Quote:
Originally Posted by onesnowyowl
I did this quite frequently in university, and many profs I talked to agreed that a good Wikipedia article, with good citations, can be a jumping off point for research--but it shouldn't be what you cite. It should be the starting point.
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Yeah, that about sums up the best use of Wikipedia for educational / paper research purposes.
Of course, let me tell you about the time I caught a student plagiarizing Wikipedia straight up, and claiming it as original work. I was a TA for a prof on campus, and she had me flag papers that got a grade that was atypical for the student who turned it in. In other words, I'd compare their paper grade with their grades on typical homeworks and midterms, and flag anyone that had a positive anomaly. So I get about 3, 4 hits. I google random sentences from each of the papers, and one of them was a straight word-for-word copy of a Wikipedia article.
She confessed to the crime, but if I remember correctly, the prof let her off with just a drop from the course. No failing grade, no mark on her record, nothing.
As for the story in the thread, by my judgment it sounds extreme, and I think they probably should be giving the student the benefit of the doubt in this case.