The fastest way to identify intelligent people is to ask an easy question, followed by a more complex one.

Let’s say you’re in a Zoom call with your marketing team. You need ideas on how to spend the last, unallocated $5,000 of your budget. That’s a lot of money, so the ideas better be good. Whose ideas can you trust?

According to Shailesh Panthee, asking a very easy question in a group setting will reveal who’s eager — maybe too eager — to prove themselves.

For example, you could ask a basic question about marketing lingo. “Remind me again, what’s CTR stand for?” CTR means click-through-rate. It’s the percentage of people who click on an element after viewing it.

Most people in marketing know the term, and your team might think it’s a bit weird that you’re asking such a simple question in the first place. That’s okay, however, because what’s important is what happens next: Who shouts the answer the fastest and the loudest? Are multiple people on the call blurting out the answer? Do they talk over one another?

If you ask Panthee, people who engage in shouting matches over simple-to-answer questions are so desperate for brownie points that they a.) forget to consider how valuable the answer is and b.) skip fact-checking and thinking through their response. He says:

Smart people are smart enough to know that answering that question will not make them unique. They answer questions which require analytical and critical thinking rather than just recall or memory.

I’m neither a genius nor did I think a lot about positioning in high school, but as someone who raised his hand a lot, I can point to another reason why smart folks might hesitate to answer obvious questions: They suspect it’s a trap.

Whenever our English teacher asked for straight-up vocabulary translations, I was skeptical. Why did she ask us the word for “bread” again? Is she hiding a hard follow-up behind this simple opener?

If you’re on the other side of this equation, aka leading the Zoom call, that’s exactlywhat you should be doing. With the noise cleared away, you can now drop the actual, more complex, probably creative ask: How should we spend our remaining marketing budget?

Chances are, now, Overzealous Oliver and Valerie Validation-Seeker will hold their breath. They’re either content with the approval they snagged from answering the simple question or, quite frankly, stumped.

The smart ones won’t jump at you with an answer. You might even have to prompt them. Maybe, they’ll counter with a question: “Well, what’s our goal in spending the money?” Eventually, however, they will suggest an idea.

“How about we split the money five ways and run paid ads on five different platforms to determine which one we should double down on to promote our company next year?” Wow Intelligent Isaac, what hat did you pull that one from? Good job!

Smart people know that listening is more valuable than talking and that neither beats thinking for yourself. They try to avoid repeating the obvious so they can spend their time and energy on what requires analysis and creativity.

In fact, Isaac probably thought about this problem before you even brought it up. He stumbled upon it and spent a few minutes mulling it over. So when you asked him for an idea, he was ready. And yet, he was still cautious.

You’ll find this same balance of preparation and carefulness in smart people all around.

If you ask them an embarrassingly easy question in private, they won’t laugh at you. They won’t criticize you. They’ll give you the answer and not tell anyone about it.

If you ask them something more complicated, they’ll give you options, start with, “I don’t know,” or answer with a question to get more information. They’ll pause, hesitate, and never present their answer as the end-all, be-all.

Being too eager opens us to error and careless mistakes. Reserve and structured thinking won’t always stand out, but they’re always worth commending.

Ask easy questions, then follow up with hard ones. Smart people are all around us. Learning to identify them is only one part of the picture, but it’s great practice along the way of finding our own potential.

       Reliance on material/academic writing produced by others is an essential and acceptable part of the preparation of assignments or research work in any academic capacity (unless it is overdone). This material may be contained in textbooks, thesis, the internet, monographs, journal articles, yearbooks, e-books, magazines, newspapers, e-mails, conference papers/reports, instruments, statutes, oral/phone conversations, blogs, etc. Giving credit to other people’s ideas/writing where these have been borrowed or relied upon is the highest mark of academic integrity. Plagiarism occurs when a student refers to or incorporates such material and presents it as their own idea or work without acknowledging the source of the information or ideas. In essence, plagiarism is stealing another person’s ideas and attributing them to one’s ingenuity. It gives a student unfair academic advantage over others completing the same task and erodes the academic integrity of the Faculty.

Plagiarism can take various forms, including:

1. Copying the material word for word (verbatim) without indicating the source either using quotation marks or block-quoting;

2. Copying part of the material but changing a few words (in this case the idea is still a borrowed word, hence it is still cheating);

3. Not setting out references, either in the form of footnote references and/or bibliography for sources you have used throughout your work;

4. Piecing together sections from various sources to create a new document without crediting the various sources

5. Colluding with others to prepare a piece of work/research paper that is then submitted as one’s own;

6. Permitting another student to copy one’s work and submit it as their own;

7. Reproducing work (whether in its entirety or parts thereof) submitted by another student, whether at the Faculty or elsewhere in the world;

8. Translating work from a source without crediting the source;

9. Resubmitting one’s own or another student’s previously graded work; or

10. Hiring another student/professional to prepare work which is then submitted as one’s own;

Plagiarism is a strict liability academic offence. This means that the student will be penalised whether or not it is demonstrated that they intended to be dishonest. When in doubt as to whether an act amounts to plagiarism, the student should consult their supervisor/tutor before submitting the final research project for assessment. Plagiarism is not only frowned upon and considered academic misconduct in the global academic community, but it is also a criminal offence which carries with it serious penalties, including annulment of the student’s grades and the institution of legal action against the student.

To avoid inviting the plagiarism penalties, students are advised to:

1. Only submit work that is verifiably their own original work;

2. Refrain from copying research material onto their research papers without quoting/attributing it immediately;

3. Indicate precisely and reference appropriately ideas or information produced by another author;

4. Not permit other students to copy their work and present it as their own;

5. Never copy other students’ work
 

                                                      PLAGIARISM DECLARATION

I,        _______________________     of Mat No     _______________________ declare as follows:

1.     I have read the guidelines on what constitutes plagiarism.

2.     I understand what plagiarism entails and why the Faculty of Law maintains a strict policy in this regard.

3.     I understand that should my work violate the plagiarism guidelines, the attendant penalties apply whether or not the violation was intentional.

4.    I declare that this assignment/dissertation is my own, original work. Where someone else’s work has been used (whether from a printed source, the internet or any other source), due acknowledgment has been given and reference made according to the requirements of the Faculty of Law.

5.   I confirm that this work has not been submitted either to this Faculty or to any other academic institution for assessment and/or accreditation.

6.    I affirm that I did not make use of another student’s work and submit it as my own neither did I allow anyone to copy my work with the aim of presenting it as his or her own work.

7.    I declare that I did not hire anyone to prepare this work and then submit it as my own.

8.  I affirm that I did not translate any part of this work from another language without acknowledging the source.

 

Signature: _______________________                Date: _______________________