Plagiarism: How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

Grargh! I am so filled with rage right now. Marking these essays, and sure, the grammar nazi in me is mildly annoyed by the "like" and comma confetti, and the misspelling of basic four-letter-words, and people who use bullet points to signify a new paragraph. But those mistakes are okay - they're here to learn, and making mistakes is how one does that.

And then I get an essay with phrases like "legislation has been passed" and "the safety of the children in view" and so on. And at first I go, "Hooray! One of these kids can write!"

Excited teacher is excited.

But then I realise... Hang on a sec. That looks a bit like internet journalese to me. Doesn't it? So I type ONE SENTENCE into google.

Lo and behold! This kid has copied an entire article off the net and tried to pass it off as his own. He probably thought I was a stupid teacher, that the internet is huuuge and I'd never find one little article on one tiny (and not very trustworthy) news site, and he'd get away with it, and probably get a good mark.

He probably thought, "Hey, she's only teaching here for a week while our teacher is off sick, so it doesn't matter what I do."

He probably thought, "Hey, I have better things to do."

They'll never catch me. I have an internets!

He sure as hell did not put a second of original thought into this essay. Which is unfortunate, because the article was too short, so he did actually write some opinions of his own (or at least his deskmate's) down. And they weren't too bad.

His work is decent. Why cheat? Why be a lazy, dishonest, douchebag?

Well, I've given him zero.

And guess what, dear Plagiarist? I'm coming back. For a whole term. Bwahahahahaha.