Won’t Forget These Defining Principles

(My university tutor, an incredibly strict and intimidating old man with a thick Danish accent, is briefing us on our upcoming assignment.)

Tutor: “For the first part of the assignment, you must write definitions for these terms.”

(He writes the terms all out on the board.)

Tutor: “Do not come to me for definitions; I will not tell you. You must find them yourselves, either through research or looking back over your notes.”

(He takes a seat at his desk and sits there, silently staring at as all, for about fifteen seconds before jumping to his feet again.)

Tutor: “You know what? I’ll just write all the definitions up on the board. What are they going to do, fire me?”

(He writes each and every definition up on the board and tells us all to write them down in our notebooks. When I come to actually work on the assignment, I decide to reword the definitions as best I can, so as not to blatantly plagiarise him. The following week he sees my work.)

Tutor: “No, no, no, write down the definitions I gave you the other week, word for word. Do not reword them.”

(I went and reworded them and submitted it the following week. Needless to say, the whole class got 100% on that part of the assignment, and to my knowledge, the tutor never got in trouble for it.)