Plagarism checker

Could someone recommend a good plagiarism checker to m?. I will be willing to pay for one if it is of high quality and not promising the moon. I will be writing a blog soon and want to be sure that I am not using a quote from some source without giving them credit. Please help!

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Todd Phillips

Google.

Search for a quote in quotes, and Google will search both the web and their vast collection of scanned books for the quote.

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546120#Comment_546120

Google.

Exactly.

As a collj perfesser, I use it all the time. I even found someone who had pulled work from my dissertation without attribution, and the dissertation was never published, only scanned in to Google's vast empire of words by the library at Texas A&M.

It works, and it is free.

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546124#Comment_546124

As a collj perfesser, I use it all the time

I bet you have some good stories!

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546124#Comment_546124

Google.

Exactly.

As a collj perfesser, I use it all the time. I even found someone who had pulled work from my dissertation without attribution, and the dissertation was never published, only scanned in to Google's vast empire of words by the library at Texas A&M.

It works, and it is free.

Hmm. Need I guess regarding the grade given on that?

Ted Weis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546134#Comment_546134

Right now I'm grading Nehemiah essays and found two papers that are expressing the same idea--sentence for sentence and paragraph for paragraph, though not word for word. Sneaky because its difficult to discern who is copying from whom.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546137#Comment_546137

Right now I'm grading Nehemiah essays and found two papers that are expressing the same idea--sentence for sentence and paragraph for paragraph, though not word for word. Sneaky because its difficult to discern who is copying from whom.

Give them both an "F" with a note regarding plagiarism. If one of them feels wronged, he can plead his case.

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546137#Comment_546137

Sneaky because its difficult to discern who is copying from whom.

I guess they hoped you would not notice.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546137#Comment_546137

Right now I'm grading Nehemiah essays and found two papers that are expressing the same idea--sentence for sentence and paragraph for paragraph, though not word for word. Sneaky because its difficult to discern who is copying from whom.

Maybe they both copied from "Q" [;)]

Floyd Johnson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546152#Comment_546152

My worst case of plagiarism was after giving students a writing assignment in our Computer Science service course. The students writing was SO GOOD, that I questioned its authenticity. It also did not match the style that I was seeing in his response to essay questions. I took a chance and typed a couple of key sentences from the student's paper into Google and found five or six copies of the paper on the internet. He received a grade of "F" on the paper and a referral to the Dean of Students for his blatant plagiarism.

Lesson: If you are going to copy somebody else's work, don't copy work that has previously been copied. [:)]

After that experience, I was asked to give a brief presentation on the detection of plagiarism. The school also adopted a campus wide tool for checking papers - each paper checked was also added to the database so it could not be further shared. Sorry, having now been out of the classroom for four or five years, I do not remember which tool our campus adopted.

abondservant

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546167#Comment_546167

As an undergraduate, I had a friend (also the male youth pastor at my church, who was in some of the same classes) that I would study with. We could cover twice as many books, and shared notes about the things we did read. I would always read the more academic material, WBC, Anchor, Semia, etc. He would consistently read Wiersby, listen to J Vernon McGee, and John Piper. We balanced each other out well, and I presumed we never copied each other directly.

He always would get a better grade than I would, and I could never understand it. He would receive a 98, I would receive an 89. 8 or 9 times this happened over the course of the semester; he would receive a 100, and I would receive a 94, he would receive a 94 and I would receive a 70. Neither of us had any explanation of our grade - positive or negative. Simply a red pen grade on top of our returned 8-12 page papers.

So one day I had my friend give me a copy of his graded paper, and read it. He had expressed many of the same concepts that I had, quoted my notes verbatim, etc.

So to the chagrin of my friend; I went to the prof and showed him both papers, and sets of notes and explained what we had been doing, and asked him to show me why I had gotten a lesser grade.

He explained he thought my class participation was low (which it usually is - if I have a question its after I have had a chance to think about things for a while, and it usually arrives by email and not in the classroom) and that was why he gave me a lesser grade. I pointed out that he has 10% of our grade reserved on the syllabus for class participation, so why also take a % off of my paper. He said he had to go, that he had class in 10 and needed to finish preparing.

I was quite annoyed.

About the same time (within a week or so, and while I was making up my mind what to do next) another student wrote a paper on scooby doo, instead of her missions assignment for this same professor. Turned it in and received an A. Rather than talk to the prof, she told everyone on campus and the prof tried to have her expelled for "plagiarism" (she was not), and failing that he tried to have me expelled for "deep seated spiritual issues" (I was not). Now furious I went to the deans.

Come to find out, the professor was grading every paper and assignment based upon his understanding of what we knew based upon our interaction in class, and not on the papers themselves. He admitted openly (infront of both the academic and dean of students) to never having read any of the papers he's been submitted since he started at the school in 2001.

The administration found in both of our favor. Yet retained the professor. I have NO idea why.

They even put him in charge of Sr. Dissertations. Which meant I had to take another class with him. He accepted my first draft as the final paper and gave me a grade of B-. At that point I didn't care if he had read it or not. I just wanted out of that place .

The best part was that he was also my adviser. He told me he would never sign my Bachelors degree, yet when I graduated there his name was . I tried to talk to him about it all after the fact, and he acted like none of it had ever happened. I've forgiven him. But its given me a different (negative) perspective in regards to professors. I have started doing something blatant and intentionally wrong on the cover page as a litmus test, at my current seminary all of my professors (thus far praise the Lord!) are actually reading my work and giving me feedback. That is one of the things I am paying for after all.

Any way, currently my school uses a product called "turn it in". Not every professor uses it - but most do. It reads the paper, and compares it against the database and google (as it has been described to me any way) then adds the paper to the database. It perhaps gags at gnats - theological terms and so forth are sometimes flagged as being 1% suspicion of plagiarism - but the professor is able to read both my paper and the presumed plagiarized portion from the other work to see if it was just a coincidental word usage anomaly or if it was legitimate.

You can even grade the paper from within turn it in. The student mouses over a red mark and can see your comments on anything you liked or disliked, and can even respond with their own feedback on any contested negative marks.

I'm not sure if it checks for concepts to compare in that way, or if it is just mechanical word for word plagiarism that it can detect. The student is also allowed to see the words that triggered the flags. Every paper I wrote had at least one flag on it usually 1% or 2% suspicion of plagiarism - but nothing that ever rose to the level where the professor wanted to talk to me about it. So it may return a lot of false positives that you will need to wade through... Or from the prof's side you may have a threshold you can set minimum suspicion percentage or something along those lines... I honestly have no idea. If your school uses Moodle as a back-end software for the school, turn it in has a plug in for that. Not sure about "blackboard" or some of the other classroom web softwares.

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546137#Comment_546137

Sneaky because its difficult to discern who is copying from whom.

You've found the REAL reason why you needed those classes on textual criticism at seminary.

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546167#Comment_546167

The school also adopted a campus wide tool for checking papers - each paper checked was also added to the database so it could not be further shared. Sorry, having now been out of the classroom for four or five years, I do not remember which tool our campus adopted.

One of the most popular tools right now, which integrates into Blackboard (the most common online course software), is called 'Safe Assign'.

It uses some pretty advanced plagiarism detection protocols, and while it occasionally has false positives, is pretty accurate.

I don't often use it...I prefer reading the papers with an eye toward the level of writing. If I suspect something, I Google it. I'd say close to 90% of plagiarism I find is unintentional (dropped quotes, forgotten signal phrases, etc.). Despite what we keep hearing about ethics, intentional plagiarism isn't an epidemic yet. But it is certainly out there.

Doc B

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546187#Comment_546187

As an undergraduate

I don't guess you'd be willing to say where, would you? (Morbid curiosity.)

"turn it in". Not every professor uses it - but most do. It reads the paper, and compares it against the database and google (as it has been described to me any way) then adds the paper to the database

This is probably the second most common system (or maybe the most common...depends on who you ask). Internet myth has it that the folks who built this system offered good money (hundreds of bucks) to fraternity/sorority folks to pull all the 'file papers' from their respective organization's files and scan them in to the system. One of the things many students don't realize is, once your paper has been run through one of these checkers, your paper is now in the system. So if you re-use your own work in another course, you are going to get busted. (Yes, using your own work without attribution is a form of plagiarism, though it is often ignored by many faculty.)

at my current seminary all of my professors (thus far praise the Lord!) are actually reading my work and giving me feedback

Professors who don't read work they assign should find something else to do. JMO (but I'm a dean now, so my opinion matters).

Allen Browne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546120#Comment_546120

Could someone recommend a good plagiarism checker to m?

Google. Search for a quote in quotes ...

Seriously, David. Todd's answer is all you need. Choose a phrase that is unlikely to be the student's work, and type it into Google in quotes.

Using that technique, I identified one-third of the papers submitted for a particular first-year class assignment as containing significant plagiarism. That reveals some pretty serious character issues for students in a Bible college! Some examples were really obvious (not even bothering to hide the change of font where they'd copied'n'pasted). When confronted, some students admitted copying from a book or leaflet and were very surprised this material was searchable on the Internet.

Google Advanced is your friend.

abondservant

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546222#Comment_546222

As an undergraduate

I don't guess you'd be willing to say where, would you? (Morbid curiosity.)

"turn it in". Not every professor uses it - but most do. It reads the paper, and compares it against the database and google (as it has been described to me any way) then adds the paper to the database

This is probably the second most common system (or maybe the most common...depends on who you ask). Internet myth has it that the folks who built this system offered good money (hundreds of bucks) to fraternity/sorority folks to pull all the 'file papers' from their respective organization's files and scan them in to the system. One of the things many students don't realize is, once your paper has been run through one of these checkers, your paper is now in the system. So if you re-use your own work in another course, you are going to get busted. (Yes, using your own work without attribution is a form of plagiarism, though it is often ignored by many faculty.)

at my current seminary all of my professors (thus far praise the Lord!) are actually reading my work and giving me feedback

Professors who don't read work they assign should find something else to do. JMO (but I'm a dean now, so my opinion matters).

Agreed.

I would tell you, but not in a public forum.

Ironically this was all fresh in my mind as I'd just received and filled out an alumnus survey asking what I thought quite pointedly about various aspects of the school.

I mailed in asking how honest they wanted me to be RE ugly situations. They replied that they wanted to know everything. So everything they heard. Only the dean of students and this prof/missions chair/adviser were there from the faculty and administration on staff when all of this went down. The new president has hired/had to replace a number of key individuals mostly from retirement as i understand it.

To the person who said just reading with a careful eye to "writing level" - I know from my own writing there are certain errors I am prone to (coma splices especially and abusing the - and ; ) and so I would assume that every student would have some of these same "tells" assuming their work is original.

Stephen McCracken

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546319#Comment_546319

I remember my first year undergraduate New Testament assignment when the professor gave someone (something like) 85% on the front cover of their assignment. The student was delighted with the result until they went to the end of the assignment to find that the grade was then split - 5% to them and 80% to the author they had copied from.

We all learned quite quickly what the professor expected. (Don't quote me, but I'm sure it was in Howard Marshall's class).

Tom Reynolds

abondservant,

I find your story very disturbing. Bible colleges/Seminaries are selling you an education based on either their professors' reputation (e.g. they have written a lot of quality books) or based on the professor's ability to teach you what you need to know (e.g. boasting of small class sizes). In either case this professor and this school has let the students down. Thankfully I've gone to schools where the professor (or TA) had to write a significant amount of feedback on papers in order to help the students improve. If you are at a school that doesn't expect that of professors then I think there is a serious problem. Unfortunately schools often attract students based on their professors' reputations which means they are too busy to offer much feedback themselves. There is also little attention given to their personal life and ethics/morals, as in this case. Sad, sad, sad. Perhaps one day we will again focus on Christ rather than the ABCs of church (Attendance, Buildings, Cash).

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546387#Comment_546387

There is also little attention given to their personal life and ethics/morals, as in this case. Sad, sad, sad. Perhaps one day we will again focus on Christ rather than the ABCs of church (Attendance, Buildings, Cash).

I think that it needs to be said that there still are many schools that give priority to building into the personal lives of the students. I know this was true for the schools I attended and have heard so about many others as well.

Michael

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546392#Comment_546392

My son is a sophmore in high school, and every paper he writes must be submitted through "Turn it in".

Ken McGuire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546405#Comment_546405

Re: busy profs.

I had a prof who would assign us a 5 page paper on a complex topic. If we went over 5 pages, he drew a line at 5 pages with the comment "Good start - no conclusion". This was actually good for life in the church, since how many would want to read a 10 page essay on a topic in the average parish? It also kept their grading responsibilities in check. And I can't imagine a school where the essays are not read - at least by a TA...

SDG

Ken McGuire

Ronald Quick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546405#Comment_546405

I have to add my 2 cents also:

I am an adjunct instructor at a community college and one time I had a student properly cite the resource they were using. But the only problem was their entire paper, except for the opening and closing paragraphs were word-for-word copied and pasted from the article they were using. I guess it's not technically plagarism since they properly cited the article. So, I consulted my supervisor (I had only been teaching for a short while) on what to do. I gave them a low grade and explained why. What shocked me was that they did it again---they received a failing grade.

abondservant

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546406#Comment_546406

abondservant,

I find your story very disturbing. Bible colleges/Seminaries are selling you an education based on either their professors' reputation (e.g. they have written a lot of quality books) or based on the professor's ability to teach you what you need to know (e.g. boasting of small class sizes). In either case this professor and this school has let the students down. Thankfully I've gone to schools where the professor (or TA) had to write a significant amount of feedback on papers in order to help the students improve. If you are at a school that doesn't expect that of professors then I think there is a serious problem. Unfortunately schools often attract students based on their professors' reputations which means they are too busy to offer much feedback themselves. There is also little attention given to their personal life and ethics/morals, as in this case. Sad, sad, sad. Perhaps one day we will again focus on Christ rather than the ABCs of church (Attendance, Buildings, Cash).

It is and should be disturbing. By the time of this incident I was already in my senior year, other professors were ethical and now that I am attending a different school on the graduate level I feel as though I had been prepared academically for what I am now doing - though I have yet to take any missions classes... So we shall see. I did not pursue my graduate level degrees at that institution. The dean of students was active in making sure we were both involved in a local church that took responsibility for our morality, but also active in ministry as well. We had monthly reports to write, and neglecting a report resulted in community service hours through habitat for humanity (as well as making up the missing report for ministry already done).

I am now in my second year at SEBTS and loving it, working towards three degrees, an Ma, M.Div, and ThM. My experience with SEBTS has been dramatically different, and far more positive.

Re: busy profs.

I had a prof who would assign us a 5 page paper on a complex topic. If we went over 5 pages, he drew a line at 5 pages with the comment "Good start - no conclusion". This was actually good for life in the church, since how many would want to read a 10 page essay on a topic in the average parish? It also kept their grading responsibilities in check. And I can't imagine a school where the essays are not read - at least by a TA...

SDG

Ken McGuire

Its a small enough school that other than one prof no one had a Ta. The prof that did have a Ta taught classes everyone was required to take (rhetoric of science1&2, theology 1-4, philosophy, and some classes RE C.S. Lewis). On a big year we had around 300 students. The professor in my story for the semester in question had 5 classes he was teaching. The freshman class (introduction to missions) had aprox 50 students. The other 4 upper level classes had between 4 & 10 students. The class I was in (sr level theology of missions), had only 4. Beyond financial support of his local church; and extensive (tens of thousands of dollars monthly) support to indigenous missionaries - to my understanding he was not involved in ministry. Teaching future pastors and ministries is a form of ministry i believe - however I think the Lord will hold anyone accountable that is so derelict & negligent with their ministry. So I don't buy the "too busy" excuse [:#]. Too busy? spend a few dollars on a Ta, or teach fewer classes. He required we submit hand written papers for certain things on the syllabus. If I am not too busy to research and write 25 pages - by hand - on my own personal theology of worship, then he should be willing to read it, or ask us to do less. I certainly would have put a lot less into these papers, if I knew they were graded capriciously by a recalcitrant Fuller Theological Seminary graduate, who wasn't even willing to fulfill the most properly basic aspects of his role. All in all I had 8 classes with the man - 24 credits.

I asked for a refund of the near 20k I paid to take those classes; but was declined.

Steven Veach

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546124#Comment_546124

I had a student who in his assignments (forum posts, and emails with me) had a real difficulty with the English language. But, his first paper he turned in was perfect English. I did a google search on a few sentences and he'd pulled it from an online Bible dictionary. Word for word. I confronted him about it and he stated he didn't have time to actually write the paper. He needed to finish his work and get his degree now!

He received no grade for the paper and subsequently withdrew from the school.

I'm just always so surprised at how bold people are when it comes to this kind of stuff. But I suppose if you know, like in the other example in this thread, your professor is not actually reading your papers you can get away with it.

Steven Veach

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546137#Comment_546137

Right now I'm grading Nehemiah essays and found two papers that are expressing the same idea--sentence for sentence and paragraph for paragraph, though not word for word. Sneaky because its difficult to discern who is copying from whom.

I would bet you this was not from one copying from the other. It was two students who bought papers from the same place online or same individual at school. They regurgitate papers quite a bit.

abondservant

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155429#Comment_1155429

Right now I'm grading Nehemiah essays and found two papers that are expressing the same idea--sentence for sentence and paragraph for paragraph, though not word for word. Sneaky because its difficult to discern who is copying from whom.

I would bet you this was not from one copying from the other. It was two students who bought papers from the same place online or same individual at school. They regurgitate papers quite a bit.

This is a really old thread.

Its possible they just studied together. I'd feel like more research into the situation is asked for.

But then, I've been through some things at the hands of professors. So perhaps my opinion is clouded.

1Cor10 31

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155435#Comment_1155435

We are in the middle of recruiting PhD students. We want to take people who can write decently. We ask the applicants to write a para or two on a hobby or a TV program they like to watch. The key is to email the 1-2 paras to us within 10 minutes after the finish of the Zoom interview. We want to check their true writing skill because it is so easy to outsource their Statement of Purpose.

One of the applicants wrote a very poetic paragraph that was quite different from what we heard in the Zoom interview. So we checked the writing sample using TurnItIn software. 72% Similarity! She was ruled out. Otherwise, she would have been surely given the offer.

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/546152#Comment_546152

[:D] [:D]

mm.

Right now I'm grading Nehemiah essays and found two papers that are expressing the same idea--sentence for sentence and paragraph for paragraph, though not word for word. Sneaky because its difficult to discern who is copying from whom.

Maybe they both copied from "Q"

DAL

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155488#Comment_1155488

A young student in a school of preaching got expelled because he was late on some papers he needed to turn in. When he turned them in it was all downloads from the internet he had copied and pasted! He even forgot to delete the URLs at the bottom of the pages of his so called research! Another copied and pasted too much to the point he forgot to delete a parentheses note that read “see my comments on x page of my book” 😂😂😂 He got a break because all he was doing was quoting the author and accidentally included that note 😂😂😂

The things you see!

I wonder if a book like R.T. Kendall’s “Understanding Theology, Vols. 1-3” should fall under plagiarism? He quotes verbatim from dictionaries and other sources and gives zero bibliographies! Some say it doesn’t count because it was sermons he preached and put in book form, but he’s still profiting from the works of others and gives them no credit! Then again, Mark Driscoll plagiarized a lot in his sermons and he quickly had to take his sermons off the internet for plagiarism (Not that I care about Mark Driscoll or his preaching!).

So what’s exactly the standard and when do you apply it when enforcing plagiarism protocol?

DAL

Steven Veach

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155522#Comment_1155522

I wonder if a book like R.T. Kendall’s “Understanding Theology, Vols. 1-3” should fall under plagiarism? He quotes verbatim from dictionaries and other sources and gives zero bibliographies! Some say it doesn’t count because it was sermons he preached and put in book form, but he’s still profiting from the works of others and gives them no credit! Then again, Mark Driscoll plagiarized a lot in his sermons and he quickly had to take his sermons off the internet for plagiarism (Not that I care about Mark Driscoll or his preaching!).
So what’s exactly the standard and when do you apply it when enforcing plagiarism protocol?

DAL

I was assigned a textbook in an undergrad history courses that has zero citations. He quoted people, but mostly pointed out facts and figures and historical events without any reference or indication of where he got the material. I asked about this online and, apparently, there is a whole category for history books that either the authors don't bother to use citation, refuse to use citation, or the publisher does not want citation. Since high school it was drilled into me that if it's not mine it has to be cited. In reality, I guess not always.

As for biblical text, I think it was a Chuck Missler comment once that 100 years ago theologians (and people in general) borrowed from each other all the time with citation. It was considered to be a positive - that you thought enough of their writing to use it. Times have changed, apparently. But not that much. Missler had a lawsuit filed against him for plagiarism by in the 90's.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155528#Comment_1155528

He quoted people, but mostly pointed out facts and figures and historical events without any reference or indication of where he got the material

Rule of thumb is that if you are not directly quoting, if you can find a piece of information in 5 sources it is common knowledge and does not require a citation. A friend of mine was in a hassle over this on a book of calendars - does it have to be 5 sources in a commonly known language?

Steven Veach

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155531#Comment_1155531

The answer I got back was, there are apparently some "old school" historians who refuse to use citations in their writings. Also, if their work is targeted to a popular or general audience, the publisher does not want citations. I've never heard this before until I asked about it concerning this particular book. Also, textbooks don't use citations?

I've also never heard the 5 source rule either. All I got in undergrad was cite, cite, cite!

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155533#Comment_1155533

Common Knowledge: to cite or not to cite? Take the Interactive Test (scribbr.com)

David Ames

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155535#Comment_1155535

My grandchildren are in late high school to beginning a masters program. I have told them to cite everything including where you use ideas.

For example: if you are using the color red to mean anger cite where you got that idea - don't assume it as common knowledge.

Along similar lines some, especially high school, say not to use Wikipedia. I tell them to heavily cite any use of Wikipedia. And print a copy of the article, with date downloaded, in your appendix. Yes, Wikipedia has a poor reputation but it does have lots of topics and can be a place to start. Make use of its footnotes. And cite the article even if you directly use nothing from it - you did get ideas from it even if no direct quotes are used.

Also download all articles used from web sites and include a copy in the appendix. One book that I am studding has lots of both Wikipedia and web site usage. But since 2005 the articles that the author used are no longer on the site. [one site that I tracked down was apparently, in 2005, a repository of Christian written articles. It is now, 2021, a repository of Christian audio sermons in mp3 format.]

Steven Veach

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155546#Comment_1155546

My grandchildren are in late high school to beginning a masters program. I have told them to cite everything including where you use ideas.

For example: if you are using the color red to mean anger cite where you got that idea - don't assume it as common knowledge.

Along similar lines some, especially high school, say not to use Wikipedia. I tell them to heavily cite any use of Wikipedia. And print a copy of the article, with date downloaded, in your appendix. Yes, Wikipedia has a poor reputation but it does have lots of topics and can be a place to start. Make use of its footnotes. And cite the article even if you directly use nothing from it - you did get ideas from it even if no direct quotes are used.

Also download all articles used from web sites and include a copy in the appendix. One book that I am studding has lots of both Wikipedia and web site usage. But since 2005 the articles that the author used are no longer on the site. [one site that I tracked down was apparently, in 2005, a repository of Christian written articles. It is now, 2021, a repository of Christian audio sermons in mp3 format.]

The internet has a way of changing. I have bookmarks that I used to use that go to completely different companies. There might be an issue with including printed or downloaded papers in a published work (but probably not for a class). I don't really consider it my responsibility to provide my professors the means of finding the source. I simply cite it correctly and then it's up to them to find it.

As for Wikipedia. I don't cite simply because 1. it changes and 2. professors don't like it (or say they don't like it but probably use it themselves). I do, though, use Wikipedia to get ideas or citations but only when the wiki author has cited a "credible" source. Then I use that source and skip the mention of Wikipedia altogether.

I don't mind citation. My original point was, this is 2021. Print books, while not completely gone and probably still have a few more decades left, will one day be obsolete (as soon as Google finishes copying them all to their servers that is). We might as well just skip the page number system and cite everything using the digital format. Then it wouldn't matter which mode you were using to look up the source.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155564#Comment_1155564

. Print books, while not completely gone and probably still have a few more decades left, will one day be obsolete (as soon as Google finishes copying them all to their servers that is). We might as well just skip the page number system and cite everything using the digital format. Then it wouldn't matter which mode you were using to look up the source.

Those people who work primarily in ancient obscure languages and manuscripts would find these assumptions unsupportable - as would those dealing with printing as an art form.

David Ames

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1155531#Comment_1155531

Rule of thumb is that if you are not directly quoting, if you can find a piece of information in 5 sources it is common knowledge and does not require a citation.

Found an interesting use of ‘others’ writings.

After stating that these “are matters of history, well known and universally acknowledged”

[That is claiming that it is general knowledge available in many places]

They stated the following:

“In some cases where a historian has so grouped together events as to afford, in brief, a comprehensive view of the subject, or has summarized details in a convenient manner, his words have been quoted; but except in a few instances no specific credit has been given, since they are not quoted for the purpose of citing that writer as authority, but because his statement affords a ready and forcible presentation of the subject.”

[[from a book by Kock on “666” on page 615 paragraph 2 quoting some other book.]]

Going by the “test” of “generally readily known knowledge”, as listed above in this thread, should the author have cited their resources?

[[And Yes, they did quote word for word back in the 1880s.]]