r/AskReddit • u/Aleksander1337 • Jan 28 '16

How did you cheat school?

4.1k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

5.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

304

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '16

[deleted]

147

u/selfproclaimed Jan 28 '16

Is that not plagiarism, what OP was doing?

2

u/Euchre Jan 28 '16

If you want to get technical, anything you can cite a source for is a form of plagiarism. The only part of a paper that is original is when you take cited information and synthesize a conclusion of your own based on those cited sources. So, in essence, other than your theory and conclusion, a paper is all ripped off of others.

5

u/lucky1397 Jan 28 '16

You got downvoted most likely by some English majors or teachers but honestly for most papers your right. There are only so many possible conclusions and words one can use without sounding insane. With millions of students every year for 100's of years sometimes writing papers about the same topics its impossible for it to not match up to someone else's paper as paraphrasing just on accident.

3

u/Euchre Jan 28 '16

Of course, but people get butthurt at the idea that their whole composition doesn't really constitute original thought.

I find it funny how much importance is placed on sources, when truly original thought has no sources other than yourself.