Thursday, April 26, 2012

Three things that are Not About Me

I'm trying not to let things get to me.  Lordy, I am.  And I'm trying to insert some perspective.  Here are the things that I really oughtn't take personally:

1. Grad student who is just turning a corner on her thesis prep e-mails me on the day of her mock prospectus defense I organized to say that she can't make it... because she broke some bones in her foot that very morning and is trying to deal with the pain every time she moves while she tries to find someone to set it.

2. Grant due to have been paid out last fall still hasn't been paid out... because the country granting the money has had its economy more or less completely collapse.

3. Student plagiarized large chunks of a simple, 4-page source analysis, including material taken from a website and from a 600+ - page book written by my former dissertation advisor, because....  No.  Actually, that one I'll file the academic misconduct forms first, and then I'll let it go. But it's still not something to take personally.

Another thing that all three of these have in common?  All are irritations or inconveniences for me, but real honest-to-goodness crises for others. If I can manage to keep this in mind, I'll be okay.

5 comments:

Susan said...

Sorry for all the annoyances. I am sorry for grad student #1; #2 is really the pits for you; and #3, well, that student won't know what hit hir.

One more week.

Anonymous said...

No fun. especially the last one. Not that the money isn't awful, but it carries less frustration. I had to send notes to more than half of the students in one class today because it is Friday, their papers were due last Friday (except for the ones who showed up last Thursday and were given extensions till Monday). No papers. Three have just stopped showing up. Upper-level seminar. WTF?

And I am past allowing it to be about me. Mostly.

sandy said...

I may be way off the mark or completely spot on but isn't a "source analysis" taking someone elses work ("SOURCE") and inserting it into your paper and then listing those sources in the bibliography. How can that be plagarizing?

Plagarizing is paraphrasing other author's works and not listing their contributions in the bibliography. Did Student #3 do that claim another's words as their own?

Please enlighten me if I got this wrong. I will be attending uni in the Fall and do not want to make a mistake that I was not aware of making and have to defend myself.

Notorious Ph.D. said...

Sandy, "source analysis" may mean any number of things, depending on the way the instructions are phrased. In this case, you'll just have to trust me that the analysis itself was plagiarized.

Plagiarism, in general, is claiming another person's work as your own without giving them proper credit. In my field, this means both footnotes and bibliography, plus quotation marks where appropriate. If you're just starting university, you may find yourself held to stricter standards than you were previously. To be on the safe side, it's best to check your university & department policies, as well as with the individual faculty members if you're in doubt.

Anonymous said...

Plagiarists are to be found everywhere it seems. Although what amazes me is that they presumably think they won't be. My sympathies on all of the above...