There is one section shared by every syllabus, for every class onthis campus. It’s titled “Academic Honesty.” It says something to theeffect of: do your own work, and if you copy someone else make sureto site your source. Most of us have seen this section so many timeswe don’t even bother to read it anymore — it goes without saying.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

In a Daily Aztec column (Liberal constraints on free speech nowgag leftist anti-war voices, Nov. 6, 2001), a columnist engaged in agrievous display of plagiarism.

A reader recognized the material from a different column andinformed us of the problem.

Needless to say, we were shocked. Isn’t that just some section inthe syllabi? That doesn’t really happen, does it? The university justmakes professors put it in, right?

Regrettably, no.

The columnist in question no longer writes for The Daily Aztec.His explanation, which we are inclined to believe, is that he waswriting on deadline, needed to get a column in and thought he couldget away with it this one time. In truth, he would have, if it werenot for happenstance.

The decision to terminate our columnist’s employment was an easyone to make, but not so easy to have to make. Ethically, we are boundto take action when something like this happens, but at the sametime, it was someone we knew and liked. This is a person we’ll seearound campus.

And that is what makes this such a difficult problem. Not that ithappened this particular time, but that we’ve all been there.Everyone has had those late papers, that midnight assignment, theproblem set we’ve procrastinated on. It’s all too tempting to go onthe Internet and find some obscure content to give us that littlepush.

Ultimately, those syllabi sections are there for a reason, and weall know it. It is disappointing that we were forced to deal with itat The Daily Aztec, but perhaps this most public of happenings canserve as a warning to anyone who is coming up on a deadline.

You never know how you may be caught. Just do your own work.