Helping your Friend? Part 1: Copying

Welcome to my interpretation of an extremely ‘controversial’ topic. Please do not report me for this post. If you want to read it, that’s your decision, but please note

Copying.

(Maybe I should make it clearer. Yes, that’s what I shall do.)

Copying homework.

(Hmm I think it needs to be more clearly defined. So here’s where the blog post shall really start. Yay.)

Copying does sound totally wrong, doesn’t it. Most people such as teachers will definitely say it is, no matter what it is. Copying that essay, copying that sought-after assignment answer, and taken to an extreme, copying during an examination. All of this is awfully wrong right? Take it from a *coughs* good, innocent, always hardworking boy like me, who mugs like crazy from the moment school ends, on the bus home, for the rest of the day and night even whilst having dinner, all the way until 6am where I eat my breakfast and go to school, still mugging on the journey there. I don’t even know the meaning of ‘slack’. Could a kind soul please inform me of the definition of this word? And, uhm, copying is obviously wrong to good boy such as me. Very wrong, indeed.

(note: the later part of the above paragraph may or may not be true [What?? I mean it’s obviously true!]; you decide for yourself [actually, there isn’t much need to think about it, it’s a fact that I’m a good boy :P])

Oh dear it seems that I have digressed once again. I do not like digressing? Do you like brownies?

Well it seems I have done so once again. So, back to the main point of this post. Are you really helping your friend by letting him copy your work? The answer goes both ways (I sense shock and anger at this point of time).

First, I shall acknowledge the traditional, age-old argument that copying is wrong. Duh, it’s quite wrong, taking the hard work of other people and substituting it for your own. And yes, you won’t learn anything from copying. So, according to this, if you keep copying your friend’s history homework, you will fail your history examination simply because you do not know anything (i.e. you haven’t learnt anything at all, except maybe, how to be an expert at copying history homework). Blah blah blah so on and so forth, copying is wrong! You don’t learn anything, and you are also exploiting other people by taking their hard work. You could get into huge trouble for copying what is not yours and pretending the work you have submitted is actually your own. Tsk tsk, please be like me and just do your own work ^^

However, hardworking as I may be, I still have to address the other side of copying. (At this point, I shall throw off that persona of mine [wait, it’s not even a persona, it’s an accurate depiction of me! Or is it?])That is, the ‘benefits’. Now now, copying really doesn’t seem to have any benefits. Or does it? Okay fine, the following doesn’t exactly translate into benefits, more of ‘nothing wrong’ with copying (please stop criticising me for my warped and unconventional thinking; for the sake of the blog, I do need debatable topics).

I will start of with an example. One Wednesday morning, in the classroom where students gather before lessons begin, student A has forgotten to do his Science Assignment. Which of the 3 Sciences, I’ll leave it up to you to decide (hey, it’s just an example). As student A thinks ‘OMG, OMG, OMG this assignment needs to be handed up by today!’, he starts to panic, and he gets more and more desperate. What to do, what oh what should he do? If he were to tell the teacher the truth, he would probably be sent outside the class, especially since his record with him isn’t exactly 100% great. Anyway, ‘forgetting’ isn’t a valid reason for anything, not in the context of a school. ‘Forgetting’ will get you thrown out of class, forced to stand at the back of the room, and even demerits.

Therefore, any logical person would only have a few options at this point. 1) Own up; not very logical and ‘smart’ but honest nonetheless (at least you won’t feel so guilty when you’re standing at the back of the classroom). 2) Think of another, more ‘acceptable’ excuse. This is harder than you think. But if you do manage to, it will be extremely useful (and lucky) of you. 3) Copy the required homework.

So, student A picks option 3, which is to copy homework. Normally, this is frowned upon and you will be in deep stuff if you (get caught for) do[ing] so. However, for the purpose of argument, I shall say that it isn’t all wrong. Why? Student A has to fulfil a few conditions for these copying to be ‘okay’. Student A must already know about the topic. As in, student A already has knowledge on how to do (most) of the questions in the assignment, given an adequate amount of time, which in this case, he does not have the luxury of. Also, the student he is copying from, student B, must be willing to allow student A to copy from him. Let’s just say that student A already knows about the topic, and knows it relatively well, and that student B is willing to let student A copy his work. Given this, what’s really wrong with student A copying the assignment? Sure, he won’t learn anything, but he already knows everything about it; he just lacks the time to answer the questions. Sure, he can’t copy during an exam, but he doesn’t need to; wouldn’t he have adequate time and enough knowledge about the subject to do well in the examination? And, more importantly, student B is LETTING him copy the work. Student A isn’t forcing student B to, is he. If you let someone copy your work, in the context of school, it would be viewed as wrong, but given the above reasons, there is nothing really wrong with it? And what about the value of teamwork they encourage in school? Isn’t this a prime example of showing it? Furthermore, won’t you feel better when someone wants to copy your homework; someone actually thinks your work is good, by copying it, he is demonstrating his wish to become like you, so shouldn’t this be a ‘morale booster’? It gives you that ‘feel-good’ experience, a feeling which so many people yearn for.

Alright, I have reached the end of my argument. Maybe I have some more to add on, but I’m too lazy to. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t (okay this is once again irrelevant). Anyway, if you look at copying from how I did in the later part of my post, there really doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, does it? But please don’t tell your teacher I told you that ‘copying is okay’ when you get caught. Because, it is still WRONG in the eyes of the school, in the eyes of the law. Yes, that is the unfortunate (and sad?) truth. Remember, I am merely writing this for the sake of the post, for the sake of argument.

Yet another (useless) moral of the story: You can copy, it might have adverse effects on you (but that’s not my problem anyway), just don’t get CAUGHT.