True Confessions: Okay, I Used To Plagiarize...Uh, In High School That Is

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Okay, some know I started a discussion of how I'm fed up with plagiarizers that have plagued many a site, such as Ciao, and even here. But I have a deep, dark, true confession to make. I used to plagiarize my a$$ off ...uh, that is while I was in High School, but after that experience of what I went through never did again...scout's honor. The story is actually funny when I think of it. One of those real ironies of life kind of thing. It was my senior year and I was taking a Honors English class that was a specialized course studying Shakespeare, not only his work, but other authors as well. but mainly Shakespeare. Like many students back then (in the Civil War period..okay, NOT that far back)---we relied on those Monarch and Cliff Notes, cause lets face it...how many can really understand Shakespeare and those notes helped interpret what the hell he was writing about. One of the requirements was to zap out weekly short term papers about the particular Shakespearean play we were reading. So out comes those handy Monarch or Cliffs notes and yes....gulps...I lifted the material from those notes word for word--hey shoot me...not only I did it...everyone was. Well, one time our professor (not only was he the professor but the main honcho....the department head) assigned us to read Joseph Conrad's Typhoon..sort of a MobyDick type story...but gasps, alas...THERE WERE NO MONARCH or CLIFF notes for it...ekkkkk! Now for some reason though, I really got into the story...I loved it, so it turned out I didn't need the NOTES, so when I wrote out my term paper about it...it was ALL my original writing, comments and thoughts about the story. Okay, days after we had handed in the term papers, we now get them back....ALL save for me. When he came to my term paper, my professor looked me in the eyes and said those dreaded words a student hates to hear..."Could you please see me after class?" Like huh? WHAT DID I DO? So after class, and everyone had left, I approached the professor's desk. He waves my term paper and says, "I can't grade you on this paper, since if I do, I would have to give you an "F". Like huh? He kept asking me over and over again, did you write this yourself? Yes,...Did you have help? No. The smucker didn't believe me. He kept interrogating me about it, and I felt myself blushing (used to blush at the slightest thing in those days) which he probably interpreted as guilt. He said the reason he couldn't grade my paper and if he did would give me an "F" was that my paper was too expertly, articulately and professionally written and not at all like my other papers that I had written. At the one hand I wanted to burst out laughing, and the other hand wanted to tell him the truth....but if I had, I would have had to admit that all my other term papers had been, uh....lifted from other sources. Okie dokie...lesson learned? You betcha...after that incident I never copied work and wrote term papers completely on my own and every term paper I did while in college no matter what the topic/subject was, I always got an "A" In fact, some kids used to approach me to write their papers for them and I said a flat NOPE to them. So did you have any similar experiences when you were younger? That is maybe in school you had cheated only to backfire on you for when you came clean and honest, did your own work and was reprimanded for it simply since it hadn't kept in your former style...in other words you OWN style was better?