The Dean Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 Forget that..what about all the school children that steal material from it, put it into this or that report, claim it as their own, and get those fat GPAs? Not much difference from when they copied encyclopedia articles back when I was young. Or copied straight from the cave walls back when you were in school. It's just a little bit easier now.
Astrojanitor Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 I'm just bustin' your stones AJ. I'm sure at one time you cared. yeah man, i can tell. If I could make a living at it I'd totally care. An adjunct makes about $2K per class per semester. A full course load plus summer sessions gets me $20K before taxes. $100,000 in student loans for a $20,000 job. sob story!
Just Jack Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 Depends on how clever the kid is. Smarter ones never quote verbatim. 5th grade, I wrote a 20 page paper on Lincoln. By basically paraphrasing an entire book I read about him.
MattyT Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 5th grade, I wrote a 20 page paper on Lincoln. By basically paraphrasing an entire book I read about him. In 4th grade I wrote a 3-4 page paper on Balboa by basically copying most of what was in the encyclopedia. Teacher asked me to read the first page of my paper in front of the class. I did so proudly. Then she called up another kid to read the first page of his paper on Balboa. They were pretty much the same word-for-word. She had already read both papers and set us up to make an example of us in front of the class.
Booster4324 Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 IMO Wikipedia is good for skimming very basic, general information. To use it properly, you need to pay attention to the warnings and use the actual linked resource instead of the Wiki article itself. IMO it is a great collection of links with a general summary of them. There are tons of issues with it, you have bias creeping in as some editors hog pages and control all content. Of course, any encyclopedia is exempt from such bias. If in doubt, check the talk pages and the logs. I admit there are tons of biased articles, but there are few quite a few non biased sources available. Despite my many doubts about Wikipedia as the source they claim to be, it is terribly useful.
/dev/null Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 In 4th grade I wrote a 3-4 page paper on Balboa by basically copying most of what was in the encyclopedia. Teacher asked me to read the first page of my paper in front of the class. I did so proudly. Then she called up another kid to read the first page of his paper on Balboa. Yo Adrian!
Chef Jim Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 In 4th grade I wrote a 3-4 page paper on Balboa by basically copying most of what was in the encyclopedia. Teacher asked me to read the first page of my paper in front of the class. I did so proudly. Then she called up another kid to read the first page of his paper on Balboa. They were pretty much the same word-for-word. She had already read both papers and set us up to make an example of us in front of the class. Why did you do a report on an island in Newport Beach?
Wooderson Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 IMO Wikipedia is good for skimming very basic, general information. To use it properly, you need to pay attention to the warnings and use the actual linked resource instead of the Wiki article itself. IMO it is a great collection of links with a general summary of them. There are tons of issues with it, you have bias creeping in as some editors hog pages and control all content. Of course, any encyclopedia is exempt from such bias. If in doubt, check the talk pages and the logs. I admit there are tons of biased articles, but there are few quite a few non biased sources available. Despite my many doubts about Wikipedia as the source they claim to be, it is terribly useful. That's what I use it for. The links for each page are great, so when you find something that you want to use you can open up that article or link that wikipedia uses. It works well.
CountDorkula Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 My college professor for english hated wiki so much that if we got caught using it, we failed the course.
/dev/null Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 I heard Youtube was having problems this morning
BuffaloBill Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 Why did you do a report on an island in Newport Beach? It's a cool island. One of the few good things in orange county.
DC Tom Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 Who needs Wikipedia? There's nothing you can't find out by asking it here...
Booster4324 Posted March 25, 2010 Posted March 25, 2010 Who needs Wikipedia? There's nothing you can't find out by asking it here*... *Offer not valid when Wikipedia is down.
Captain Hindsight Posted March 26, 2010 Posted March 26, 2010 Depends on how clever the kid is. Smarter ones never quote verbatim. Problem: Many phrases that people type, words, people who don't haunt Wiki at all, can be caught and assumed to be a plagiarist. How does one work through that? What is the fate of the person that reads up on something, only to be told that some Wiki thing was published independent of the kid's work? I guess im one of the smarter ones
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