Discussion: NYT: Reporter 'Imporperly Used Specific Language And Details' From Wikipedia

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Discussion for article #225759

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“Anyone can see the similarity,” Sullivan wrote. “The question now is whether this is an isolated case or one of many instances. The Times is taking that question seriously.”

If you steal someone else’s work, you should be fired. Period.

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She didn’t repeat something word-for-word. She re-wrote a paragraph from Wikipedia for one paragraph of her article. I don’t think she deserves to be fired.

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Re-writing a paragraph from Wikipedia and calling it your own will get you an automatic failure and possible expulsion in any credible school. She deserves to be fired or she will likely re-offend.

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The only thing worse than a plagiarist? A plagiarist who plagiarizes from Wiki.

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Plagiarism doesn’t have to be word for word. You’ve never been in a college class, have you?

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Me, I’m just a casual internet commenter… I can get away with cut and paste. I don’t get paid to create ideas and expand that idea into a story.

You do. and if you do, don’t cut and paste…

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She made a mistake. She has writing talent and I’m confident she has learned a valuable life lesson.

I don’t know anything about her but I’m guessing she is young with a life’s experience ahead of her to write some good stuff.

I wish her well on her life journey… and please provide attribution in the future…

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Even my high school freshmen know not to use Wikipedia.

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As a former reporter who was the victim of plagiarism, I got the same kind of response when I confronted the paper. The writer, who had a history of plagiarism at that paper, was again given the benefit of the doubt and with the paper concluding it was just a “coincidence.” Never mind that she lifted quotes down to the ellipses in that quote. Thankfully, she was fired, though nearly 10 years later, when the paper finally had enough of it. So, my take on this is that this paper is coddling this woman for some other reason than her reported checkered past. But one day, some editor who has grown a pair will get tired of it and boot her out the door, which is where she needs to go.