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Buying notes - An academic offense?

Cyc

Cyc

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Sep 11, 2000
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There's a discussion board hosted on my school's web software, and I was going to solicit my classmates for notes. Basically, this class doesn't have a textbook and the prof gives terrible lectures.

The material itself isn't too difficult, but the final exam is coming up and I really need some good, condensed study material.

Would it be terrible of me to simply advertise on the discussion board that I'm buying good notes?

I wouldn't think it would cross any lines, but I'm hesitating before I hit "send". I know it's not cheating, but it's not exactly the most meritocratic way to get a good grade either.

Basically the course is short, it's straight-forward and with the right notes I can ace the exam worth 50% of my final mark. Otherwise, I risk doing very poorly. Buying good notes just seems to make sense.

Assuming you have no close friends in a class, what would you do?
 
organise a study group to compare notes for free? Offer coffee and donuts? There's nothing wrong with buying notes off someone. Why not just ask some people? Or go the prof during office hours and see if he can provide anything in terms of prep material. I might have the balls to ask him for his lecture notes. Haha.
 
Well it's actually taught by two profs and they have radically different teaching styles. The reason I want to go to the student body, is because I know someone out there is just a whiz at taking great notes, and really.. would be no skin off their ass to zip them up and shoot them over e-mail?

It's not that I don't want to make friends, it's more that my exam is next week and I need to act quickly. :)


Anyways, you've met me, I'm not the most forthcoming person at times.
 
Unless it's like an open-note exam and you're going to be using someone else's xeroxed notes, I think this is fine. Though I'd probably only do this if you generally know the course material well enough to know actually be able to differentiate good and useful notes from a C student who spent $100 at Office Depot to make stuff look pretty (and wants to pay off the Office Depot debt ;)).

Though, I guess pending on time, it night not be better to just ask people to share notes with you for free? 1) for the reason mentioned above 2) it's a better way to meet new people (if you want that as a secondary goal) and 3) I'm assuming that the professors can/do view this discussion board, and do you want to hurt their feelings? ;)

Buying notes might also get complicated if you're buying notes from a previous version of the course. Sometimes what was a worked problem in a previous instance of a course would be a homework problem in the current, and that could possibly be interpreted as buying homework. Ya, that's a tangent from what you're doing, but something I wouldn't suggest people try and ever do.
 
I think most professors dont care about that kind of thing because frats and sororities exchange notes all the time and it would be unfair to restrict the note obtaining ability of non-greek students. Not to mention, they show previous year's exams to each other. They have all that shit filed away.

I would offer free as well, also offer to maybe exchange notes for a different class in the future? Perhaps offer some non monetary gift as well, to allay fears of cheatin'

Also, is anyone else posting for notes? Hate to have to stick the proverbial head up.
 
I think that it's fine, but by the book, per the regulations I work under, it would not be from the university's standpoint.

ebola
 
I'm curious too.. Is it the act of solicitation that is the offense? I can't imagine it's the simple sharing of notes, since a.) Any study group is basically a trading of notes and ideas -and- b.) Enforcing such a rule would cross some personal boundaries.
 
You need to check with your university, particularly if you're going to post this on a public board. At the university I work at, this would be fine. But if ebola? says that it wouldn't be fine at his uni, then clearly there is some variation.
 
I don't think this is illegal because there was actually a company at UCDavis that provided this service.
 
my bad.. academic offense. the company at ucdavis hired people to sit in on classes and take notes then sold them. I would hardly think that a business operating right on the edge of campus would encourage something that would be an academic offense.

I can't imagine a prof would be upset over somebody paying to get notes from their lecture.. but you never know. some profs are just whacked..
 
orangescrewpen said:
I think most professors dont care about that kind of thing because frats and sororities exchange notes all the time and it would be unfair to restrict the note obtaining ability of non-greek students. Not to mention, they show previous year's exams to each other. They have all that shit filed away.
Click to expand...

I'm in a sorority, and I don't like this. We have a textbook bank where you can donate your old textbook or other books that a sister may need at some point, which is far from giving out notes.

@thread: I take good notes, I'm a graduate student and I've always done well in school. I do NOT sell my notes, if you asked me, I would honestly go tell you to fuck yourself. I've done it to friends - I do my work, and I see no reason to help you if you didn't. However, if you miss one day of class or two because of some kind of shit that came up, I'd be more than happy to let you copy my notes for that class you missed --- we do that with each other all the time, but thats it.

Group study is your best hope...plus you must have some clue what's going on, so it shouldn't be too difficult to gather the rest of the information. Good luck with this, but I'm just speaking from my own mind and experience, because thats what BL is for --- advice, not bullshit.
 
In many UK universities, using someone elses notes and passing their ideas off as your own can be seen as collusion which is an offence if it can be proven. You need to be careful in this territory because you can never be sure that another students notes are original ideas - if they are plagiarising their theories you might never know and could be guilty of it by proxy if you use their work as your own. I dont think there is anything wrong with buying other people's notes as long as you make sure you question EVERYTHING that they have to say and reference appropriately. (which can be tricky from a secondary source).

In other words, it is much simpler and safer to use the research facilities that your uni/college supplies i.e. journals and search facilities than relying on being able to source, question and reference other people's notes. It might be more time consuming but it is more worthwhile to get a low mark for what you have done yourself than to risk the punishment of being caught colluding or plagiarising.

Read your college/uni's handbook thoroughly and try and stay within the rules is my advice.

Other research advice: (useful for all)

Use Google Scholar to search for key terms - it brings up a lot of books but some of them are available as previews and can therefore be referenced if you find something useful - saves you time borrowing it from a library.

NEVER reference Wikipedia. It is often inaccurate and can be vague and misleading and most academics look down on it for that reason. (at my uni, referencing Wikipedia and other public wikis is an automatic fail no matter how good the rest of your work is).

QUESTION EVERYTHING!! After everything you read or write you need to be asking yourself...SO WHAT? Explaining and proving WHY you believe your theory is correct is the key to good marks and the whole point of higher education is proving that you are able to theorise, criticise and argue effectively.

I hope that is helpful, good luck!!!
 
I let other people use my notes a lot. As long as the course wasn't curved I had no issue with helping others.
 
Personally, I think that there's a gradient, between cooperation and plagiarism proper, one that cannot be reckoned entirely with abstract rules.

In the single case of plagiarism with which I had to deal, the woman presented an essay that was 'off'...in that not only was the writing style somewhat alien but it involved authors that we didn't even cover. When confronted about her essay, she claimed that she was using another person's notes (stored in a file at her sorority 8(), and that she was taken aback that this was a problem (claiming that she thought that social theory would be standard from prof. to prof.).

Because she was using such notes in lieu of going to lecture, this was deemed technically against the rules (University of California system, in the US); she had chosen the wrong excuse.

I'm pretty sure that she indeed plagiarized the paper at large, as she opted not to challenge in any way a 0 percent F on the paper (a hefty sentence for borrowed notes but the lightest sentence for a ripped-off paper).

I try not to stereotype against students in the Greek system, but they make it very easy to do so. ;)

ebola
 
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