163. Sharing is Caring

A male student from Party Politics course and a female student from Social Media Usage course are talking in the common room of NILS. Even though classes are over, many students are coming to the institute to study.

Girl: Are we both writing the same dissertation then?

Boy: That makes most sense, yes.

Girl: Won’t we be caught?

Boy: Mine will be evaluated by the Party Politics faculty and yours by the Social Media faculty. There is very less chance they will come across each other.

Girl: I understand, but feeling slightly uneasy…

Boy: Okay, let us change the names. If you think two different dissertations called Politics in Social Media and Social Media in Politics can be too suggestive, then we can have different names.

Girl: We have to change the names. You keep yours, I will change mine. I will think of something. And how about the text?

Boy: You write from the perspective of social media and I write from the perspective of politics. It will be different.

Girl: But our data and analyses are exactly the same.

Boy: Obviously. This was a joint research. We did it together.

Girl: So we will be caught together.

Boy (with dreamy voice): And kept in a locked room together.

Girl (rolling eyes): Unlikely. But seriously, if we give photocopies of each other, we are definitely going to be disqualified.

Boy: No photocopies. We we will write one dissertation and then change everything – introduction, sequence, conclusion, writing style, formatting, words and terminology. That will give us a completely different second dissertation.

Girl: Wow! Who is going to do all that?

Boy: I will. But you have to sit with me while I am doing it.

Girl: How about me paying you instead?

Boy:  Your presence is priceless. You cannot replace that with money.