Don't tase me bro!

Reading the university rules for academic misconduct made me feel like I was out on parole, scared that a "investigating officer" could raid my room for suspicious documents and send a whole SWAT team to tase me. (Don't tase me bro!)

It's always fun to see what different "communities" regard as particularly vicious and dirty tactics. We all live by a general set of guiding principles and common law, but the real fun starts when looking at the rules, both written and unwritten, in these smaller "communities." For example, in the sports circuit (except for baseball, which doesn't count as a true sport), steroids are the lowest form of cheating a player can instigate. Floyd Landis recently lost his tour titles because of this.

In the world of academics, plagiarism takes the place of steroids. Intellectual theft seems to be regarded as even worse than physical theft, with most of the critique and criticism directed at students. Where are the subjective microscopes for when professors poorly or even fail to credit the students who do most of their work for a publication? Issues like these are why plagiarism is not as clear cut as say steroids, for example.

I would be interested to see the university policy on plagiarism in say, music or the arts, but I wouldn't want to get tased.