Communication and Information Literacy, I totally get why this is important as a teacher and the class is going really well so far. We are just getting ready to wrap up week two, so far the work has been pretty easy, I do not mean like, "hey, I can just whip this out in five minutes and I am done and it looks great and will get a great grade." I am talking about it is easy to get the work done, it is easy to find what I need, and the work is pretty easy. It is taking me a little longer to get the worksheets done so good thing they are few and far between. There is a lot of reading about 2 chapters equalling about 70-80 pages a week. Thankfully, the information is easy to read and most of it I already know.
So, this week we are talking about the difference between primary and secondary sources which is really easy to figure out and talk about. We are also talking about why it is important to cite information and quotes that you may use in your essays or work. There are so many plagiarism laws that it is not even funny. With I am glad they are there and that the law sees fit to protect people against "word" thieves.
I am sitting on the couch the other night, kind of watching "Deadliest Catch" on Discovery with Jonathon as I am reading through one of the question posts. I open a new thread to read someones response to one of the questions for this week and notice that I feel like I have read this before. As I get looking I go back and look at a few other things and realize that it is my post. I thought that I had clicked someone else's thread so that I could read and comment and wonder why all of what I wrote is not there.So I get to looking and find that it is my post, minus a few sentences at the end. I guess my response was so great that someone thought they could use it as their own and hope they didn't get caught doing so.
Little did this person know that I check the threads every day a few times a day and I generally read every ones posts and decided which ones I want to comment on. Lucky for them I kept my cool and did not say a word to him but emailed my teacher instead. People that know me really well know that every fiber, cell, molecule, and ounce of my being wanted to getting catty and respond to this persons post and call them out in front of the entire class and ask them why they thought it would be okay to use my response as their own?
I get a phone call from my teacher yesterday, he explains he got my email and that he is looking into it and will be conducting and investigation on this person. Good thing it is only the second week of class because now he has to go back through all of this persons posts and double check his work with everyone else's work in the class, which makes a lot of work for my teacher. I am glad that he is looking farther into it and that he is doing what needs to be done to make sure that this person takes responsibility for what they have done and that they will not be doing it again.
This could be as little as a 0% for the week on discussion and participation or as much as being kicked out of the school. As my teacher said, "plagiarism of any kind, even using someone else's post as your own, in the academic world is no different than committing a murder on the street." I for sure would not like to be on the receiving end of any of this.
I feel bad that I may be getting this person kicked out of school or even causing them to fail and assignment but in the end it really is not my problem and I should not feel badly about it because they are the one that chose to copy/paste/and delete the last few sentences of my post and try to pull it off as their own.
I really think that this person was thinking they could get away with it. This is the second time that this has happened to me. I really do not understand it. There are people in this class that have way better answers than what I am posting. And to top it all off this person had the guts to comment on my post.
Well, I know that academic justice will be served and that is all I care about.
