What struck me was her honesty in sharing her progress with me. Even when I didn’t respond to her Facebook messages, she persisted, sending updates and posting screenshots of our discussions on her Facebook. This created a perception among our peers that I was intimately aware of Felicity’s research, making it all too easy for anyone to accuse me of plagiarism.
I had to admit that Felicity was skilled at manipulation; she was playing the game masterfully.
But this time, I needed to turn the tables. I had to find a way to test her and uncover how she was managing to plagiarize me without drawing suspicion.
I dove into my experiments, fully committed to the new research direction. This time, I deliberately magnified certain data points, ensuring that the results would lead to inconsistencies. If Felicity’s data matched mine again, it would be clear she was plagiarizing.
After leaving the lab, I opened Felicity's Facebook, eagerly awaiting her updates. Sure enough, her coded images revealed that her data mirrored mine, including the inaccuracies I had introduced. I was left speechless. How could this be happening? Was my computer compromised? The only explanation seemed to be that she had implanted a virus to access my work.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I rushed to a repair shop to fix my computer and stocked up on a hefty stack of paper. This time, I decided to go old school—no electronics. I meticulously transcribed all my experimental data and results by hand. Even if Felicity somehow found a way to track my work, she wouldn’t be able to replicate my handwritten notes.
Over the next three days and nights, I poured every ounce of energy into perfecting my paper, accelerating my experiments and correcting any errors. I was almost at the finish line; the only thing left to do was run a plagiarism check.
As I stared at my reflection, the dark circles under my eyes served as a testament to my sleepless nights and relentless effort. My desk was cluttered with pages filled with dense handwriting, and I finally let out a sigh of relief. Tomorrow, I would ask my dad to arrange for someone to type everything up into an electronic version, and I planned to send it to him using his company’s computer. This time, without access to my own devices, I was confident Felicity wouldn’t be able to replicate my work.