (30th of October 2008). That kid admitted that he sent in last semester's assignment, and did not include the new data at all! His excuse was that he simply 'did not have enough time'. Come on!!! Nampak sangatlah pemalas nye...

In the end, I decided to take mercy on them and gave them a few days to submit a new assignment. The new assignment will of course be at a much reduced mark, and they have to submit it with the new data within the stipulated time. For kid number four however (who did not even bother to show up!!) tiada maaf bagimu. He is the main perpetrator, and he intentionally intended to deceive me, so hence 'zero' is a just punishment. As for the rest, their biggest mistake was extreme idiocy and carelessness a.k.a. tidak apa attitude, as well as taking for granted that their group mate would settle things simply because they felt that he was 'more experienced'! That I can still forgive.... However, intentional action to deceive is just not forgivable.

Moral of the story:

1. If you have to plagiarize, do it in a smart way
2. Do not assume that lecturers don't read assignments. Most of them do.
3. Keep copies of previous work so that they don't attempt anything funny; if they can find a way to get out of things, they will!
4. To err is human, to forgive is divine! Ha ha ha ha.

I hope it's a lesson well learned for all of them.

Jotted by,