students - Should I hide the fact that I did a group assignment completely by myself?

Three students and I were assigned a small (~14 hours of work) group project. Because there was no effort on their side to meet and work, my e-mails regarding their progress remained unanswered and from previous experience I know that their quality of work is much lower than mine, I decided to do it myself and already spend around 10 hours doing ~2/3 of the work. The reaction of the others was something along the lines of "Wow, thanks man. This looks great. You're the man!"

Later I asked them to help me out with the rest because I had another assignment due and thus my time was limited but the contributed work was much less in quantity than what I asked for and also of very low quality, hinting that they did not bother reading the assignment thoroughly or did not really spend time actually thinking of something substantial to contribute. As it stands now I will have to do the remaining 1/3 by myself as well.

Because I had a question for the lecturer I was writing him an e-mail and one of the sentences was

I already did most of the work but we need to...

then I thought whether it would be better to write

We already did most of the work but we need to...

The reason I even mention it, is that it is very close to the submission deadline and I do not want him to think that I/we only started now. My intent was not to slip by this information and blame the others.

Is there any reason to be "diplomatic" and actively hide the fact that I did everything myself?

I am mostly interested in the impression I will leave on the lecturer. On the one hand I do not feel like I owe the others anything, on the other hand I also want to avoid the lecturer seeing my behavior as tactless or arrogant.

Answer

Personally I would dodge the issue using

Most of the work is done, but we need to...

I don't think it will really matter which option you go with, but that way you don't have to worry about it.

Anyone setting a group project knows that it is fairly likely someone will end up doing all the work. If they don't take any action to avoid that (and it sound's like they haven't in this case), then presumably they don't really care.

I understand that you want to get the credit for doing the work. But I agree it might come across as tactless to point out the situation in your email. It might be more productive to separately have a conversation with the lecturer about why they haven't taken steps to avoid the situation occurring.