Plagiarism

Yuck. It's been a long time since I've felt this violated.

School work is stressful, but so far in every class I've had with Argosy University, all of my studying during lunch at work and late hours double-checking my papers have paid off in the form of a steady 4.0 GPA. This last week I started Statistics, though, and I recognize my weakness there. Psychology seems to naturally sink in for me, but this is taking a little bit more work. I'll get it, though!

I turned in my latest assignment on Sunday evening to our Dropbox, and then I posted it online, early squirrely at 5:30am, when I woke up, because the professor notated that we could post the assignment for discussion any time after 5am ET. Booyah! Done! I was feeling really proud of myself.

I followed up during my lunch at work, trying to stay ahead with homework so that I could stay ahead with reading, responding to a classmate's post, and likewise when I got home and saw another post, I was excited! Another perspective to read, and another chance to learn and hopefully improve! Or, so I thought . . .

As I read along, I thought at first, Wow. This person thinks a lot like me! And then a few seconds later, OMG... This is the assignment I posted this morning!! The jerk had copy and pasted my assignment, moved some words around, and tried to claim it was his!! :O After all the warnings of what will happen the college gives, I couldn't believe it! And, to not even change the structure or anything! At first, I felt mad. I really wanted to punch this jerk in the face. I had already pinned him down as a liar from his first introductory post, but I thought I'd be okay just ignoring it. This, however, was unforgiveable! But, instead of following the angry instinct to post something really rude and inappropirate on the board, I first had Terinati check to make sure I wasn't crazy and then e-mailed the professor. Yay, me, for not acting like a total retard! :}

Unfortunately, that made me really stressed out about my work and I just had to step away from it for the evening rather than continue reading for the next module(week). I did sit and refresh over and over every twenty minutes to see if anyone who did their own work would post, but I didn't see anyone. :/ That also doesn't bode well. Maybe the rest of the class failed to read the instructions? :} I just felt so violated and awful . . . It made me think about people who are okay stealing music or anything really. That was the last time I felt this way, when someone stole some of mine. As a consequence, I never play music for people I don't trust anymore. :( Isn't that kind of sad?

So, yeah. Some people are jerks out there and maybe they're just getting their upcummence having their work stolen, but I really don't agree with this. People who go out and steal music that you could buy or take someone else's work and throw cares to the wind about giving them credit, today I pout at you from afar... 'cause... that's really all I can do. :} Seriously, though, I feel emotionally raped. I had considered the probability of something like this happening in the past. I mean, people have asked me to help them cheat before (which I heartily declined and then proceded to tell the teacher, quickly ending that "friendship." And no, I'm not ashamed of it, either! How dare she put me in that kind of position in the first place?!), so them cheating off of my work without my help is the logical next step. I know that I'm smart and people have often expressed enjoying reading my work, no matter what the class, so if I was some stupid idiot, I suppose I'd choose someone who is clearly smarter than me to be my target too. But, I had failed to mentally capture the disgusting feeling I would have. I feel sick to my stomach, and I didn't even do anything wrong!

To all those jerks out there who say, "What do you care? It's not like it hurts anybody," well . . . you're wrong. It does hurt. Of course, that just means there is fuel to the fire that will get you caught. So, there's my two cents on that topic. And now, I've got my eyes on you, creepy thieving students!! =^00^=