• Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Okay, so, maybe correct me if I’m wrong or scold me if I didn’t read far enough but that first example of plagiarism, why didn’t the author just cite the work? They were describing a basic behaviour tree (a decision tree, I think) and had a source, then didn’t cite it. Why wouldn’t they cite it?

    • cyd@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Because it looks bad if your text is peppered with quotes joined by little strips of connecting material. It gives (rightly) the impression that you don’t know how to digest information and put things in your own words.

    • tulipas@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      Perhaps because his text was almost ad verbatim the same as the source he didn’t cite. There are many more egregious segments than that which you can easily find in his vroniplag page.

    • OpenStars@startrek.website
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      8 months ago

      They might literally have had some psychological issue, where they were trying to see how far they could push it without being caught.

      Or this whole article could be a hit job - maybe the original thesis literally wrapped these sections with text saying “here is an example of a plausible attempt at plagiarism that would not get caught today - please do not quote me out of context here, m’kay?”. The devil is in the details, and I for one am not volunteering to put in the amount of effort it would take to properly judge this person.

      Although I bet their bosses are, now.