The difference in the education system

So what is the idea of writing a group report/project in a Pakistani education system? Well to start with, you take the topic home that your teacher has assigned to you and leave it until the very last or the second last day. Log-on the internet and surf the web. Then just copy and paste various paragraphs and merge them into one piece that is '' your collective effort'' well of 'compiling' them together. And Ah what about referencing?? Now what is that? isnt that my own work! or ok i can include a reference or two, or can make it on my own, can't i?!

During my undergraduate years the idea of referencing did not even come into my frame of mind. The idea of refernence was: well you copy and paste from numerous resource from the web and books and then at the end of the project/or assignment simply mention one or two major sources of the work. It seemed pretty simple. Not a big deal. Mostly the essays, reports or projects were generated from my/or from a collective effort of me and my group mates frames of minds. We just copied and pasted almost everything and by the end of the group project or report we had pretty much ''created'' our piece of work.

When i came to U.K for my education, we were handed over a list of topics that would be covered for the semester. And underneath each topic there were list of around 15 journal articles and 5 to 6 books that were required for further studies. I was then not entirely fimiliar to the culture of reading that much. It then did not seemed like the teacher/instructor was really serious about us actually reading that many things. But when i was given a book of the 'Harvard referencing system' along with my essay topic that i had to do, it pretty much became clear that were taking it pretty seriously.

So well I, was not fimilar with this idea of referencing the 'harvard referencing way'. After my teacher David collings who taught us Work and employement module was finished with one of his lectures. He handed over an essay for us to write and the further reading required for that topic. I went home that day slightly confused. Checked out the links of the journal articles and they pretty much seemed like a bunch of quotations and notes taken from other journal articles and researches and then the author building on his own piece of work. I was completely unfimiliar with this writing style. The next time we had a lecture with David i went to him and i asked him. 'Can your please explain me about the writing style of an essay'? And he said 'well you have to read all the journal articles and discuss what they are discussing their way of researches, their pros and corns. One of the ways to get around with it can be that you read the positive researches around this topic and negative researches around the topic and then well say that these researches by so and so authors present this view point and these present the vice versa'. Even confused than before, I asked David, 'well then wont this be just a mix of what the authors are saying and not what i have to say?' He said to me with his ever so sweet smile and twittering eyes 'are you experienced and well versed enough to publish your own work at this point of time?'

This answer so intrigued my mind... All those years of education just seemed to have washed away. How can i have my ideas when i havent done any piece of research myself at all? how can i write on an issue when i have no facts at all? and how can i take credit from someone and publish it like my own piece of work when it is their hard work and by all means the deserve to be accredited for that!!!

This is such a simple enough thing but it has such a deep meaning. Giving someone the credit for their piece of work. We as a nation have long forgotten this thing. It starts when we are little and we start to steal from other's pieces of work and copy it as our own. And then later slowly and gradually we just stop giving people the credit and appreciation for what they have done and achieved and want everything for ourself. It is a simple enough thing which is taught in the education system here 'Give people credit for their piece of work' and what a deep meaning it has!