I'm currently writing my master thesis. I'm a bit conflicted with what I do... Reference stealing.
So let's say article A talk about something that was reported from X, something else from Y and Z. I talk about article A and I find that X, Y and Z are actually really good too so I end up referencing them too. Is this considered plagiarism?
Also, let's say I'm really inspired by the introduction of a paper on the subject of my thesis. Is it considered plagiarism to take the reference of an article and use them to introduce the subject in a similar fashion, e.g., this field allowed to do that? I don't copy what is said but I use (some) of the references.
Is there such thing as reference plagiarism? From a google search, it seems that references are indeed checked (% matching) but it's mostly at the discretion of publisher/not something thoroughly enforced. Tbh I feel that it'd be difficult to enforce that even if I think it's bad. Sometimes you find sources from an article that are impossible to ignore.
I'm wondering what people do with that. Part of the research is finding an article that concern you and then you continue your search from the references so you naturally "steal" references...