HIGHER EDUCATION
Student Mastermind Humiliates Witless English Professor
I had a reasonable expectation that you would never read my work
Let me tell you why we’re here. You seem to believe a recent paper of mine contained a touch of plagiarism, and you tactlessly urged me to “knock it off.” I am appalled that you think I would need to resort to plagiarism to complete the assignments in your freshman writing class. They are child’s play. I could do them in my sleep in the time it takes you to put on that absurd poor-person costume you insist on teaching in.
Oh, you “know for a fact” I plagiarized, and you were “trying to be nice” by giving me a warning first? Let me give you a warning — I am not to be trifled with. How could you possibly know? Did you hop in your time machine to observe the moment I supposedly did it? Did you use ESP to reach into the deepest recesses of my brilliant mind? Do you have any evidence at all to support this ridiculous supposition?
What’s that? You “Googled” it, and the whole paper matches a web page? Except every fifth word has been replaced with a similar word, probably from a thesaurus? Isn’t it more likely that I wrote something similar to this website by sheer coincidence? I mean, ethics in gaming journalism is a pretty narrow subject. Oh, the assigned topic was a life-changing personal experience? I like to be original.
What if I told you I was the author of the web page you are suggesting I plagiarized? Maybe I am CuckKing6ix9ine. Wouldn’t you feel like an utter imbecile to find that you were accusing me of plagiarizing MYSELF? Maybe you should try giving students the benefit of the doubt instead of making insulting insinuations. What? You CAN plagiarize yourself? How was I supposed to know?
All of this could have been avoided if you had taken a single second of class time to teach me what plagiarism is. How can I be expected to follow a rule that you never mentioned? “It’s in the syllabus?” And you spent an entire day in class going over it? Well, I must have been absent. Hm? You know I was there because you recorded attendance? How dare you violate my privacy by noticing when I attend? This surveillance-state oppression is the reason nobody wants to go to college anymore. And it must have been a really boring lesson, because I definitely don’t remember any of it.
I had a reasonable expectation that you would never read my work. I have taken classes at 6 different colleges in the last two years, and you are the first teacher to ever read anything I turned in. The Center for Academic Excellence assured me English teachers here assign a random grade from A to C on every student paper. You would have to be a real sicko to want to read hundreds of student essays every semester.
Did you get the phone call from my mother? She tells all my teachers I’m an honest person who would never ever cheat or plagiarize in a million years. As I’m sure she told you, she’s an English teacher herself. She read my paper and told me she would give it an A. Where does she teach? You wouldn’t recognize the name. Try you? Actually, she recently retired. I’ll thank you not to pry any further into my personal life.
I pay your salary, so that makes me your boss. I am commanding you to grade my paper as if there is no plagiarism in it. You can do it the easy way and just overlook any irregularities, or we can go through the Academic Appeals Committee. I hear they haven’t upheld a plagiarism charge since 1972.
“Take a week and rewrite the paper?” You fool. There’s no way I’m going to waste one more minute on this uninspiring trash. If you don’t apologize for this degrading treatment and give me an A in the class, I’m going to send some of these photos I found on Facebook to the College President. She’ll be extremely curious to know what you were doing at Chuck E. Cheese with this very young woman who isn’t your wife. Oh, that’s your daughter? And it was her birthday? And that’s your wife standing behind her?
Okay, I clearly underestimated you. You may be my worthiest adversary yet. How about a B?
What do you mean, “Get out?” We’re not finished here! “Campus security?!” I hardly think it’s necessary to involve the authorities. Alright, I’ll go, but you haven’t heard the last of me!
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