mcguffin - 8:15 pm on May 15, 2002 (gmt 0)

Countrycat wrote:

So if he stole stolen work, then it's ok? I couldn't believe it. I ended our little exchange with a link to the dictionary definition of plaragarism.

Back when I was teaching, I had a student whose paper committed both plagiarism and fraud in the same paper (Never cite page 230 of a book that only has 140 pages--your prof might actually know the book or check it at the library. :).)

Anyway, I had a meeting with the student, the department chair, the head of the writing program, and his academic advisor. After preliminaries, the student begins his defense by passing out a two-page statement that begins, "This paper can not commit fraud, because I paid good money for it." The document rambled onwards from this auspicious start, but essentially, he portrayed himself as an aggrieved consumer. He was upset that the person who had sold him the paper had conducted sloppy research.

Apparently, he didn't stop to think that someone who would sell a paper might also cut other corners :)