Yes, it's mid-term and I have caught yet another student plagiarizing an assignment. It's laughable, really. Marlon Brando would be left scratching his head.Most students at TV Commerical University have never heard of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, so when they juxtapose it with the film Apocalypse Now, I grow suspicious.
The student has done such a lousy job patching other people's sentences together than many are incomplete. Now I'm supposed to believe that a student who writes with such poor syntax and in fragments can produce phrases like the following:
- "grandiose work of flawed genius which nearly destroyed the lives and careers of all involved."
- "Coppola was not certain either [certain about what, I ask.] and he tried several different endings between the film's early rough-cut screenings for the press." [Ok now I get it. The student may not know since he/she copied this part from another site.]
- "The film produces admirers and detractors of equal ardor, it resembles no other film ever made, and its nightmarish aura and polarized reception aptly reflec the tensions and confusions of the Vietnam era."
Spelling errors include: tself, reflec (yes, student cannot even copy and paste accurately), wierd.
- "I think Coppola was in a wierd state of mind when he was making the Apocalypse now film." (Coppola's not the only one in a weird state of mind here.)
Parting thoughts:
Dear Student,
You didn't address the question. Also, you plagiarized this work and you did so terribly. Using phrases like "nightmarish aura and polarized reception aptly . . . " yet being unable to write (I mean patch together) in complete sentences or spell words like weird is a dead giveaway. If you plagiarize in this class again, you will receive an F for the course.
Sincerely,
Not as Dumb as You Initially Thought (And yes, the above note is what I actually left on the assignment.)
Kitty's got the right idea.
