Thoughts on Plagiarism...

[knitedreams]

It's a hot topic in my area right now. A big-wig has a cozy job schmoozing with important people and his plagiarizing had recently been brought to public attention. An Internal Review Board declared all 30 instances of his plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation as inadvertent plagiarism and is being allowed to fix it with no further action taken. By plagiarism I mean he forgot to site some quotes and most quotes were sited but without quotation marks.

Should the person have been fired or some other disciplinary action taken? Does the board's decision sound fair?

 

[slyc_willie]

Were the quotes included in order to affirm his hypothesis? Or did he borrow his thesis without attributing the source?

In other words, was he just being sloppy, or does it appear he meant to claim credit for someone else's work?

 

[knitedreams]

They didn't release a lot of details to the public, but I believe that the quotes were supporting the person's original thesis.

 

[sr71plt]

It's a hot topic in my area right now. A big-wig has a cozy job schmoozing with important people and his plagiarizing had recently been brought to public attention. An Internal Review Board declared all 30 instances of his plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation as inadvertent plagiarism and is being allowed to fix it with no further action taken. By plagiarism I mean he forgot to site some quotes and most quotes were sited but without quotation marks.

Should the person have been fired or some other disciplinary action taken? Does the board's decision sound fair?

cite

This isn't an extreme case of plagiarism--it's getting to be close to the norm. It seems the result more of ignorance that his readers didn't catch and get him to correct. The presence of quotes, even if the citations were dropped (which a reader should catch in a dissertation and a copyeditor in material being published) indicates acknowledgment this wasn't his own work. The material cited but not in quotes (if, in fact, directly quoted) is a more serious matter.

I don't quite understand whose "Internal Review Board" this is--the university's where the dissertation was assigned and turned in (which would have nothing to do with his job) or where he's employed (which doesn't have anything to do with his dissertation unless he's employed by that university or the dissertation somehow was a requirement for his job). With the circumstances this incompletely described, couldn't really say what action should be taken by who. The university certainly should consider making him at least clean up the dissertation--and possibly more depending on the extent of the problem. (However, as I said, universities are getting very sloppy about properly attributing sources in dissertations--or even knowing what should be done). Have no idea from what you give, how connected the dissertation is to the guy's job.

 

[slyc_willie]

They didn't release a lot of details to the public, but I believe that the quotes were supporting the person's original thesis.

If that is the case, then (owing to sr71's post above), I don't see why any action should be taken. The failure falls upon the board of review, and the academic community at the university. The professor might be a shark, but he seems to have learned how to wade through the waters.

 

[knitedreams]

He is employed at a University. The main reason it's a big topic is because the university community is concerned with the reputation of the college because he wasn't fired. They are making him clean up his dissertation.

In my University, they tell us students that if we even miss a quotation mark we'd get a failing grade for the class and kicked out of our major, but I always thought that was very extreme for something accidental.

 

[slyc_willie]

He is employed at a University. The main reason it's a big topic is because the university community is concerned with the reputation of the college because he wasn't fired. They are making him clean up his dissertation.

In my University, they tell us students that if we even miss a quotation mark we'd get a failing grade for the class and kicked out of our major, but I always thought that was very extreme for something accidental.

I'm assuming the professor in question has tenure. Otherwise, the matter would have been settled by a simple boot to the ass.

Academia says one thing to students and another to professors. The rules are much more stringent when applied to students, because they are trying to teach them certain codes of behavior. As you might expect, those codes become weaker the longer you are involved in academia.

So long as you are pining for grades and credits, follow the rules to a tee. Only when you are out do those rules become flexible. But don't think your professors are any less cogent for mistakes they may have made in the past; indeed, if they have made the same mistakes you might, then they are the best sources of wisdom for getting around the consqeuences.

 

[knitedreams]

Personally, I try and stay away from research papers and stick to analytical papers. Mainly because they don't take as long to write. The whole gathering resources kick was never my style. So I never had to worry over much. Now that I'm nearing the end of my undergrad and about to go into the Masters program I won't be able to dodge research papers anymore. The whole thing is making me nervous for some reason.

I assumed the guy was a President or something higher, especially when the newspapers said it was his job to schmooze. I think they would fire a professor no questions asked. Doesn't matter if it was 20 years ago or one year ago.

 

[slyc_willie]

Personally, I try and stay away from research papers and stick to analytical papers. Mainly because they don't take as long to write. The whole gathering resources kick was never my style. So I never had to worry over much. Now that I'm nearing the end of my undergrad and about to go into the Masters program I won't be able to dodge research papers anymore. The whole thing is making me nervous for some reason.

I assumed the guy was a President or something higher, especially when the newspapers said it was his job to schmooze. I think they would fire a professor no questions asked. Doesn't matter if it was 20 years ago or one year ago.

It DOES matter.

Professors with tenure have much more leeway than those without. That is not to say that they have free reign to act and do as they wish, but they benefit from more support and legal backing.

Aside from that . . . .

Cite, cite, cite!

Even if you think you are only partially paraphrasing someone else, cite them and mark the citation in your paper. You can never be too careful.

 

[knitedreams]

It DOES matter.

Professors with tenure have much more leeway than those without. That is not to say that they have free reign to act and do as they wish, but they benefit from more support and legal backing.

Aside from that . . . .

Cite, cite, cite!

Even if you think you are only partially paraphrasing someone else, cite them and mark the citation in your paper. You can never be too careful.

Trust me. Citing every little thing, and combing my paper to make sure I cited everything will become an annoying little obsession of mine. Thanks for your input ^_^!

You too sr71plt. Sorry for the misspell of "cite."

 

[slyc_willie]

Trust me. Citing every little thing, and combing my paper to make sure I cited everything will become an annoying little obsession of mine. Thanks for your input ^_^!

You too sr71plt. Sorry for the misspell of "cite."

When all else fails, CYOA.

Good luck.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Aside from that . . . .

Cite, cite, cite!

Even if you think you are only partially paraphrasing someone else, cite them and mark the citation in your paper. You can never be too careful.

Plus, if you've actually done the research to find the source to cite, you want credit for that, don't you? It's a genteel way of saying "Look! I did my homework!"

 

[3113]

I agree with Slyc that the professor probably had tenure--also, I'm sure he was given the benefit of the doubt because he *WAS* a professor. That means he's done papers before, including his initial grad thesis. This gave the university evidence that he usually does it right and is usually trustworthy. This may also have been a very long and complicated thesis, and percentage-wise, most of it may have been done right. So the University may have given him the benefit of the doubt that it was sloppiness or mistakes.

It is a sticky issue and other, very honest academics have been caught in the muddy areas of it. Doris Kerns Goodwin, the popular historian, got into a real quagmire over certain research; the question, as I recall, was whether the facts she failed to cite were from other sources or "common knowledge." Which is where the lack of quote and citation gets really sticky. It's one of the hardest things to explain to students. When something is common knowledge enough that you don't have to cite where you got your info (like: "San Francisco Bay is polluted,") and when you do ("San Francisco Bay is polluted with the following chemicals..."). This gets even harder when you get into very specific areas where only other scholars will likely be reading what you write (do you have to cite where you got that list of chemical pollutants when everyone reading the paper, like you, are researching the pollution in San Francisco Bay and have probably read the same reports?).

This professor may have assumed that some of his sources were common knowledge and left off quotation marks or citations because of that. Which is why teachers are harder on students than on fellow professors. First, because plagiarism is rampant among students and they want to scare you straight (no teacher wants to credit a student for something they didn't write). But also because students are usually writing papers about things they don't know about, and should assume their readers doesn't know about it either. If they write papers in the future, this will likely be the case--papers for companies and businesses on things the CEO knows nothing about but wants to know about. Papers where citing your research is important as it proves that you got good, accurate facts from good sources. Decisions, maybe important ones, could be made on such facts.

Professors, however, are almost always writing papers for other professors in their field. So professors are more likely to assume "common knowledge," and to a certain extent have to assume that. So they're more likely to make such a mistake. Obviously, the number of mistakes in this paper unsettled the University, they rightly discussed it. Maybe they shouldn't have let him off, but I'm guessing this was one of the reasons why they slapped him on the wrist rather than firing him.

As I recall, one scholar, who was gathering together all of Martin Luther King, jr.'s writings, found an uncited source in MLK's dissertation. There was an argument at the university over whether or not to take away MLK's doctorate...the man is dead and has a holiday, but they seriously discussed it. They decided it was an error, not intentional plagiarism. Universities take this sort of thing very seriously.