Letter of the week

COPY AND WASTE My friend told me that copying information from the Internet is cheating, and that students risk being disqualified if they just copy and paste things onto their Word document for coursework or an essay. He told me that his cousin had been expelled from a university because of copying, which really shocked me! Teera Siribunsuk, Bangkok Copying and pasting information from anywhere to use in an essay is definitely cheating, Teera. It’s also plagiarism, which is illegal. Copying something from the Internet is particularly bad because it’s impossible to know if the information or the source is reliable. In addition to that, you can never learn anything by copying somebody else’s work, so what’s the point of attending university in the first place? Writing essays is all about researching your topic from a variety of different sources — preferably books written by recognised experts on the subject — then formulating your own ideas and opinions from all that information. And if you do use somebody else’s ideas in your essay, make sure you attribute the source in a footnote or bibliography. Good luck! — Deputy Editor

 

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NOISY FUN

Recently I went to a mini music festival at Museum Siam in the old part of Bangkok. The festival was called Noise Market.

There were lots of great bands playing all weekend, as well as small market stalls selling clothes, original art and CDs from local indie labels. There were also some really tasty food stalls. It was a really fun festival and I hope they have another one some time.

Film Khemanita,
Bangkok

I attended that festival too, Film. As you say, it was great fun. It’s nice that people are organising events involving music, art and good food that will get people out of the house and away from the television or computer screen. Events like that make life fun and interesting. — Deputy Editor

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PIRATES ATTACK

I recently read some crazy news. It was about Malacca pirates who stole oil from the Thai tanker called Lapin. They also placed a bomb on the Lapin before making off with 2,000 tonnes of fuel oil worth about 20 million baht. It’s pity because oil is valuable for industry and electricity production.

It was strange for me to read about this because I’d only seen it in movies before and never expected to see it in reality. I think that this incident happened because the ship’s security system wasn’t strong enough. We should improve it so that these bad crimes can’t happen again.

Jaruwit Siripornpokanan (James),
via email

Thanks for your letter, James. I didn’t hear about that incident, but I know that there is a lot of piracy in the seas and oceans throughout the world these days. Unfortunately it’s not something that just happens in movies. It’s a very real problem. — Deputy Editor

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You can also email us at [email protected] or fax us at 02 240 3792. Your words must be your own (except for quotations and well-known proverbs or sayings) and they may be edited. The Letter of the Week wins a prize of 150 baht!

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