So I'm graduating this semester with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. We had a main project to do and a mini. This moron who was on both my teams (and was totally useless) plagiarized the entire part of the report we gave him for the mini project. 3 of us put in a combined total of about 50 hrs on the project and it appears he put in about 20 minutes.

a) we can't possibly hand in this report right?
b) do we tell our professor?

FYI when he gave me his work I thought right away that he didn't do it. Thoughts?

Interesting scenerio. What's the due date and timeframe? You definitely can't hand it in as is.

I would think the best bet is to send a joint email with the 2 others who put an effort in to the professor explaining the situation and if your work can stand alone without the 4th, but it might look bad if its coming at the last minute.

I know it sucks to throw someone under the bus, but it sucks even more to get an F for plagiarizing. I assuming the way you talk about this guy he's not a friend, so you won't have that drama to deal with. I'll be curious to hear other thoughts.

i would definitely report him and try to re-write his section before the deadline. if not, ask for an extension and explain what happened.

I go in person to the professor and explain the situation. I wouldn't hesitate, but if this is a class you need to graduate, you don't want the professor taking some bull**** "you guys are a team, you might divvy up work, but its each of yours in its entirety" stance and failing you.

Do his section over again and hand it in. Up to you if you want to attach a note and the section he gave to you.

His section was a comparison of bamboo vs MDF. When he gave me his work I knew right away it looked too good to be true and I said "you didn't plagiarize this did you?" He said no. I don't want to be a complete ******* and blow him in but jesus christ he is incompetent. He's a nice guy and all but holy lord.

Is he a friend and someone you asked to be on your team? If so, ratting him out sounds bogus. But if he was assigned to your team and you have no loyalty to him as a friend, then report him immediately, do the work yourself, and explain everything to the prof straight up.

I told him he had to explain to the other group members what happened. Check out this load of BS.

I would just tell the professor. He'll probably give you some sort of extension to redo the portion that is plagiarized. Although it sounds like this is an end of the year type thing so maybe you don't have the time for that.

Almost this exact scenario happened to me in a lab group. We split up the write up for a lab, put everything together and turned it in. About a week later the professor took us aside and said that a portion of the report was identical to a portion from a previous group. One of the kids in our group confessed to just copying it. We did however have to go in front of the academic misconduct board and basically testify that we had no idea of, or part in the plagiarism. We then just had to redo the lab report on our own time at some point before the quarter was finished. The kid was kicked out of the class fwiw.

I told him to either rewrite his section or we're deleting it

I would never be friends with this person

on what basis are you saying he plagiarized? just because it was too good? or do you have actual proof?

/devil's advocate (you seem to be pretty sure, but think it's still fair to ask)

depending on how much time you have left on the report, i'd:

1) tell him you know it's plagiarized and that he needs to re-do his part -- if there's enough time for this to work

2) talk to prof and explain situation and ask for an extension so the rest of your group and do his part, and let prof handle the cheater


edit: so while i was posting this, nate updated. can ignore devil's advocate part since the guy admits that what he submitted was plagiarized

Turn his ass in. It is one thing to gamble your own academic career. It is another to try to drag your group down with you.

interesting turn of events. I say give him like 6 hours to hand what he has written so far over to you.

then go from there

lol @ Darren

Inb4 snitches get stitches. I would throw this bitch under the bus so fast he'd get road rash on his eyeballs.

lol @ at thinking he's going to give you anything you're going to want to turn in.

Not really happy with the road rash on eyeballs thing, but it's bedtime for Falcon.

If you just got his part of the project, it wouldn't really be your fault for saying something at the last minute. Since you are graduating this semester already, it would really suck to get in trouble for plagiarizing on a project in which you had no fault in, so I would probably talk to the professor. Don't hand it in as is.

lol at the worst explanation ever

i wouldn't give him the opportunity to weasel out like you did. he handed you something that could have got you all ****canned depending on your school's policy. if you don't catch him you all get nailed. but now he's had time to come up with an excuse and you're stuck looking like idiots when he hands you a poorly paraphrased version of the same paragraph four hours from now. you missed your chance to get out from under his stupidity here.

i wouldn't give him a chance to escape the consequences as you did. he gave you a problem that very well may have had dire consequences for all of you, depending on how your school deals with such things. he's now been given ample time to create a ruse and the rest of the team will be left looking foolish when his latest work will just be a lesser version of the original. your ship has sailed in regards to righting that wrong.

Sounds like this ******* was going to rephrase something he got off the internet and pass it off as his own. Probably means he doesn't understand that plagiarism isn't just exact copy and pasting. He's pretty clearly an ******* and idk, I'm a pretty ornery academic and I'd probably just contact the professor directly.

oh hmmmmm, let's see. below is what he gave us. you tell me if it's plagairized:

reads like its from wiki.

Yea thats what I am getting