Re: [ECOLOG-L] Plagiarizing methods...

[Luke K. Butler]

"Writing is very hard work, and knowing what you're doing the whole  
time."―Shelby Foote (1), author, among several other books, of  
the 2,968-page, 1.2 million-word history, The Civil War: A Narrative  
(2).
Luke

I tend to agree with Wayne Tyson's "rules" of honest writing, and  
from what I can tell about people I work with/learn from, they think  
similar things. I also agree with Martin Meiss' ethic that holds  
ideas as more sacred than commonly-used methods. If I understand them  
correctly, I tend to disagree with Hamachan Hamazaki's statements:

"If your students are copying somebody's sentences because their  
writing style and sentence structure are better in expressing their  
own idea, then I call this as learning process."

Learning to copy and insert better sentences than one's own versions  
is only learning how to copy and insert better sentences than one's  
own in a way that makes sense. I don't see what it has to do with  
teaching someone to become a professional-quality writer. If one's  
writing skills are at a stage where learning happens from merely  
copying sentences, then one isn't ready to write a professional  
science paper. There are honest ways around this: learn to write well  
enough to be published (like everybody else did, whatever the  
language) or get a co-author writer. Writing and publishing a paper  
by copying without fair citation is fraud, not learning. Furthermore,  
if one is knowledgeable enough to judge better writing from worse,  
then one is able to write an adequate sentence oneself, if by no  
other process than writing two sentences, picking the better one,  
writing another sentence, picking the better one of those two, and  
repeating until the sentence does a sufficiently good job that its  
time to move on to the next one, and then let someone else be the  
judge. I would think that a lot of people learn to write this way,  
even in their so-called native languages.

and

"If students are copying the works of others to represent as their  
own, then this becomes a plagiarism."

Writing occurs much, much more to me like work, and like the "works"  
that I produce, than any other part of being a scientist. Everything  
leading up to it is usually so enjoyable that I would probably only  
classify the writing part of my job as the "work" part of my job. As  
a very slow, very mediocre writer myself, I empathize with people who  
say they have a hard time writing, but I do not believe we should be  
afforded special rights (if WT's list, or something like it, is the  
"law" that applies to everyone else) to jump ahead in the game (e.g.,  
by copying). In my limited experience, the effort behind a typical  
research paper is something like 50% writing, 40% doing the study,  
and 10% thinking about it and formulating new ideas. So, copying the  
writing is copying the works of others, and it is fraud. Creating the  
combination of words that tell the story is the production of a  
"work", whether poetry or prose. There are lots of people who, for  
whatever reasons, have hard times learning to write, whatever the  
language. There are people who, for whatever reasons, have easier  
times learning to write. That's life. Copying to appear to be a  
better writer is not fair play.

Luke

Acknowledgment
D. DesRochers provided helpful comments on the text.

References
1--http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1216
2--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civil_War:_A_Narrative
********************************
Luke K. Butler
Post-Doctoral Associate
Department of Biology
Tufts University
165 Packard Ave
Medford, MA 02155
ph: 617.627.4036
fax: 617.627.3805
********************************


On Jun 7, 2009, at 1:45 AM, Hamazaki, Hamachan (DFG) wrote:

Cara Lin,

I think you are too hard on the issue about plagiarism toward non- 
English speakers.  And as Jim pointed out, there are only so many  
intelligible ways to state a simple idea.  And there are only a few  
efficient and elegant ways to state an idea.

Everyone, including native English speakers learn how to speak and  
write by copying someone else's, which is called learning not  
plagiarism.  For instance, when I was in a graduate school, my  
professor edited and rewrote my paper almost every sentences to  
show better ways of expressing of my idea. My professor also tasked  
me to read papers and list sentences that elegantly express ideas.   
And, of course, I read and copy writing style manual that show how  
to express ideas the simplest and the most efficient ways.  Because  
of these trainings, my writing style and expressions of idea are  
very similar to my professor's. So, did I plagiarize?  I don't  
think so.  This is part of learning process.

If your students are copying somebody's sentences because their  
writing style and sentence structure are better in expressing their  
own idea, then I call this as learning process.

If students are copying the works of others to represent as their  
own, then this becomes a plagiarism.



Toshihide "Hamachan" Hamazaki, PhD : 濱崎俊秀：浜ちゃん
Alaska Department of Fish & Game
Division of Commercial Fisheries
333 Raspberry Rd. Anchorage, Alaska 99518
Ph: 907-267-2158
Fax: 907-267-2442
Cell: 907-440-9934
E-mail: toshihide.hamaz...@alaska.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news  
[mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of James Crants
Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 7:10 PM
To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Plagiarizing methods...

Cara Lin,

I don't think it's plagiarism to state a very simple idea (like  
your PCR
conditions) using the same words someone else did, since there are  
only so
many intelligible ways to state a simple idea.  The University of  
Calgary
has some information on how they define academic plagiarism (
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~hexham/study/plag.html) that agrees  
with this
position:

     For example many basic textbooks contain passages that come  
very close
to plagiarism. So too do dictionaries
     and encyclopedia articles. In most of these cases the charge of
plagiarism would be unjust because there are a
     limited number of way in which basic information can be  
conveyed in
introductory textbooks and very short articles
     that require the author to comment on well known issues and  
events like
the outbreak of the French Revolution, or
     the conversion of St. Augustine, or the philosophical  
definition of
justice.

Also, the Office of Research Integrity at the Department of Health  
and Human
Services, USA (Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other  
questionable
writing practices: A guide to ethical writing.  Miguel Roig.
http://ori.dhhs.gov/education/products/plagiarism/plagiarism.pdf.   
p. 14)
does not consider examples such as the ones you identified to be  
plagiarism:

     "ORI generally does not pursue the limited use of identical or  
nearly
identical phrases which describe a
     commonly-used methodology or previous research because ORI  
does not
consider such use as
     substantially misleading to the reader or of great significance."

(I include quotes AND indentations because Roig is quoting a caveat  
in ORI's
definition of plagiarism, and I'm quoting him without knowing just  
what
document he's quoting from.)

Overall, I think it's commonly accepted that brief bits of text  
conveying
simple ideas will offer the author only so much maneuvering room,  
and it's
not plagiarism if there's really no sensible way of stating the  
idea in a
novel way.  So, yes, I would say you are being overly harsh if you are
failing grad students for "copying" PCR reaction conditions,  
especially if
the only evidence for plagiarism is that they used the same words  
someone
else did to describe the conditions (i.e., if you don't know  
whether they
really copied or just converged on the same wording).

I would recommend checking out the above links and the loads of  
other good
sources you can find by searching for "plagiarism definition" or  
"academic
plagiarism" online.  True, it's not always clear what is or isn't
plagiarism, but I think the slope seems a lot less slippery when  
you look
into how other people and organizations have tried to tackle the  
issue of
defining plagiarism.

Jim Crants

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 3:38 AM, Cara Lin Bridgman  
<cara....@msa.hinet.net>wrote:

James Crants' response is addressing the problem.  Many people  
with English
as a second or third language are trying to write papers in  
English.  It is
very easy to find sentences and paragraphs that have the grammar  
structure
that says exactly what you want if you just change a few key words  
and
numbers.  When trying to write the methods for PCR, for example,  
it is easy
to find someone else's methods, copy these methods, and change the  
times and
temperatures to match the conditions of your own study.  Since  
most people
do not include citations for things like PCR protocol, the copied  
methods
may not be cited.

When I point out to students and colleagues that it is plagiarism  
to write
methods (and papers) by cut and pasting sentences (and paragraphs)  
from
published papers, I often get the response "But my English is so  
poor!"
 True.  Their own written English is usually barely readable. The  
thing is,
when I ask if it is ok to write a paper this way in Chinese,  
they'll all
quickly say it is not.  So, if it's not ok to copy in Chinese,  
then should
not be ok to copy in English!  I had to quit teaching in one  
school because
I could not get the students or their advisors to make this  
connection.

The problem my students have with PCR methods is that they have  
only found
4 ways of writing PCR methods.  They did not do this survey to  
find ways to
copy, but because they (and I) could not think of a new way to  
describe PCR
conditions.  So it looks as though even native English speakers  
are copying
a sentence structure and changing the times and temperatures to  
match their
experimental conditions.

I was taught and I'm trying to teach, that we have to write things  
using
our own words (paraphrase) and we have to give citations for the  
ideas
(including methods and techniques).  For me, reading something,  
putting it
away and then sitting down to write my own version, may result in
similarities with the original and may not.  I teach my students  
to go back
and check to make sure their sentence uses their voice and is really
different from the original published sentence.  The thing is,  
we've run
into a wall when it comes to describing PCR.

And here is the real kicker.  I've been failing graduate students for
copying things, including methods like PCR reaction conditions.   
So, am I
being too harsh as a teacher?

I confirm the plagiarism by checking student phrasing against  
wording in
papers they cite.  My philosophy is that it is better the students  
make
mistakes and fail now, while in school, than later when they are  
trying to
build their professional careers.  I make it clear that my goal is  
not to
fail them, but to help make sure they understand the right way to  
write.
 It's when they plagiarize on the final paper that they fail. This is
because plagiarism on the final paper is evidence they've not  
learned how to
avoid the problem.

But my students and I have a new problem: what about things like PCR?


CL

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cara Lin Bridgman         cara....@msa.hinet.net

P.O. Box 013 Shinjhuang   http://megaview.com.tw/~caralin
Longjing Township         http://www.BugDorm.com <http:// 
www.bugdorm.com/>
Taichung County 43499
Taiwan                    Phone: 886-4-2632-5484
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




--
James Crants, PhD
Scientist, University of Minnesota
Agronomy and Plant Genetics
Cell:  (734) 474-7478