Plagiarism and All That
Jul. 22nd, 2009 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenconversesColorado Gazette Intern Plagiarizes from New York Times.
I saw this on one of my professor's Facebook pages, and even though it's a little old, I decided to post and comment on it since I'm currently a newspaper intern...that actually applied and was rejected for this internship, actually.
Let's just preface with the fact that I don't understand plagiarizers -- at all. Maybe it's because I like to write and writing comes easy to me, or maybe it's because I am writer, I realize how hard some people slave over picking the right words and phrases. I can understand the envy that comes reading something somene else wrote and wishing you had written it, but that's why the English Gods invented these awesome thing called citations and footnotes and works cited pages, so you could use someone else's words in research papers without being a complete douche about it.
And let's just add on that I don't understand so-called journalists who plagiarize even more. I don't know about other journalism schools, but at USD it is pounded into your head that maintaining your credibility and intergrity as a journalist is the most important job you have after reporting the news, because once your credibility goes, so does the readers' trust in you and your organization. Without your credibility, you are f-u-c-k-e-d as a journalist. So you don't make up quotes, facts, or people. You double and triple check your facts before it goes to print. You apologize when you make a mistake, and print a correction. You don't write a story with an agenda in mind from the get go or trying to prove a political point. And you don't fucking plagiarize. Because someone always catches you.
I don't know what this chick was thinking. I don't know what was more idiotic of her - plagarizing from the New York Fuckin' Times or plagarizing in a profession that's made up of the world's biggest snoops. Seriously, plagarizing in a newsroom has to be the worst idea ever -- because, hey, it's not like journalists read things other journalists write or know how to use Google or won't hesistate to kick your ass out and never give you a job again once they find out that you have no intergrity whatsoever.
What a fucking idiot.
Also, the newspaper intern within would like to send a big FUCK YOU her way for making the rest of look like incompetent college students.
I saw this on one of my professor's Facebook pages, and even though it's a little old, I decided to post and comment on it since I'm currently a newspaper intern...that actually applied and was rejected for this internship, actually.
Let's just preface with the fact that I don't understand plagiarizers -- at all. Maybe it's because I like to write and writing comes easy to me, or maybe it's because I am writer, I realize how hard some people slave over picking the right words and phrases. I can understand the envy that comes reading something somene else wrote and wishing you had written it, but that's why the English Gods invented these awesome thing called citations and footnotes and works cited pages, so you could use someone else's words in research papers without being a complete douche about it.
And let's just add on that I don't understand so-called journalists who plagiarize even more. I don't know about other journalism schools, but at USD it is pounded into your head that maintaining your credibility and intergrity as a journalist is the most important job you have after reporting the news, because once your credibility goes, so does the readers' trust in you and your organization. Without your credibility, you are f-u-c-k-e-d as a journalist. So you don't make up quotes, facts, or people. You double and triple check your facts before it goes to print. You apologize when you make a mistake, and print a correction. You don't write a story with an agenda in mind from the get go or trying to prove a political point. And you don't fucking plagiarize. Because someone always catches you.
I don't know what this chick was thinking. I don't know what was more idiotic of her - plagarizing from the New York Fuckin' Times or plagarizing in a profession that's made up of the world's biggest snoops. Seriously, plagarizing in a newsroom has to be the worst idea ever -- because, hey, it's not like journalists read things other journalists write or know how to use Google or won't hesistate to kick your ass out and never give you a job again once they find out that you have no intergrity whatsoever.
What a fucking idiot.
Also, the newspaper intern within would like to send a big FUCK YOU her way for making the rest of look like incompetent college students.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 03:51 pm (UTC)I am so terrified of accidental plagiarism, that I cite EVERYTHING. Like, even things that I looked at for two seconds, just to be safe. I mean, if I read something about the topic at some point in my life, I will probably cite it.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 08:20 pm (UTC)I totally over cite everything too. I had a billion citations in the mini thesis I wrote last semester.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 04:43 pm (UTC)It's even more worrying when you think about coursework for GCSE (I'm not sure what the American equivalent is), where students can literaly copy and get away with murder without the exam boards ever finding out.