But the plagiarist is another animal. He shares with the cheater a sort of laziness, but his is more pronounced. The plagiarist can’t even be bothered with putting together a cheat sheet, usually. He can’t be bothered with ideas, with putting subjects together with verbs. His m.o. is to let someone else to the heavy lifting, even when the burden is light. The dumbest among them will material from the Internet, usually from a variety of sources, cutting and pasting as he goes. It requires no special skill. He does not even have to worry about getting caught, for no one is looking over his shoulder. He feels no guilt because he has no proximity to anyone or anything that he might care about. He feels no responsibility for his actions because he knows, rightly, that nearly everyone else is doing it. 

The most difficult and dastardly of plagiarists are those whose parents write their papers. It happens often enough. I had one illiterate who wrote on a fourth grade level, if that. When he turned in a sparkling paper, I had to ask. But he stuck to his guns, I’ll give him that. Even after I asked him to write a paragraph in front of me and he came up with the most unreadable drivel, even then he maintained that the work was his own. 

I can forgive the cheater. I cannot forgive the plagiarist, the lazy thief who sucks the world dry, who takes and takes and takes and never produces anything. He is a mere consumer, a buyer of ideas he cannot understand. He lacks imagination. He is the center of his own tiny world, the sociopath. The plagiarist is not unlike the serial killer, living only for his own perverse gratification. 

I am not the least impressed by my colleagues who attempt to rationalize plagiarism by succumbing to the argument our brave new electronic world has made the concept of plagiarism anachronistic. This, too, is laziness. They would have me understand that my emphasis on original thinking and individual work is bourgeois, that all writing is essentially a group undertaking. They would have me believe that my plagiarists are simply working out their own relationship to the new media, using it in ways that I don’t yet fathom.

I, however, would have them believe that they are afraid of their students, that they wish to be friends with their charges. I say: fail the plagiarists and kick them out of the university. And do it with extreme prejudice.

Or, humiliation might be the path. Something not unlike a Scarlet P, worn prominently around campus for an entire semester. We could allow the the plagiarist to remain enrolled, but he must walk with humility, head hung low, P slung across his chest. We may want to bring back the Dunce Cap as well. We might have a dunces corner in the student union, a place where the plagiarists sit together in their dunce-dom for all the world to see. 

I am excited by the possibilities.

And we are to grade, objectively, these students. 

How is this to be done? Am I supposed to remain objective about the student who seems to make an effort, who comes to me for help, who talks–appropriately–in class; who asks pertinent questions; who seems interested, even if she isn’t? In comparison with the guy who looks at me with the gravest contempt, and who makes it clear that this, in fact, is a waste of his time? What happens when by some strange and unknown fate these two students have the same average at the end of the term? Am I seriously supposed to give them both that C+? 

Perhaps I will simply adjust her grade up a little bit. No one will know, except me–and my conscience.

And what about the attractive student who uses it, who stops in to chat occasionally. He or she simply wants to have a sit down this office hour, talk in general about how things are going, perhaps share a bit of our personal lives, perhaps make light fun of a couple of the oddballs in the class? Perhaps wears something provocative once in a while–who knows why? 

And I am supposed to be objective? This student should have received a B for the course, but s/he blew the final. Do I bump up the grade a bit? I like this student. I don’t mind saying that I enjoyed our brief talks. S/he smelled good. S/he got my jokes. 

Ah. What the hell. I can deal with my conscience.