Stealing a Thesis Idea...

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

I'd say forget about it.

He may have had the idea in his emergency thesis bag before you talked to him about using it. He may be fucking with you or just incompetent.

Regardless, an idea is worthless without implementation. Ideas are not unique to individuals nor are they limited resources. They aren't something over which you can exert proprietary control. The same ideas spring up in multiple places and success comes with little regard to who "thought of it first."

Write the best paper you can. That's about the only reasonable course of action.

It's not just a paper, its a thesis. Universities spend half their time ramming down their students' throats the 'don't accidentally plagiarise' message and this tutor is giving away Bri's ideas for her thesis? It's not like we're talking a mid term essay. This is the fucking thesis, it all leads to it. Trying to come up with something original enough to be worthwhile, in an Arts and Humanities subject is really fucking difficult. I am currently tearing my hair out on that very issue, as is half my year.

I'd say something. I'd be fucking furious.

Ideas are not unique to individuals nor are they limited resources. They aren't something over which you can exert proprietary control.

Very much depends on the idea. If your 'idea' amounts to a new way of looking at a topic that sheds new light onto it, damn right you can exert proprietary control over it. If that tutor wants to have a grab bag of emergency ideas for the students who are struggling, he should bloody well go off and think of a few, not steal the idea of a student who's taken it seriously enough to have one. It was clearly good enough to steal,. therefore it was good enough to use. And, no, if sombody else decides to do that idea now, it'd be a bloody dangerous one for Bri to do.

Christ on a bike, I'd not let that one rest. Not a fucking chance in hell.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Brianna

On wednesday, during our class meeting (there are only 6 of us in this seminar) the prof said, "I've got some Emergency Thesis ideas for those of you who need one..." and then he proceeded to give the class my thesis idea.

I don't understand why that is stealing? Remember, you do a thesis and he learns from your thesis. If the thesis idea is good, then he learns more by fostering competition on that question. The fact that he suggested your idea as a thesis implies it is a very good question. A question that may result in numerous answers AND may be approached from different perspectives.

A friend from Harvard Law described this same problem. People would literally hide or make unavailable the research material that others needed. All part of the learning process. Many people researching the same questions and challenged by others who did the same research.

Fostering competition on a question is not despicable. I can appreciate why one would resent competition on a thesis. But good questions often demand and result in numerous and different answers.

[xoxoxoBruce]

@Perry Winkle & ZenGum.... just a reminder, it was more than one idea. I believe that makes it intentional.

Having others working on the same idea puts a strain on resources, like library books and research materials.

[footfootfoot]

If all else fails, there is always kicking him in the cunt.

[sweetwater]

The most effective reaction would have immediately after he made the offer to the class. As in a quick burst of incredulous laughter and followed by, "Why are you giving away my ideas, huh?" Now, though, I'd approach the instructor and ask for suggestions to make the thesis better than your original idea. But I'd remain non-confrontational at this point because I don't see that it would benefit you to be otherwise.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

@Perry Winkle & ZenGum.... just a reminder, it was more than one idea. I believe that makes it intentional.

That doesn't make sense. Because he repeated one of Brianna's several thesis topics doesn't necessarily make the coincidence intentional.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Having others working on the same idea puts a strain on resources, like library books and research materials.

True. But I've been in classes in both my undergraduate and graduate programs where anywhere from 5-60 people all had the same exact topic. There was little if any effect on the outcomes due to overtaxed library resources.

IIRC, Bri is in an undergraduate program. You're lucky if most students go beyond Wikipedia and e-Journals. I don't think strain is an issue.

Additionally, the UK and Australia folks should be reminded that usually what we call a thesis in the US is not what you would consider a thesis; they are often just longish essays. In the States we tend to call any paper over about 5 pages a research paper or thesis. This is particularly true of State schools, in my experience.

My advice, if you feel you must pursue this: Don't make any accusation before you have the facts. At this point the premises don't support the conclusion many are drawing.

[Bullitt]

I'm not quite getting what the knee-jerk reaction is all about in here.. a 15 page paper is not a life-altering experience. If this class has been taught before, then this same material has been covered before, that means some common ideas and controversies around the subject matter will be re-discussed every time the class is taught. Is it not so unlikely that Bri happened to come up with a good idea that others, like the prof. had thought of before? I'd say good for her for thinking of a thesis statement that is on par with something the professor recommends to the other students. It shows she is engaged in the subject matter and has found something on her own that is a question she wants answered.

Also I don't know where you are taking classes Bri, but there's a nifty service called OhioLink where you can essentially have access to the entire library catalogs of many university and college libraries across the state. They will ship books to you. I have never had a problem finding the resources for large papers even though I attend a small university.
http://www.ohiolink.edu/members-info/

[Juniper]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

IIRC, Bri is in an undergraduate program. You're lucky if most students go beyond Wikipedia and e-Journals. I don't think strain is an issue.

It's an undergraduate program, not vocational school.

We're not allowed to use Wikipedia, at least not in any of my classes.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Juniper

We're not allowed to use Wikipedia, at least not in any of my classes.

and being "not allowed" stops you? puleaze

[Bullitt]

Well citing Wikipedia or pulling any information straight off there is bad form, and usually outright prohibited. But, Wiki is a great tool to find other resources since everything *should* be, not always is, sourced by something credible. Just scroll down to the references section and bam.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

That doesn't make sense. Because he repeated one of Brianna's several thesis topics doesn't necessarily make the coincidence intentional.

OK, my bad. I thought he gave the class all the ideas she presented to him.

[Juniper]

As long as it's correct. Yes, I have used Wikipedia as you say, but you still have to make sure of the sources. Which is hard to do if they're not physically available to you. I don't know if I'd trust Wikipedia to say that a certain fact came from a certain source for purposes of Works Cited.

Anyway, that's not really the point.

It's hard to judge this without knowing what the class is, and how specific of a thesis was needed. I'm guessing that for a 15-page paper (and I'm also guessing it's on a particular poet, as she mentioned writing one the day we met in the library), it's going to be something fairly specific with a limited number of sources.

Say you're studying Milton (it's not, I don't think, but a good comparison). How many potential thesis statements could you come up with for a 15 page paper? In this case, yes, I'd say that offering hers to the class was a really crappy thing to do.

It's true that ideas can't be copyrighted. Many times a freelance journalist/magazine writer has gotten up in arms after her queries were rejected, then she saw an article on that exact topic in a subsequent issue of that publication. The defense is that someone else may have just beat her to the punch, or sent a better query, but the suspicion is that the editor took the idea and assigned it to one of his "regulars." Hard to prove, but it does give you a sick feeling in the gut.

[Juniper]

OK, I've looked up the course in my handy-dandy online catalog and am relieved to see that I won't have to deal with that teacher for a while. I remember you mentioning the name, Bri.

Bbbbbut.... that is a grad level course. How'd you get in?

To Zengum: I believe that when Bri says "thesis" she is not referring to the paper itself, but rather to the main argument of the paper, a "thesis statement." We would call the resulting paper a "thesis." A longer work would be a "dissertation." But I could be wrong, I'm new at this stuff; this is my first year with 300's and above.

But now I have to write a 10-page "thesis" on Rita Dove.

[Sundae]

At the very least, the guy has been inept - he's caused Brianna to think he took her ideas and passed them on without acknowledgement. He should have mentioned to her that some of the ideas she came up with were already part of his "emergency" set. Or said, "Hey, those are all good ideas - I usually make suggestions to students having trouble setting a topic, can I use these for that?"

It probably isn't as terrible as I first thought, due to the difference in the use of the word thesis. But it's still poor tutoring in my opinion.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by Juniper

Bbbbbut.... that is a grad level course. How'd you get in?

At the undergrad uni I went to all it took was a signature from the professor. This made a lot of sense when you were in undergrad but looking to go to graduate school, as some classes were paired undergrad/graduate courses -- it means you can knock out both the undergrad and graduate course requirements in one go.