Re: web sources and plagiarism

• From: grapesmoker <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 06:47:41 -0000
• Message-ID: <ammded+6gkp_at_...>

--- In quizbowl_at_y..., myamphigory <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> For various reasons, I'd like to know what people think about 
> questions that are written word-for-word out of a non-primary 
> reference source (web or otherwise). During the last major 
discussion 
> of plagiarism that I can recall (Beall-related), I was surprised 
to 
> see that the prevailing opinion seemed to be that one should 
expect 
> to see a lot of questions that were evidently written straight out 
of 
> a reference source.  
> 
> Is this still the general opinion?  (For that matter, was it ever?)
> 
> Thanks,
> Susan
> University of Chicago

With most types of questions, you can't help but paraphrase some 
source or another. I think you probably have more leeway when it 
comes to things like history where there are different angles to 
take on the same topic. With science questions, I think it's a 
little harder, since many science laws don't have too many alternate 
formulations. What really ticks me off, though, is when people write 
questions directly out of sources that summarize literature such as 
Benet's. It essentially encourages formulaic questions and allows 
people who have not taken the time and effort to read the actual 
work of literature to get the answer just by reading Benet's 
summaries. Although I don't suppose that my saying so will 
discourage anyone who uses Benet's from continuing to do so, I would 
still like to encourage everyone to try their best to write 
original, interesting questions that are not stale rehashes of 
someone else's summary, and to actually take the time to read a work 
of literature that you're going to write a question on.