I'm mainly interested in moving from student plagiarism back to plagiarism in submitted manuscripts.
Are there any data on plagiarism frequencies in publications or manuscripts submitted for publication? Or is plagiarism such a dirty secret that no one wants to talk about it? I've found several examples of already published plagiarism (peer review and conference proceedings; including two paragraphs and a table from my thesis) and in one class, my teacher pointed out another case, calling it 'sleazy'. As far as my own students go, I generally spot plagiarism because their English is so bad that the one or two intelligible sentences had to have been copied. I have nowhere near read enough to spot plagiarism through my own knowledge of the literature. Most of my students are writing in and citing literature from areas much removed from my own. I do see it as my job to teach them that plagiarism is absolutely NOT ok. Frankly, if they've gotten as far as graduate school and do not know plagiarism is a sin, then they had better learn in my class. In fact, I promise them on the first day of class that if they plagiarize (and I define this, give examples, and assign homework), they will fail the class. This also means I have to meet with their adviser to explain why they failed. Failing my class, however, does not keep them from getting their degree. My problem has been that quite a few colleagues do not agree with my policy. In fact, I had to quit teaching in one department, because the professors could not accept that almost all their students were failing my class because of plagiarism (so this department obviously had more trouble with the idea of failing than the idea of plagiarism). If the advisers do not believe plagiarism is wrong, then why should the students pay any attention? The most frequent excuse is language; English is a second (or third) language for students and advisers. The second excuse is related to language, i.e. they 'want the paper to be perfect.' CL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cara Lin Bridgman P.O. Box 013 Phone: 886-4-2632-5484 Longjing Sinjhuang Taichung 434 Taiwan http://web.thu.edu.tw/caralinb/www/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
