What’s Black and White and Green All Over?

The end of the semester is always a mad dash of papers, exams, grading and that end of semester rite of passage, the sob story.  Before I start breaking harsh on my students, let me say that for all my snarky and profanity-laced rantings about their ethics (or lack thereof), poor grammar, and naïve world views, I am a soft-serve with sprinkles in real life.  I’ve been known to be firm (but fair!) during office hours and then to break into tears as soon as the student is out the door. 

I hate giving students who have worked hard all semester poor grades that don’t reflect what they have actually contributed to the class because of one misstep, or an attack of the lazies — especially after I have just spent two weeks sitting on their ungraded finals on the couch eating M&Ms and catching up on Grey’s Anatomy — or some other trauma that has caused their fragile watercolor portraits of the world to run black and blue.  I can relate.  Hey, if there is one person reading this who didn’t use a sick day when you found out that Jericho had been cancelled or who hasn’t feigned deathly illness when the outfit you were planning to wear didn’t fit around your stealthily expanding waistline, you get a Twinkie.  Actually, you get a crate of Twinkies, and then when your work-wear doesn’t fit the following week, you’ll know just the trauma I am talking about.

So, if my students can provide excuses and have shown me all semester that they are engaged in the class, I will work with them on their grades — extra credit, extending a paper deadline, and bribery demeaning manual labor indentured servitude paper revisions are some methods I’ve used to help them along the path to enlightenment.  Of course, I make them beg first.  Always make them beg first.  Because what is the point of having power if it doesn’t make you tingle every now and then?

But sobbing always comes on the heels of my lording.  While I speak to them, I don my “serious professor face” and admonish them.  “I will have to think about bestowing my mercy upon you,” I tell them.  “Say three Hail Dingos and pray, PRAY!, for My Blessed Grace!  Now begone!” But, once they leave the office, I reach for the Kleenex and wonder whether professors who don’t give Second Chances also push old people into oncoming traffic and juggle kittens and laugh during Zales commercials.  What usually follows these meetings is a restless night worrying about my student.  Is she going to be okay?  Will she come up with the money to avoid losing the farm?  Will she find a kidney donor?  Did the governor grant the pardon in time? 

The next day, I am a hero.  I am Super Professor.  I give the extra credit assignment or extend the paper deadline and we both smile like we take Enzyte.  My class isn’t just about learning how to read and understand literature.  I’d like to think that it’s also about learning that laziness and procrastination are A-Okay that lying pays dividends from your mistakes.  My colleagues say that this benevolence will come back to bite me on the butt.  That’s not such a bad thing.  Anything that takes some of the junk from my trunk is fine with me.  Except mosquitoes. 

One thing that I cannot forgive, however, is plagiarism.  Zero tolerance.  I have too much respect for the students who work hard to improve their writing skills to accept plagiarism as a case of the lazies.  It is not laziness.  It is theft, and I will hunt you down like the Fugitive to make sure you are punished so severely for it that you wake up every night not only in a puddle of your own urine, but also the urine of the person whom you plagiarized. The Spanish Inquisition will seem like a Katie Couric interview when I’m through with you.

I am surprised that in this Google age — it is now the year 12 GE (Google Era) — students still try to get away with plagiarism.  In most cases, I talk with the student about what she did and discuss why she is receiving a failing grade in the class.  Although I have the option of referring each case to the Dean, it usually goes no further than me, the student, and the gradebook.  Usually. 

This semester, I had a case so egregious from a student so ballsy that I’m sure in a few years (if not already) she’s going to be in jail for check kiting, identify theft, or laughing at Zales commercials.  So, if you get bizarre comments on your blogs or inappropriate emails from me, rest assured it’s NOT REALLY ME.  Particularly if it’s not gut-bustingly hilarious.  That’s the dead giveaway.

Anyhoodle, one of my students, Patty Plagiarist, spent the entire semester in a catatonic stupor.  She never brought her books to class, never did the reading, and never turned in a single paper.  Although she completed in-class writing assignments, it was obvious that she hadn’t even bothered to use Cliff Notes.  I’m sorry but, no, Macbeth is not Ronald McDonald’s girlfriend’s name.  And The Shining?  Yes, that book was written by Stephen King, but it is not about his problems with baldness.  Couldn’t you at least have watched the movie?

You can imagine my surprise when Patty Plagiarist turned in the final paper of the semester and not only did it exceed the mandatory page length but it was freakin’ amazing!!!  A student who could barely muster a coherent sentence all semester was now writing about pandemics and trans-morphing and crap I had never even heard of.  A call to Mr. Google was in order.  Mr. Google made quick work of the paper and revealed that not one, not two, but seven — SEVEN! — web sites were plagiarized.  I emailed Patty and asked to meet with her about her paper.  Seven!

When she finally strolled in late to our meeting I cut to the chase and showed her the print outs I had of the web sites she’d stolen from.  I also presented her with a copy of her paper with plagiarized sections highlighted in green.  The paper looked like it had been written by Lawn Doctor.  Patty had the nerve to look surprised. 

Patty:  That’s not my paper.

Me:  What?  Yes, it is.  It’s the one that was attached to the email you sent to me.

Patty:  Well, that’s my paper but it’s not the one I meant to send.

Me:  Not the —?

Patty:  Yes, I plagiarized that paper but I called my brother and he said you wouldn’t fall for it so I wrote another one.

Yes, folks, her brother supposedly told her that the paper was so good that I wouldn’t believe it was hers.  Patty then said that she wrote ANOTHER paper that she meant to send to me.  There was a sob story about how she had stayed up all night to write it, blah, blah, blah, it was eight pages long, blah, blah, blah.  This would be a good time to mention that this other paper was supposedly a comparison between a book we read in class and a book she read on her own initiative.  Does Patty sound like a person with that sort of initiative?  No.  I called her bluff.  I told her that I didn’t believe her story and that I wanted to see this “other” paper within the next two hours.  She was definitely going to fail the course but I was still deciding whether to refer it to the Disciplinary Committee.

Here is where you need to picture the passage of time like in the old movies with the hands of the clock spiraling out of control until it grinds to a halt Seven. Long. Hours. Later.  Seven!  I received an email from Patty with this other paper attached.  Would you be shocked to learn that it was a two-page piece of crap?  Moreover, it was a two-page, crap, superficial comparison of two works we read waaaay at the beginning of the semester. 

I emailed Patty Plagiarist again telling her that I was going to forward her case to the Dean and recommend her expulsion.  Her response?  She apologized.  Not for plagiarizing but for accidentally sending me the wrong paper.  Again.  She somehow thought I wanted for her to send me the second paper of the semester — which had been due over a month earlier.  A paper that she had never handed in.  This girl should never apply to be a contestant on The Moment of Truth.  She also informed me that expulsion was too harsh and that she wanted another chance to send me the correct paper.  Um, no. 

My litigator instincts kicked in and, since I happened to have exhibit tabs left over from my days of practicing law — doesn’t everyone? — I wrote a lengthy brief (lawyer oxymorons still get me hot) and attached thirteen unlucky exhibits as evidence of her plagiarism and deceit.  Believe me, you have the condensed version of this madness.  Oh yeah, Judge Judy would be proud. 

This case is still making its way through the red tape and the black hole of the disciplinary process, but this student will not attend another class at my Institution of Higher Learning.  I have no doubt that, given the opportunity, Patty Plagiarist would do this again, maybe taking a hostage this time.

I try to make sure that my students learn more than just an appreciation of literature and writing in my class.  Unfortunately, I don’t think Patty Plagiarist learned anything in my class and certainly nothing about unethical conduct.  But she certainly learned this:  Don’t fuck with Dingo!  Dingo has enough stolen exhibit tabs to deal with your kind for years to come!

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