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Getting To Know You => Laid Back Lounge => Topic started by: SSY on February 16, 2009, 09:31:34 AM

Title: I feel Cheated
Post by: SSY on February 16, 2009, 09:31:34 AM
On friday, I had a guest lecturer come in to give us a lecture on Galactic supercluxters and the intracluster medium, good stuff I am sure you all agree.

However, being the good student I am, I went to wiki to do my reading, only to find that her entire lecture, is almost verbatum copied from there. The order of the points is the same, all the numbers she gives are the same ( very rare when in cutting edge research to get the same numbers, people will always disagre), and so are the examples she pointed out.

To be honest, I am massivley unimpressed, I do not pay my fees to have someone read wikipedia aloud to me, I could do that myself. I suppose the only other way this could ahppen is if she wrote the wikipedia article.

Anyway, does anyone think it is worth rocking the boat on this one? As said before, I feel a little bit cheated.
Title: Re: I feel Cheated
Post by: karadan on February 16, 2009, 10:32:46 AM
Quote from: "SSY"On friday, I had a guest lecturer come in to give us a lecture on Galactic supercluxters and the intracluster medium, good stuff I am sure you all agree.

However, being the good student I am, I went to wiki to do my reading, only to find that her entire lecture, is almost verbatum copied from there. The order of the points is the same, all the numbers she gives are the same ( very rare when in cutting edge research to get the same numbers, people will always disagre), and so are the examples she pointed out.

To be honest, I am massivley unimpressed, I do not pay my fees to have someone read wikipedia aloud to me, I could do that myself. I suppose the only other way this could ahppen is if she wrote the wikipedia article.

Anyway, does anyone think it is worth rocking the boat on this one? As said before, I feel a little bit cheated.


Yes! Rock the boat mate, rock it hard! That is completely unacceptable (unless as you said, she wrote the wiki article herself). She should at least be confronted about it considering the amount of trouble a student gets into for plagiarism.
Title: Re: I feel Cheated
Post by: SSY on February 16, 2009, 11:07:03 AM
I know a couple of people were kicked out for plagerism in their lab work, when looking at it that way, I suppose it seems a lot more serious.
Title: Re: I feel Cheated
Post by: curiosityandthecat on February 16, 2009, 02:46:07 PM
Just forward the page to whoever's in charge (prof, dept. head, whatever) with one line in the body of the email:

"Thought you might recognize this from last week."
Title: Re: I feel Cheated
Post by: Whitney on February 17, 2009, 12:26:39 AM
Plagarism alone is a good reason to expell someone.  Plagarizing wiki is an even better reason.  Seriously, who would be dumb enough to copy a whole paper off of wiki?

If the guest lecturer was not a student then I'm sure there other things they can do too.   At the very least they should get back any fee they paid the person.

Btw, even if this person did write the wiki, that is still not very smart.  You don't copy your lecture onto wiki without at least citing it as your lecture.
Title: Re: I feel Cheated
Post by: Loffler on February 17, 2009, 06:26:38 AM
Quote from: "SSY"On friday, I had a guest lecturer come in to give us a lecture on Galactic supercluxters and the intracluster medium, good stuff I am sure you all agree.

However, being the good student I am, I went to wiki to do my reading, only to find that her entire lecture, is almost verbatum copied from there. The order of the points is the same, all the numbers she gives are the same ( very rare when in cutting edge research to get the same numbers, people will always disagre), and so are the examples she pointed out.

To be honest, I am massivley unimpressed, I do not pay my fees to have someone read wikipedia aloud to me, I could do that myself. I suppose the only other way this could ahppen is if she wrote the wikipedia article.

Anyway, does anyone think it is worth rocking the boat on this one? As said before, I feel a little bit cheated.

Yes, let everyone know. But do so anonymously.
Title: Re: I feel Cheated
Post by: seasonsofmadness on February 18, 2009, 03:04:16 AM
Wow that is rediculous. Someone should casually ask the speaker if she was the one who wrote the wiki page. There should be an interesting response.
Title: Re: I feel Cheated
Post by: Will on February 18, 2009, 03:26:13 AM
Intellectual dishonesty is frighteningly common these days. People need to be called on it.