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When you're working on a paper for high school or college and they require you to cite sources. I just list a ton of sources and then whenever I make a claim I just randomly attribute it to one of my sources.
I know the material, so it's not like I'm making some outrageous claim. Chances are, that somewhere in that book the auther DID say something along the lines of what I wrote. But I just didn't bother to find the exact quote, and since we're allowed to paraphrase that can be my defense.
What are the odds that whoever's grading my paper will go through my citations to make sure they really said that?
For instance, if you're writing a paper about great business leaders you might say "Steve Jobs held the belief that every person in a company should strive for perfection even though they all understand it's not achievable (Isaacson, 2011)."
There. I made that shit up. Sounds like something Steve Jobs may have said, kinda, maybe, sorta. But which professor (or lackey that's assigned to grade papers) is actually going to take the time to find out if that's really in Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs?
It may seem dishonest but seriously fuck their antiquated system of requiring sources and citations just to artificially slow down the paper-writing process to make it seem like the class is harder than it really is. I don't mind citing sources or writing research papers but it's ridiculous that we're not allowed to use websites as sources. There's more info online than there is in print, and it would be easy for them to verify my citations if they were online. But as it stands they'd actually have to buy a copy of that Steve Jobs book and thumb through the entire thing to see if I'm lying.
Best case scenario for them is that they get their hands on the ebook version and CTRL+F that shit, but I'm guessing they don't care that much.
I know the material, so it's not like I'm making some outrageous claim. Chances are, that somewhere in that book the auther DID say something along the lines of what I wrote. But I just didn't bother to find the exact quote, and since we're allowed to paraphrase that can be my defense.
What are the odds that whoever's grading my paper will go through my citations to make sure they really said that?
For instance, if you're writing a paper about great business leaders you might say "Steve Jobs held the belief that every person in a company should strive for perfection even though they all understand it's not achievable (Isaacson, 2011)."
There. I made that shit up. Sounds like something Steve Jobs may have said, kinda, maybe, sorta. But which professor (or lackey that's assigned to grade papers) is actually going to take the time to find out if that's really in Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs?
It may seem dishonest but seriously fuck their antiquated system of requiring sources and citations just to artificially slow down the paper-writing process to make it seem like the class is harder than it really is. I don't mind citing sources or writing research papers but it's ridiculous that we're not allowed to use websites as sources. There's more info online than there is in print, and it would be easy for them to verify my citations if they were online. But as it stands they'd actually have to buy a copy of that Steve Jobs book and thumb through the entire thing to see if I'm lying.
Best case scenario for them is that they get their hands on the ebook version and CTRL+F that shit, but I'm guessing they don't care that much.