This is a very old
joke, but I thought we should lighten the
mood a 'lil bit today after all the
plagarism crap that's been going on...
An
undergraduate (we'll call him Bob) at
Harvard decides to take what is reputably the easiest
class offered, "European Social History". Everyone knows it's a joke class, and the
football team can often be seen in its entirety in the
front row each
semester. The
teacher is an
old fart just waiting to turn 65 and
retire, and she rarely gave any
grade lower than a B.
So the class is given an
assignment to write a paper about
Louis XIV. Bob goes on the
Internet and finds a great paper on the
French maritime industry of the early 19th
century. He knows it doesn't have much to do with Louis XIV, but it's a great paper nonetheless and he decides to use it. So, he adds a
cover page with a nice
JPG of a
sailboat, slaps his name on the
front page, adds a
bogus bibliography in back, and hands the paper in. He gets it back a week later: "Nice paper. A-"
So Bob's
roommate Steve decides to take the same class the next semester, and Bob fills him in on how easy the class is and how the teacher doesn't even care about obvious plagiarizing. The Louis XIV paper gets assigned again, and Bob gives Steve the French Maritime Industry paper to hand in. Bob retypes the first page so he can change the
name, replaces the last page since the grade was written on it, and hands it in. He gets it back a week later: "Nice paper: A-"
Steve's
best friend Joe ends up taking the class a
year later. Same deal ensues. The cover page was getting a little
ratty, so Joe just replaces it with a
blank page and scribbles a title on it. He replaces the page with the name on it and the bibliography, as usual, and hands the paper in. A week later...
"Nice paper. I liked it better with the sailboat. C+"