You may have unintentionally skewed the results by phrasing the choice as one between being a “rat” and “mind[ing] your own business”.
I agree, I could have worded it better.
Well, you completely defeating my argument with your first sentence.
But as for firing the rat, I, too, think that is a bad idea. This is not some-one sneaking out for an extra smoke break. I don’t know a lot about distilleries, but I know a bit about labs and regulatory agencies. Unless you want to slog through hundreds of thousands of audit trail entries for your GC software (like what the FDA did with those HPLC computers in India), I would strongly recommend a “come to me with anything” approach.
“The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.” Sometimes whistle blowing is the right thing.
Well said.
The student should absolutely “mind his own business”: Another student cheating is his business, and he should mind it. The student should absolutely not “rat anyone out”: If he observes behavior that is honorable and good despite being against the rules, then he should not get anyone in trouble for it. There is no dishonor in reporting dishonorable behavior.
And no, it isn’t the kid’s job to be a policeman. If it were, he would be actively searching through all of the other posts, looking for evidence of cheating. He didn’t do that. He just stumbled upon the evidence. And having done so, he’s honor-bound to report it. Not because there’s a paragraph on the school’s website that says so, but because it’s the inherently honorable thing to do.
Let me pose another hypothetical: Suppose that you, as a student, witnessed another student grabbing someone’s assignment off the desk, tearing it up, and throwing it away. Would it be “honorable” to report that incident? Because that is an incident of exactly the same severity as plagiarism.
I agree that he should say something. Liars should not be tolerated.
However, according to the current poll numbers, it’s disappointing to find that 31 people seem to believe that lying/cheating is OK???
There was no “lying/cheating is OK” choice in the poll. Lying and cheating are wrong. There are, however, many things that are wrong that I do not feel obligated to report if I see others engaging in them. The plagiarism described in the OP falls squarely into that territory. Now, if it were assault, or murder, or child molestation, that would be different.
Would you talk the kid out of reporting it? Or are you solely describing what you would do? What reason do you have to avoid reporting it, other than inertia?
Not sure how similar this is, but back in high school, we had an English assignment and one student’s work was so good, the teacher read it out to us. Very clever, indeed, and I recognised it as being almost identical to a piece I had read in a magazine just days prior. I was outraged. Buddy gets an A+ for copying? I told the teacher. Brought him the magazine and didn’t care what came of it, I just didn’t like the idea that he was getting credit and being lauded to the rest of us for work he didn’t do.
In the OP’s situation - I’d be inclined to call out the person who posted then and there and reply with something along the lines of “nice wiki quote, might want to include the cite next time” Add a smiley face. At least it gives them a heads up and a chance to post something original.
I didn’t talk him out of it, I listened to his concerns and told him what I thought. We discussed it along with a lot of the responses to this thread.
He did the right thing and reported it. He got a thank you from his professor who said that he had already caught it.
That said, he doesn’t feel good about having to do it. When he caught it his first words were - Why did she do that? She is a mother of three, she probably needs the education to get a good job and I don’t want to see her get expelled and ruin her chances.
Of course the chances of her getting expelled over this are slim, unless she’s a repeat offender, in which case she’s too stupid to be in college anyway. In the long run it’s to her benefit to get caught now.
Being treated the same as any other assignment may not mean “being treated the same as any other assignment” IYKWIM. Say, if it were a test, son may not be called upon to be the cop, because he shouldn’t have knowledge of what the alleged plaigarist writes, should he?
Ergo, chill. Even if it is plagiarism, son should chill. Quit policing my recommendation not to police, Sahirrnee. Chill. This is too much b.s. for a simple post on a message board. Message board discussions are the replacement for in class discussions, and, one would surely tire of “as X says, …” in same.
Remember: Chill.
Sorry, that was directed to Scumpup.
Those who cheat will get what is coming to them later in life - when suddenly they have a task assigned to them at work and will not have any idea how to do it…
I would agree except for the honor code where the students have promised to report such misconduct if it comes to their attention. I think that’s a serious ethical undertaking, and cannot just be ignored. If you don’t want that responsibility, don’t go to a school that requires the honor code. (I don’t think my college required such reports of fellow student behavior, but we did promise not to cheat ourselves as I recall) Or, more interestingly, see if you could “opt out” for what you consider minor violations. In my opinion it is not ethical to promise to report misbehavior and then simply decide not to do so when the situation arises.
Then you don’t actually think they are wrong. Not reporting it means you just helped them get away with it. If you thought it was wrong, you wouldn’t be able to help someone else do it. You’ve provide the cover or the getaway car.
It’s a mental block that drives me crazy. Do you not hate it that liars and cheaters can get away with lying and cheating? Do you not hate it when someone tricks you or gets one over on you? How do you expect this to stop if people like you won’t stop them?
It’s the social contract. You do it for me, and I’ll do it for you. We all do it, and then liars and cheaters can’t get away with it. We don’t do it, they do get away with it. Your inaction results in negative consequences.
When you refuse to report that which is right in front of you, you are inherently saying you condone those actions.
Don’t presume to tell me what I think.
No, they won’t. They’ll pass half-finished half-assed work on to a co-worker who’ll get stuck with cleaning up the mess, but will never go to The Boss about it, because s/he - or, even worse, The Boss - believes to do so would be “tattling”.
Sadly, I expected the very first response to be “snitches get stitches”. I was surprised it took so long (6 posts!).