Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 910, Plagiarizing a Paper.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 910.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to download a learning guide for this episode.
This episode is a dialogue between Paul and Samantha about someone who is cheating in school.
Let's get started.
All done.
You're done with your paper?
How can that be?
I'm just a better student than you are.
Let me see that.
You didn't write this.
No, I didn't.
I downloaded somebody's paper from some website and slapped my name on it.
The professor will never know.
Wise up.
Do you want me to find one for you?
No way.
Not only is it cheating, if you get caught, you could flunk the class or get expelled.
Don't be such a goody two-shoes.
Everybody does it.
I know a guy who pays somebody in another state to write all of his papers for him and another guy who lifts his papers from old books.
Don't tell me you've never paraphrased ideas from a source. and represented them as your own.
Damn straight.
Look who's done with his homework and who is still working on hers.
I'd rather earn what I get and know that I didn't shortchange myself out of an education.
Paul begins our dialogue by saying I'm completely finished with whatever I was doing.
Paper here, when we are talking about school, refers to an essay or another written document that is required as part of your homework.
It could be a report on a book.
It could be an analysis of some subject.
Any of those things would be called a paper.
Samantha says, how can that be?
How is that possible, she means.
I'm just getting started, meaning I'm just getting started on my paper.
Paul says, I'm just a better student than you are.
Samantha says in reply, let me see that.
You didn't write this.
Samantha is saying that Paul didn't even write this paper that he said he completed.
Paul says, no, I didn't.
I downloaded somebody's paper from some website and slapped my name on it.
Paul says that he bought, he purchased or at least he downloaded from the internet this paper and then slapped his name on it.
To slap, S-L-A-P, on something means to add something, usually something to a written document.
Let's say you're preparing a report for your boss and you, at the very last minute, right before you need to give it to him, you remember that you didn't put a conclusion on it.
You didn't summarize your findings.
So you decide to slap on a conclusion.
It means to add something to a document very quickly but not very carefully, often done without a lot of preparation.
It's not a good idea to slap something on a document right before you need to turn it in.
That's, however, what Paul is saying about his name.
He slapped his name on this document.
He just changed the name and put his own name on it.
He says the professor, the teacher, the instructor, will never know.
Wise up.
Do you want me to find one for you?
Paul is saying that the professor will never discover that this is not his paper.
And he tells Samantha to wise up.
To wise up is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to understand something about the real world, about the way things really work.
We often use this phrase, when someone seems innocent or what we would describe as naive, N-A-I-V-E.
Someone who's naive is, someone who doesn't have a lot of experience, who thinks things are more honest perhaps, than they really are, or who thinks that people are more honest than they really are.
Paul is saying that Samantha should wise up and then offers to find a paper for her.
Samantha, however, says no way.
Not only is it cheating, if you get caught, you could flunk the class or get expelled.
Samantha is not going to do what Paul did.
She's not going to be dishonest.
She's not going to cheat.
To cheat C-H-E-A-T is to get something unfairly, to win a game unfairly or to get a grade that you don't deserve because you did something that you weren't supposed to do.
Samantha says if you get caught meaning if someone finds out about this bad thing that you did you could flunk the class.
To flunk F-L-U-N-K means not to pass a class in school to get what we would call a failing grade or a failing mark.
Usually that means getting an F.
That means that you failed, that you flunked, that you did not pass the class.
That happened to me once.
A couple of times, I took German once and flunked, but I didn't really complete the course.
And then I also took a class in computer programming back in the 1980s.
I believe it was Cobalt, C-O-B-A-L-T.
I flunked that class too.
So, even professors flunk classes.
Samantha is telling Paul that he will flunk this class if he is caught or possibly get expelled.
To be or to get expelled, E-X-P-E-L-L-E-D, means expelled.
Paul is not too worried, however.
He says to Samantha, Don't be such a goody-two-shoes.
This is an old expression, a goody, G-O-O-D-Y, two, T-W-O, hyphen, shoes, S-H-O-E-S.
When you call someone a goody two shoes, it means that this is a person who always follows the rules.
It's an insulting term, however.
It's something that you are saying to criticize someone.
Someone who's a goody two-shoes, is too good, is too honest, is too willing to follow the rules instead of doing what everyone else does.
Of course, this is a very relative description.
That is, it depends on who you are and what the situation is.
Usually, however, it is used as an insult, especially among children.
Paul then says that everybody does it, meaning everybody cheats.
I know a guy, I know a man who, who pays somebody in another state to write all of his papers for him, and another guy, another person, who lifts his papers from old books.
Paul is saying he has two friends or two people he knows.
One of them pays someone else to write his papers.
Another one steals his papers from old books.
He copies old books.
Paul says don't tell me you've never paraphrased ideas from a source and represented them as your own.
To paraphrase P-A-R-A-P-H-R-A-S-E means to express someone else's ideas, but in your own words, using your own words to give the same idea.
A source, S-O-U-R-C-E, is where you get information from.
It could be a book.
It could be the Internet.
It could be a friend.
All of those could be sources of information.
To represent something means to present it in a certain way.
Paul is saying that even Samantha has taken other people's ideas and called them her own.
She's represented them as her own.
Samantha says, are you kidding me?
Are you joking?
She says, borrowing ideas from a book with proper attribution is what you're supposed to do.
She's saying that if you take an idea from another source, you need to have proper attribution A-T-T-R-I-B-U-T-I-O-N.
Attribution is a statement indicating where you got this idea from or where you got this quote from.
She says, you, on the other hand, are plagiarizing your way to your degree.
Samantha is saying that Paul is plagiarizing his way to his degree.
To plagiarize P-L-A-G-I-A-R-I-Z-E means to take someone else's words and use them as if they were your own.
To take someone else's writing and say that it was your writing.
That is to plagiarize.
And of course, that is dishonest and not allowed by any school, any good school anyway.
A degree, D-E-G-R-E-E, is the same as a diploma.
It's an official piece of paper showing that you have completed your studies at a university or college.
Paul, however, is not... going to change his mind.
When Samantha says that he's plagiarizing his way to his degree, he says, damn straight.
This is somewhat of a vulgar expression.
Damn, D-A-M-N, when you say it in anger or in excitement, is a vulgar, impolite phrase.
Often you say it when you are angry about something.
Here, however, Paul is using it as a way of emphasizing.
Damn straight means you are in complete agreement with the other person.
You agree with the other person in everything they say.
You're saying, yes, that's correct.
I agree with you.
But you use it usually in cases where you are trying to emphasize to the other person how much you agree with that statement.
Again, it's a vulgar expression.
You shouldn't use this at work.
You shouldn't probably use it at all.
You could say instead of damn straight, you could say absolutely or yes, that's absolutely right.
Paul continues by saying, look who's done with his homework and who is still working on hers.
He's saying, I'm done with my homework.
You're still working on your paper.
Samantha says I'd rather earn what I get and know that I didn't shortchange myself out of an education.
To earn it means to get it by working.
To shortchange yourself out of something means to give someone less than what they deserve.
To cheat someone out of what they should be getting.
To shortchange someone out of something is to be dishonest with them.
Samantha is saying she doesn't want to shortchange herself out of an education.
She wants to get a real education by doing her own work.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
All done.
You're done with your paper?
How can that be?
I'm just getting started.
I'm just a better student than you are.
Let me see that.
You didn't write this.
No, I didn't.
I downloaded somebody's paper from some website and slapped my name on it.
The professor will never know.
Wise up.
Do you want me to find one for you?
No way.
Not only is it cheating, if you get caught, you could flunk the class or get expelled.
Don't be such a goody-two-shoes.
Everybody does it.
I know a guy who pays somebody in another state to write all of his papers for him and another guy who lifts his papers from old books.
Don't tell me you've never paraphrased ideas from a source and represented them as your own.
Damn straight.
Look who's done with his homework and who is still working on hers.
I'd rather earn what I get and know that I didn't shortchange myself out of an education.
She never cheats or plagiarizes.
She's an original scriptwriter.
I speak, of course, of our wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
