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what is the point of uni essays, degrees and academia???

Plagiarism makes it useless...its so hard to put stuff in your own words since countless scholars before you would have tried the same, so there are NO options left!!! Academia seems to be more of a competition of who can reword stuff in never before seen wording!!!! :frown: Me dumb...

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Reply 1
To test your ability to grasp a concept.
Reply 2
What about the people who wrote the work that is supposedly being plagiarised? What about the discoveries that do actually happen?
Original post by gtty123
To test your ability to grasp a concept.

yes but we will have to resort to weird synonyms and they will mark it down for lack of understanding...we cannot word it like anyone before us has done or even anyone currently!!!
Original post by Sinnoh
What about the people who wrote the work that is supposedly being plagiarised? What about the discoveries that do actually happen?

Yes they are exceptional cases. Once the base and some peripheries (variations, rewording etc.) has been established academia is obsolete due to plagiarism!!!
Reply 5
Original post by Tangledseries
yes but we will have to resort to weird synonyms and they will mark it down for lack of understanding...we cannot word it like anyone before us has done or even anyone currently!!!


Nah just pop in some quotation marks and cite appropriately.
Reply 6
Original post by Tangledseries
Yes they are exceptional cases. Once the base and some peripheries (variations, rewording etc.) has been established academia is obsolete due to plagiarism!!!


Are you an undergraduate?
Reply 7
Original post by Tangledseries
yes but we will have to resort to weird synonyms and they will mark it down for lack of understanding...we cannot word it like anyone before us has done or even anyone currently!!!

Then reference appropriately as needed.
Original post by Sinnoh
Nah just pop in some quotation marks and cite appropriately.

Yes the act of citing and referencing too much will not show understanding and lead to poor marks. Further, when you cite and reference too much it will come up as too similar on the uni's plagiarism checker!!!
An essay is basically where you argue something based on evidence you've read. You're not being asked to discover or say something new as if you were a seasoned academic... :tongue: Even people who do a PhD are probably adding 1 tiny piece of new information. But, that's the work of a researcher / academic.

A student at A level or an undergraduate degree isn't expected whatsoever to bring out a discovery. :lol: All you have to do is focus an argument based on what already exists.
Original post by Sinnoh
Are you an undergraduate?

Yes fisrt year at KCL xxx
Original post by Quick-use
An essay is basically where you argue something based on evidence you've read. You're not being asked to discover or say something new as if you were a seasoned academic... :tongue: Even people who do a PhD are probably adding 1 tiny piece of new information. But, that's the work of a researcher / academic.

A student at A level or an undergraduate degree isn't expected whatsoever to bring out a discovery. :lol: All you have to do is focus an argument based on what already exists.

NO!!! Wrong!!! If you were to espouse an argument already there then you would have to give the reasons that already exist which is plagiarism!!!! Further, to be competing in writing an essay in your own words with thousands of students is impossible!!!
Reply 12
Original post by Tangledseries
Yes fisrt year at KCL xxx


Ok, well as an undergrad you're not really going to be doing any original research - that only really comes at master's level at the earliest. Completing the undergraduate course is a bit like getting the black belt in martial arts - it's not actually the end goal like everyone thinks, it just means that you've now finished the basics, you're ready to move on to the proper stuff now.

That doesn't mean that every assignment you do you'll be copying off someone else. Anyone can put their own spin on things.
I see you were asking for help on writing history essays at uni. There will be a way to do this without just copying what others have said. I do physics but I have done a history essay as part of an extra-curricular module. You might be relying on some historians' viewpoints, but you can still evaluate and challenge them based on other evidence and explore what the historical debate is. When you did history essays at school. if you found yourself just rewording what the textbook said you'd probably get quite a poor mark and that doesn't change.
Reply 13
Besides, you using sensible arguments to argue a point isn't plagiarism just like if I use separation of variables to solve a differential equation, that's not plagiarism either just because someone did it before.
Original post by Sinnoh
Ok, well as an undergrad you're not really going to be doing any original research - that only really comes at master's level at the earliest. Completing the undergraduate course is a bit like getting the black belt in martial arts - it's not actually the end goal like everyone thinks, it just means that you've now finished the basics, you're ready to move on to the proper stuff now.

That doesn't mean that every assignment you do you'll be copying off someone else. Anyone can put their own spin on things.
I see you were asking for help on writing history essays at uni. There will be a way to do this without just copying what others have said. I do physics but I have done a history essay as part of an extra-curricular module. You might be relying on some historians' viewpoints, but you can still evaluate and challenge them based on other evidence and explore what the historical debate is. When you did history essays at school. if you found yourself just rewording what the textbook said you'd probably get quite a poor mark and that doesn't change.


You misunderstand me...I am not talking about originality...I am saying that in any uni essay despite the level plagiarism makes it pointless...academia is simply seeing who comes up with the most "innovative" rewording!!! Also I can't explain myself coz me dumb :frown:
Original post by Sinnoh
Besides, you using sensible arguments to argue a point isn't plagiarism just like if I use separation of variables to solve a differential equation, that's not plagiarism either just because someone did it before.

but to use sensible arguments...if you were to use them from someone else's work its plaigarism...even if you reword it others would have reworded the same or very very similar!!!! How are you meant to reword this from a book: "The early Tudor Church was bureaucratic"!!!!???
Original post by Tangledseries
NO!!! Wrong!!! If you were to espouse an argument already there then you would have to give the reasons that already exist which is plagiarism!!!! Further, to be competing in writing an essay in your own words with thousands of students is impossible!!!

No, I think you misunderstand what plagiarism is here. It's trying to present someone else's work as your own. You are allowed to share opinions with people and indeed it's difficult not to, by this logic any unoriginal work or view at all is plagiarism.

What academics are producing is going to be mostly original, (or at least condense/gather literature in a novel way, point is there'll be some original intellectual contribution) what undergrads are producing is largely synthesis/surveys of existing literature, substantial original work is not really expected until PhD level, and what you do now prepares you for that.

I think you are confusing the expectations of undergraduate work with "academia" too, there's a disconnect.

Also, the score on the plagiarism detector doesn't matter. It'll merely flag your essay for manual review, and they'll see that you have no plagiarised.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by Tangledseries
but to use sensible arguments...if you were to use them from someone else's work its plaigarism...even if you reword it others would have reworded the same or very very similar!!!! How are you meant to reword this from a book: "The early Tudor Church was bureaucratic"!!!!???

You don't? If that's not considered common knowledge (you are generally not expected to cite very elementary facts that any likely reader will know), you can just say that and put a citation.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by _gcx
No, I think you misunderstand what plagiarism is here. It's trying to present someone else's work as your own. You are allowed to share opinions with people and indeed it's difficult not to, by this logic any unoriginal work or view at all is plagiarism.

What academics are producing is going to be mostly original, (or at least condense/gather literature in a novel way, point is there'll be some original intellectual contribution) what undergrads are producing is largely synthesis/surveys of existing literature, (substantial) original work is not really expected until PhD level, and what you do now prepares you for that.

I think you are confusing the expectations of undergraduate work with "academia" too, there's a disconnect.

Also, the score on the plagiarism detector doesn't matter. It'll merely flag your essay for manual review, and they'll see that you have no plagiarised.

Yes but you will have to reword stuff because if you have too many quotations it is bad. It is essentially impossible to reword!!! So academia (by this I am referring to undergrad degrees) is pointless!!!
Original post by Tangledseries
Yes but you will have to reword stuff because if you have too many quotations it is bad. It is essentially impossible to reword!!! So academia (by this I am referring to undergrad degrees) is pointless!!!

I think you're just finding it difficult. Everyone here has given brilliant reasons as to why it isn't pointless.

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