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I Dislike Plagiarism

"YOU DIDN'T WRITE THIS!"
Those of you who have read my stories may have noticed that I have a decent command of the English language. I owe much of my ability to the intensified grammar and writing classes I studied while in grade school, so that by the time I reached the Eighth Grade (about age twelve or thirteen) I was able to compose an essay with little problem. So in high school my writing ability was further sharpened to the point where some teachers said I wrote at the college level.
But one teacher did not.
My Eleventh Grade English teacher, Mrs. Barnes, was an old schoolmarm type, brooking no nonsense from her students and always on the lookout for dishonesty.
One day for homework she assigned us an essay of two pages, on the subject of our choice. Then as now, I was very interested in history; so I chose the Bounty Mutiny as my theme. I knew a lot about this incident, in which the H.M.S. Bounty sailed for Tahiti but never returned to port because the sailors, under Fletcher Christian, seized the ship from Captain Bligh. So with facts and figures in my head, I wrote the essay that evening and handed it in the next morning.
A few days later Mrs. Barnes returned the essay to me with a note written in the infamous red ink: "SEE ME!"
After class I approached Mrs. Barnes with the paper in my hand.
"You wanted to see me, Mrs. Barnes?" I asked.
She took the paper from my hand, studied it for a moment, and then looked me straight in the eye and said, "You didn't write this!"
I looked at her in surprise. "I didn't?" I replied with thinly-disguised amusement.
"No--you didn't," Mrs. Barnes said with finality.
I was somewhat bold in my reply. "Then who did?"
"I don't know," said Mrs. Barnes. "But it certainly was not [i]you[/i]!" She went on to say. "You copied this out of a magazine or a book or something."
In a way I was flattered. "You mean," I said, "it's that good?"
"No, no--I didn't say that," replied Mrs. Barnes, obviously not wanting to admit that it [i]was[/i] that good.
"Then what are you saying?" I asked. "That I'm cheating?" Now I had to hold my redheaded temper. I didn't get into the Honors Club by copying work over other people's shoulders.
"I don't know," Mrs. Barnes admitted." But you have to prove to me that you actually wrote this."
Okay, the conversation was getting stupid now.
"How am I going to do that?" I asked.
Mrs. Barnes replied cryptically, "I'll find a way." Then she dismissed me.


Now how do you like that? I thought to myself. First she tells me I copied it out of a professional writing source, then tells me it's not that good. Boy, it's getting so anyone could become a teacher.
Two weeks later, in the middle of class, Mrs. Barnes stopped the lesson and said, "Miss Dumont!"
"Yes, Mrs. Barnes?" I answered respectfully.
"Take out a sheet of paper and re-write that essay for me--right here, right now, right in front of me!"
Oh, she had to be kidding! Re-write the whole thing from memory? Okay, I'll do it. Luckily for me I had a good retention of facts and sentence structure. I began to pen the essay from my head while Mrs. Barnes looked on with a very watchful eye. Finally she said, "That's enough. Give it to me."
She read the paper very carefully, nodding to herself as she did so, then handed the sheet back to me.
"Well?" I asked. "Did I write it or not?"
Mrs. Barnes was somewhat noncommittal. "All right," was all she said.
Looking back on the incident now, after all my education, I can see things from her point of view. I don't want to seem arrogant, but a number of my classmates could not write their way out of a Glad bag. I could see Mrs. Barnes now, reading the essays and tossing them in piles. "Crap." "Crap." Crap." Then, "Hmmm!--naw, high school juniors don't write like this." So I don't really blame her for her skepticism. Besides, like many others, I don't write the way I speak. Not only do I have a heavy local accent, but I use short words and simple phrases when I'm conversing with someone. I know some teachers would find that fact a dead giveaway--that I talk like a rustic but somehow write like Hemingway. So it could not be my own work. Be that as it may, I did receive an A for both the essay and my final grade. So there, Mrs. Barnes.
BadPam · 61-69, F
I have been the victim of plagiarism on at least one occasion. One of my readers informed me that someone (I think posing as a girl) had lifted one of my stories word-for-word and posted it on another site, claiming it to be hers. I went to the site and, sure enough, there it was! I wrote a little message in the comments section that was none too pleasant.

 
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