Macam2 ada... (Part One)

Haiyo... this is so funny. If I weren't so pissed off, that is... Thank God I still have my humor intact, or else I would have stewed about this for days!

This kid failed my colleague's class last semester. Last minute, I was asked to replace her this semester and I did not have time to change the assignment research project title. I was aware that he failed so I took him aside and told him that whilst he could use the previous semester assignment for guide, under no circumstances could he copy 100% from it. Furthermore, he had new group members and plenty of time to work on the project to collect new data so there was no excuse for the extreme idiocy that occurred next.

Two days ago was the assignment due dates. I began marking in earnest because we have to publish the carry marks by end of this week. When I received this kid's assignment I was not too impressed with the work, and I was quite surprised by how shoddy it is. There were four people in the group. Three of them I was not surprised with the quality of work (including the kid who failed last semester). The fourth member however is a very intelligent and hardworking student who has impressed me this semester. He had so much potential that I was about to convince him to double major with our department (he's not majoring in Communication). So I checked the work again. Imagine my surprise at the end of the work when I saw the transcription and he included the name of a student (OK, it's Kodoq :-P) and I knew Kodoq has already passed this particular paper. Then only I remembered that last semester, Kodoq is the group mate of the kid who had failed. I did some investigative job and found the previous semester's assignment with my colleague, and compared the two assignments. IT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME. The only thing that changed was the cover page (it was a nice looking cover page) and the group member's names in front of the cover.

Come on lah! HOW IDIOTIC CAN YOU GET?! I also later found out that he got a copy of the assignment that morning before he submitted the work. Obviously they were not doing anything the whole semester and last minute decided to pass up last semester's work. That is still considered as plagiarism, no matter if it was partly your work last semester. I promptly gave them a 'zero' for the group assignment without any twinge of guilt. I only feel for the fourth member of the group; coz if he had scored in the group project he would have easily gotten a Bplus or an Aminus in this subject. Owh well, it is impossible right that he was ignorant of the fact that his team mates were going to plagiarize the group assignment?

Moral of the story: IF in any circumstances you want to 'get out' of things, do it in a smart way and make sure you are not found out. And yes, it does not pay to plagiarize assignment when the lecturer is me. :-P

Jotted by,