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From: kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Academic Integrity
Message-ID: <Mar.30.02.46.55.1991.14731@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 30 Mar 91 07:46:56 GMT
Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu
Lines: 42
Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

In response to my earlier article, Ake Eldberg writes about some of the
problems that come up in doing research and having to trust the authors
one reads; he suggests that the only solution is to check out authorities
before quoting them.

While I agree that such thoroughness is called for if one wants to be sure
of one's facts, I have no delusions about expecting Usenet articles to be
that thorough on a regular basis.

I would be happy if people would simply be *honest* about what they have
and haven't looked up.  (This does not even address the issue of
plagiarism, presenting another's work as one's own; that too is a very
disturbing aspect of Christians `borrowing' without mentioning the work
`borrowed' from.)


The examples I cited were posted by a Jehovah's Witness who had never done
the work of locating the 1864 text or the 1946 Britannica; the quotes came
from a JW reference.  I have complained to the JW in question before, and
only posted to the net when the same citations were used *again*, after my
original complaint.


I would have been happy if the poster had just said "Smart Guy Foo said
`bar de blah', citation _Glarching in Modern Society_, p 44, quoted in
_Big Bird Looks At Numbers_, p 25".

I consider doing less than that dishonest; maybe I just spent too much
time in school.


kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu      Darren F. Provine      ...njin!gboro!kilroy
"Quotation, n.  The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.  The
 words erroneously repeated." -- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_

[I think your standards may be unreasonably high.  People quote
Augustine and other famous Christians all the time.  I assume a
substantial fraction of the quotations are from secondary sources.
Usenet does not generally demand the citation standards of formal
academic writing.  Unless the readers of this group want me to
establish different standards here, I don't think it's fair to
complain about people who follow general practice.  --clh]