Thank you for taking the time to comment and trying to help me not to come across as such an apparent jerk.

My best wishes to you and yours and good luck on all your future endeavors.

Yours Truly

jeff bellamy

The actual idea itself (which I’ll sum up as “assume that people won’t plagiarize, and don’t mention that it could happen”) ran counter to the unfortunate majority of experience – plagiarism is a significant problem, particularly in introductory classes, particularly in online classes, and it’s much easier to have a policy against it from the start. He addressed your idea in what sounds like a fair and reasonable way.

The way you expressed it – including your choice to use his first name, uninvited, and yes, some professors get a real bee up their butt if you do that! – was almost guaranteed to distract from the idea. You implied that it was his fault if people plagiarized. He expressed it well himself – your tone (“I know you can and will do better”) would have been appropriate if, and only if, you were his experienced supervisor.

No, I don’t know that he would’ve refused to accept the idea if it had been a good one, JUST because of your tone. I do know that some ideas only get accepted after a second look. You sent him an idea that was kind of average-bordering-on-bad, as far as usefulness. (“Don’t tell us what your rules are in advance” is hardly ever a good idea.) When you have one of those and you really need to say it, you need to make sure it’s going to get that second look.

There certainly are contexts in which two adults can be on different “levels” and still be on a first name basis. Academia is not one. You will never go wrong calling someone “Prof. X” from the start. If they want you to use their first name, they’ll let you know. (Businesses tend to be like this also. It’s much easier to call your boss “Mr” or “Ms X” your first day and then get told “no, please, call me Rob”, than to try “Rob” first and get told “Actually I’d prefer you call me Mr X.”)

As far as who I am – I’m an assistant (“junior”) professor at a totally unrelated school who happened to see your site. I teach science, not accounting, but there’s similarities. If my name becomes relevant then I’ll post it.

Phrases like “you asked people to think these negative thoughts” aren’t likely to be seen as “constructive”, particularly when your original message is essentially “there’s a lot of worry and it’s your fault”. Your professor gave you a very clear reason why he expressed himself as he did: Without a clear boundary, people may think it’s okay to do the wrong thing. Warnings like that in the syllabus are almost always based on a history of past abuse by earlier classes.

I’m sure he’d like to find that you and your classmates are exceptionally honest and don’t need to be told that there are negative consequences to breaking the rules. I’m sure you understand the importance of those rules, and the need for clear consequences if they’re broken: Accounting is full of rules!

As for calling him by his first name, uninvited – you tried, indirectly, to be the “authority figure” that set “the tone” for that particular interaction. The tone you tried for was that of a superior gently correcting a stumbling student. You probably could have packed in more condescension if you’d tried, but it’s difficult to see how.

If you’d been concerned about “the tone” and thought that the class needed an extra “authority figure” to set things straight – why didn’t you speak up on the discussion board? You could have pointed out that it’s silly to worry about breaking the rules if you don’t plan to break them. You could have started a productive discussion about how to properly acknowledge ideas and sources. You could have found resources on how to tell plagiarism from paraphrase, if you thought that your professor hadn’t covered those things well enough in class.

Part of getting a college education is learning how to communicate effectively. You chose a spectacularly ineffective way to communicate your “suggestions”. In the process, you missed an opportunity to lead the discussion productively. Instead of identifying yourself as a leader by your actions, you identified yourself as a smarmy know-it-all by your words.