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A Message To Students: I first addressed this issue in The Weekly Notes column a while ago. John C. Dvorak, in an essay for Computer Shopper Magazine brought it to my attention. It reenforced what I have long suspected. It seems the most active plagiarists in America are students. Of these the most active are college students. I cannot help but notice that the Wesoomi Publishing website gets a lot of .edu hits. It seems the most coveted piece on our site is Child Sociopaths by Willie Gaffer. It takes from 20 to 50 hits every week. I suspect there are hundreds of adjusted copies of that essay filed in dumb professor's files that were turned is as original essays. Colleges and professors don't change much from generation to generation. Worse yet, the students don't learn much either, unless we count learning to con head-in-the-butt professors as real learning. Initially, I was just going to post some additional short notes about this issue. Then I realized there was a problem of where to post them so they could not be missed. Then I decided this was important enough to enough people to be posted on the Forum as an essay. That is where it first appeared. From now on it will be where you found it on our home page in the main site links frame. I may expand on it from time to time just as I do with my message to writers. The basic issue as we noticed is plagiarism. The larger issues are education, personal goals, and integrity. Here is the basic issue statement as I was first going to post on the archives links page. For those of you who are borrowing from my work for your school papers, please understand that I take no responsibility for any poor grades you may receive due to errors in my research. When I find errors, as I sometimes do, I correct them, however, I may not point out the corrections or apologize for them. Therefore it behooves you to confirm what you find here with another source. I have found that doing research and actually learning things is among the most satisfying things I do. For those who have never tried it, I highly recommend it. For satisfaction, it beats heck out of cheating. By itself that statement is clear enough, but it does not cover the larger issues. Now, let's go a bit beyond that. For the most part, I am addressing students in so-called higher education. That I suspect is the area where most of the world's plagiarism is carried out although I'm sure many highschool students are also riding the gravy train. This is not new with today's students. I noticed it many years ago when I was attending school. As a student, you might want to ask yourself why you are going to school. Many years ago, I did that myself. I asked, what are you doing here William? Why are you investing so much time here? I was stunned to realize I could not give a satisfactory answer to those questions. You might come up with any number of reasons for why you are in school. One reason would be to get a degree. I suspect that would be the answer of the majority of students. I ought to point out that you can buy a degree. You need not go to school at all. You can also forge a degree and it is likely that no one will ever know. If that is all you want, you should not be dibbling away your time pretending to earn one. There are some who will claim they are in school to learn something. That is a completely different story. That is why I was going to school. I thought I was learning something. When I examined the truth, I realized that I had not learned a damn thing. Everything I had learned was a result of personal study, not classroom experience. All I was really getting from the institution was grades, good grades by the way, but nothing else. I was not growing, so I quit. I was dibbling away large chunks of my life just for grades and I quit when I realized it. Here is the truth I discovered. In most cases, the university has nothing to teach you. I finally figured that out. I was wasting time in college. I was not really learning. I was getting information, but it was information that was more quickly and concisely available from other sources. My conclusion is, for the most part, so-called higher education is a fraudulent enterprise. They are garnering enormous sums in tuition on what amounts to a scam. Diploma mill would be a more appropriate description. I think most students know that which explains a great deal of their behavior. The aim is to get through with it with as little effort as possible. Then they can get on with real life. The students are caught in a rather silly dilemma. The whole culture is telling them that this is what they ought to do. They ought to get a degree. There is some pretense about education, but the culture does nor emphasize that. The point is, get a degree. Get that first filter which will get you through the front door of corporate America. After that, you can learn the corporate game and play to win. I really don't care if you consider education to be a fraud. If you do, you are simply noticing the same things I noticed years ago. I also don't care if you cheat your way through school. In fact, I really don't care when you borrow my essays so long as you don't sell them for profit. At the bottom line, there is no one you can cheat except yourself. Perhaps you ought to considered the unique position you are in. Consider what you can be. Consider what you could become compared to what you are. What are your goals? Where are you going? Who are you? Is that who you want to be? You have an enormous opportunity because you are not being held to account. You have time to invest in anything you want. Once you go into the workplace, you will never have that kind of time again unless you live long enough to retire. Then you may be too exhausted to do anything. So, what are you doing with that time? Are you sliding through or are you seizing the moment, the opportunity? Are you taking whatever you can grab and giving back nothing? Are you looking to the future, to your's or to mankind's? Are you going to have a spouse? Are you going to have kids? Are you now setting the example of what you want your children to be? Consider what you would like to have chiseled on your tombstone. How about, "He managed to slide through!"
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