Academic dishonesty

[lady.indigo at gmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 139548

On 9/4/05, eggplant107 <eggplant107 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>That's true, it is not proof Hermione doesn't understand why potions
work the way they do, but then again, we have never seen one shred of 
evidence that she does understand why potions work the way they do.
The absolute proof,the thing that would end the discussion once and
for all would be for Herminie to make one original potion, just one
would be enough. But we have not seen that from any student.<<

Er, and once again, I say she's demonstrated at least PART of that 
understanding by quoting a law of Potions that's entirely about theory and 
what makes the combination of those ingredients in that particular form 
successful. The law isn't part of a formula or recipe. It's the first 
hands-on moment we see of applied theory and Hermione gets it, while Harry 
fails miserably. Yes, Slughorn helped enable this, but I don't care. Still 
wrong.

>>Even Hermione couldn't make the potion successfully
following the dumb instructions in the very official Ministry approved
completely uncontroversial textbook.<<

I don't see how 'controversy' is involved here. Harry's method is 
controversial only because nobody's ever tested it before. The recipies in 
the book are tried and proven, apparently without knowing about Snape's 
alternatives. So for a textbook what else could they be? And I'm missing the 
part where Hermione actually failed at anything. She made her potion just 
fine, as did Harry, but Harry's was better. If I'm remembering wrong I'll 
gladly accept a quote from the canon telling me so.

>>> just a weaker form of it or with
> some mild side effects. 

And that differs from lousy because …… <<

Because it *did what it was supposed to do.* If the recipe consisted of 
incorrect instructions which made the potion blow up, or have some opposite 
effect, that's what I would consider lousy instructions. And in that case it 
wouldn't be in an approved textbook. Again, some people made perfectly good 
potions, but Harry's stood out because Snape's notes *supplemented* it. If 
NEWT-level potions were impossible to learn from that book, we'd have a 
whole generation of adult wizards who don't know jack about the subject, not 
to mention clearly intelligent professors like Slughorn (for all his 
failings in the classroom, he knew how to brew this stuff) who might have 
worked with even older editions.

>>No, not entirely. Putting the blackest possible take on Harry actions,
far blacker than I think is justified, I can't come up with a word
stronger than "naughty" to descried it, but other members of this
group have used words like horrified, repulsed, appalled and
disgusted<<

Those aren't the words I would use either, but I'd say far more than 
'naughty', which to me suggests more a kid in the cookie jar at the age of 
five or six. Cheating is taken very seriously in schools of all levels, and 
even one incident of it is grounds for complete failure of the class at my 
college. Not to mention that Harry does this at least once in a 
contest-based environment. I don't care if he's 'only 16', which is far too 
old IMO for anyone to be playing the age card. You learn it in elementary 
school: don't cheat. Cheating is BAD and WRONG. And if Harry took credit for 
Snape's findings in the adult world, am I mistaken in saying that he could 
at the very least be sued?

>> I know of the absolute mind numbing hell Harry has
gone through over the last 6 years, things that would have turned a
normal person like me who was not as intrinsically good as Harry into
a monster that would make Hannibal Lector look like Mr. Rodgers.<<

The Harry apologists are sounding suspiciously like the Snape apologists 
again. Not that Snape has been through nearly as much, or that Harry's 
crimes are anywhere near Snape's magnitude, but just what is the appropriate 
ratio of personal trauma to completely unrelated moral error, exactly?
Can we please call a spade a spade here? Harry did a bad thing and never 
regretted it, trying to cover it up further and getting upset when he was 
caught and punished for it. People, including Harry, make mistakes, but I'd 
like to see the indication that these *are* mistakes be delivered out of a 
mouth that isn't Snape's.

>>> And to answer your question, if I
> were Harry I would never have done
> it in the first place.

Hmmm.<<

Are you saying I'm lying then? Because seriously, I thought long and hard. I 
wouldn't have. And if I really am overestimating myself and I would have, I 
still would have fessed up immediately. I've done and still do wrong in my 
life, I've lied about turning in papers late and even snuck a look at a few 
test papers in middle school (which I felt guilty for afterwards). I don't 
doubt I would be tempted. But I would *not* have gone on all that time like 
he did. I do consider it cheating and my conscience wouldn't have allowed 
it, not to mention (hardly a noble thing, this) my fear of getting caught.

- Lady Indigo