The way I read it is that they forgot to cite sources, so technically it’s plagiarism. I didn’t take it as a bad faith effort of passing off someone else’s work as their own. Otherwise I would agree, I don’t think they’d treat the situation so flippantly.
I don’t know, the line “at this rate, the only original part of this thesis is your name” implies the issue is not just failing to cite sources, but having no original thoughts or contributions - maybe it’s exaggeration for humor’s sake, but I definitely did not read this as simply forgetting to cite sources. Regardless, it’s so flippant and playful it feels like it was written as a joke, maybe even written to make a meme, hence it doesn’t feel like a real email.
The way I read it is that they forgot to cite sources, so technically it’s plagiarism. I didn’t take it as a bad faith effort of passing off someone else’s work as their own. Otherwise I would agree, I don’t think they’d treat the situation so flippantly.
I don’t know, the line “at this rate, the only original part of this thesis is your name” implies the issue is not just failing to cite sources, but having no original thoughts or contributions - maybe it’s exaggeration for humor’s sake, but I definitely did not read this as simply forgetting to cite sources. Regardless, it’s so flippant and playful it feels like it was written as a joke, maybe even written to make a meme, hence it doesn’t feel like a real email.