You have been appointed to be the leader of a group class assignment. There are nine members, including yourself. You have sent out an email about 7 hours prior, reminding everyone about the meeting tomorrow and informing them that this group member has sent you their part of the assignment. Moreover, that you will bring it to the meeting. It is now 3am and your next meeting is nine hours away. Two members of your group have been assigned to take the research and a write an eight page paper (each) on said research. One of these two members has had a death in the family (close relative) and regrettably they inform you that they will not be at the meeting which will take place in 9 hours, and have forwarded their work to you. As the group leader, you read the eight page document and immediately notice that it is riddled with plagiarism; minimal citations and direct passages from numerous websites (i.e. Wikipedia, Government and other public sites). Again, there are absolutely zero quotes and blatantly OBVIOUS plagiarism in every single paragraph, often entire paragraphs being used…stolen.
So–what do you do? 1) Do you stay up all night writing the paper (re-writing would imply the fact that it was independently written in the first place) 2) Confront the group member? 3) Inform the Professor? 4) Inform the group and express your dismay (and make a fool of the group member if they havnt done so already)
These are the 4 seemingly obvious choices I am currently faced with. I am inclined to simply bring it to the meeting tomorrow and point out that it is absolutely worthless because of aforementioned reasons. I would be making an ass out of this group member, but this person shouldn’t have tried to make an ass out of me by turning in a paper which sounds like it was written by 6 different professional writers–and that I wouldn’t catch it. If word got to the Professor, this student would (probably) be expelled from the program of study we are currently enrolled in thus causing a series of cataclysmic chain reactions. Without sounding too Kantian, it is my duty to tell group and let everybody make a collective decision? It is my duty to tell the Professor? . This is quite a predicament I am in, so I figured that it might help to get the input of others. Thanks.
P.S.- I forgot to mention that this is the first out of 2 papers that will be written as a group (same group members).
Eight pages is quite a bit for you to have to do in one night, considering it wasn’t YOUR duty.
How long did this person have to work on this?
So is this a meeting to prepare for a final project… and your group is graded for your progress from meeting to meeting as well?
Assuming there was no particular person to blame for lack of this reseparch paper, would your team suffer for not having it at your next meeting?
I am guessing your professor will collect the papers and read them… since plagiarism is an issue. It is an actual assignment due at the next meeting… right?
First of all, that student SHOULD suffer for that. When you tell the professor and your fellow group members I think it is fair that you also let them know that the student had a death in the family, just in case the student’s situation met 2 criteria:1) the student wasn’t aware that the paper he was turning in was an actual final draft to be graded, instead thinking it was a kind of rough draft or outline 2) the student didn’t have enough time due to the death in the family and at least tried to collest some information to aid future research. If this is the case… the student was definitely non helpful, but I don’t think the consequence for his/her LACK of action should be as severe.
So you have two choices: 1)don’t fix up with the other student gave you (in my opinion, it isn’t your responsiblity… I suppose your teacher COULD be a hard ass and make the rest of your group suffer because of this, “These things happen in real life and you have to get used to staying up all night to fix the mistakes of others”, but I’m assuming you’re busy with your own part of the assignment. 2) Accept that, given the circumstances, you can’t do a very good job on this assignment (it shouldn’t be expected of you, at least). Try your best to do a little research. Maybe a couple pages of disorganized, broad research. Your extra effort to try and save the group would probably be very well received by the professor, even if the work isn’t that great.
I’m sorry you’re in this situation, it sucks. Especially because you’ve received it too late to contact everyone…