By areyouserious - 17/11/2014 03:46 - United States - Fresno

Today, my older brother thinks typing out a Wikipedia article for an essay is not plagiarism, because he didn't "copy and paste" it. He's in college. FML
I agree, your life sucks 32 973
You deserved it 2 491

Same thing different taste

Top comments

Considering Wikipedia is often wrong and teachers can easily tell when sites are plagiarized, let him do it and learn his lesson.

He is in for some trouble. Plagiarism is not taken lightly. Also, how does he NOT know what plagiarism is? My language arts teachers and English teachers have been hammering that in since elementary school.

Comments

Considering Wikipedia is often wrong and teachers can easily tell when sites are plagiarized, let him do it and learn his lesson.

The only problem is that "lesson" could result in expulsion from the college in some serious cases. At the very least, he would fail the paper, and in classes with few grades, he may as well have gotten a poor grade in the course. It's better to let the brother know beforehand and to try and save his grade.

Citing Wikipedia as a source is punishable by death! What OP's brother did... send him to the guillotine!

Actually, Wikipedia was changed. Now you can't edit and change information on it. So everything is true on the site. Given OP's brother should know better than to plagiarize..since he can get kicked out of school for that..

Wikipedia has changed the editing rule, but everything there is definitely NOT TRUE!!

+1 for #34 Let's not exaggerate so much, #33

Teachers can take your essay, and type in certain phrases into Google, so they can check for plagerism, regardless of whether you copy and pasted, or not. My mother-in-law teaches 6th grade, and she uses this to check for plagerism, among other methods.

RedPillSucks 31

He definitely needs to check. My friend got expelled just for not properly citing a source

Wikipedia is a great place to start, but never use it as a source. The main reason it's hated is because "anyone can edit it" which is true, but if you change something and make it wrong, it will get fixed almost immediately. The problem with that is if you open the page when it's wrong, and you don't refresh it and just take all the information as facts. That's when Wikipedia is wrong. Side note pro tip: click on the links at the bottom of Wikipedia because most of them are reliable resources that can be used as sources to cite.

They did a comparison between the info in the encyclopedia brittannica and Wikipedia and 98% of the stuff on Wikipedia was correct.

Yeah and then older brother gets expelled, doomed for life, then moves in with little brother.

He is in for some trouble. Plagiarism is not taken lightly. Also, how does he NOT know what plagiarism is? My language arts teachers and English teachers have been hammering that in since elementary school.

Boy that sounds fun... And what kind of second grader goes on to Wikipedia to play copy/paste?

While I agree with you wholeheartedly, maybe he just actually didn't know (or he was joking idk). Everyone has moments where they learn something that's so simple and they should have known all along and your like "wth how did I never know this" but I dunno maybe he just never payed attention. Just Tryin to defend the guy

He's going places not college, oh wait...

You know he can be expelled for that right?

This is actually pretty typical of college students. Being enrolled in college doesn't mean you're a scholar, intellectual, or even intelligent.

My husband was a TA and had an number of students from China blatantly plaigerising (sometimes from Wikipedia). They claimed that all through school, that was how they had always been taught to complete work. Perhaps it was unique to wherever they were from within China. But he encountered this a number of times over the years, with the same response, uniquely from students from China. They genuinely didn't know it wasn't okay.

AnyaS 19

Exactly. I'm a grad student with a roommate attending college herself and she actually doesn't know how science operates. She thinks any made up ideas can have evidence to back them up and a scientific theory is, at best, a guess.

#32 Please for the love of all that is scientific either teach her or kill her. Ill leave the choice to you.

AnyaS 19

I can't teach someone like that. She's an adult in college. If her 3rd grade science teacher didn't get through to her then I can't either.

RedPillSucks 31

Well, as long as she isn't a science student, teacher or politician

@51 - It's okay if she's a politician, everybody will think she's lying anyway.

This is why I am afraid to go to college. Idiots like your brother are allowed there. Ugh.

Goblin182 26

Better stay at home, they are allowed everywhere.

Since you're obviously so smart maybe you should just stay at home and never go to college

PerditaDessa 38

I worked in a review group that went over rough drafts for students at my college and was surprised how many people thought things like this, or didn't know basic grammatical rules; such as capitalization.

Tell him it's all cool. Then let him get expelled.

I feel sorry for your parents. They payed all that money for him to be kicked out :/

Not everyone's parents pay for their schooling...