This happened to my friend and I when we were in high school. We had to complete a paper on Sumerian mythology and read in front of the whole class. We DidNotDoTheResearch (due to laziness) and when we had to speak in front of the whole class we just made it all up. Our classmates were completely ignorant on the subject, so everything went fine... until a nerd started pointing out the {{CriticalResearchFailure}}s one after another *facepalm*

I chatted with a ghostwriter and she told me that she likes the idea of fiction based in real world history because it would give some knowledge to people who don't want to study history. I personally don't think that fiction should have this goal, because a fiction writer is prone to {{CriticalResearchFailure}}.

This Troper's forensics teacher actually offered extra credit on an exam for watching an episode of {{Bones}} and bringing her a list of up to ten things wrong with it. Each inaccuracy equaled one point on the exam. She had to cap it at ten or she would have been handing out A's to people who didn't even sit the exam.

This troper wishes to mock this trope by writing a novel that starts with a claim that everything in the novel is accurate and then proceed to completely abandon research, like having the climax take place on a beach on THE SOUTHERN COAST OF TIBETAnd the scene in question doesn't occur when Tibet DID have a cost, before India collided with Asia.

There's a professor in my school who claimed the Homo Erectus came from the Homo Neanderthalensis. The truth? It is backwards.

Well, more like Australian Radio Show tales but somebody got hold of the old definition and worked it into their show. Viewers phone in and give their examples. It's interesting, informative and funny, like this was meant to be...

Not sure if this goes here or somewhere else, but in this Troper's class, they had to write a paragraph-long summary of a chapter of a book we were reading, and he forgot to read it. Most of the students who didn't read it tried to act like they did. This Troper, however, chose a different approach... ->I had forgotten to read this chapter, so here's a summary of Resident Evil 5 \He apparently was going to get a minimal grade(it was crossed out), but it was changed to a basic.

One of my college professors- a Ph.D.- claimed that Vikings landed in Washington- the state, mind you- and cowboys invented the necktie. By the end of the semester, she used to flinch when she heard me say, "Ummm...", because it meant I was about to correct her again. Most mean-spirited A I ever got, and I feel no guilt.

At one point, having had a few drinks, I got into a long theological debate with a fundy christian who was soap-boxing in front of a large crowd of people. He was doing the whole "Gays will burn, blah blah blah, sodom and gomorrah, blah blah blah" thing, and I started calling him out on stuff left and right. The crowd was laughing as I started taking his points apart, leaving him so flustered that he blurted out this gem in an attempt to refute a point I had made: "Well, Dan Brown in TheDaVinciCode..." "Wait... I'm going to interrupt you here. Are you now attempting to use a novel... a book I would find in the FICTION section of a bookstore, whose author is notorious for making things up, as a source you are willing to cite in this argument?" "....Yes?" "No, go ahead, I was just wondering." At which point the audience, howling with laughter, shamed him off the 'stage'.

This troper works in a casino. Not in Vegas, but still. Troper works half her time in the slot department, and the other half in surveillance. She absolutely CANNOT watch LasVegas anymore without raging.

Specifically, one episode had to do with a girl celebrating her 21st birthday (the legal age for gambling) at the casino. The second her watch shows midnight, she starts playing, and hits a jackpot on the first pull. Turns out the casino's "official" time was three minutes to midnight, so she's still underage...cue plot. In real life, she would not have been allowed anywhere near the machines until the casino said it was the right date. Not to mention how opulent and spacious the surveillance room on the show is...

In reference to the above, I've heard the same sentiments from just about everyone I know who has ever seen their profession portrayed on TV. TV writers hardly ever get it right; sometimes its for dramatic presentation, but most of the time, it's just 'cuz they failed to do the research.

This troper's original story is set in France, and thus I've tried to do as much research as I can. The failure comes from when I (and to be fair, I was only 13 at the time), gave my main characters fantasy-esque names which are punny in themselves - turns out in France, you can't have made up surnames. My attempts at justifying it are: a) It's a fantasy book set on an Alternate Earth, why can't the names be a bit unusual? b) The migration of the characters' distant ancestors might have influenced why they have such weird surnames. c) It's f***ing book, stop getting worked up over tiny details and enjoy the show. Take this well-researched, 100% true, completely factoid link back to Do Not Do The Research.