PLAGIARISM IN A NUTSHELL:
WHAT IS PLAGIARISM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
What is plagiarism?
1- Taken word by word, or lifting word by word, or in a worst case scenario, taking the whole article or book, and claim them as yours. (Nowadays, plariarizing a paragraph can be a big issue in some places/institutions/universities; And in some other places, the issue is quickly swept under the carpet, esp. Third world or developing countries).
[i.e. Stealing or copying somebody's work or idea, the process of copying another person's idea or written work, and claiming it as original (or yours). (Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved)].
2- Without proper citation or reference.
3- Lastly, have you ever heard of the concept ‘Plagiarizing Yourself’? Yes, this happens when your article is already published in one journal, and you have the ‘same’ article published in another journal (with a different heading/title, but ‘content’ 100 percent the same. That can also be considered as 'self-plagiarism.'
However, it was said that if you re-write the same article, but with a different title/heading, and 40-60 percent new input, that is consider as a ‘new‘ article. e.g. "A Revisit of the NEP from the ..."
Overall, I am still caution, and a bit worry of such a claim - Anyhow, “plagiarizing yourself” is NOT as bad-worst as plagiarizing others, still to aviod is always the BEST or good thing to do! ).
What is not plagiarism?
1- “Paraphrasing“, not verbatim (i.e. taken word for word).
[i.e. Rephrase and simplify, or to restate something using other words, especially in order to make it simpler or shorter, or easier to understand (Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved)].
2- Proper citation and referencing (i.e. Author‘s name, date published, title of the article or book, place(s) of publication, publishers, and even to the page(s) number concerned).
3- Use many references, to avoid claims from one author. (i.e. since it’s the idea/point of a few authors, so how can they say that that’s idea/point is exclusively their alone?). In academic writing, one source or citation or reference is legally and morally adequate, for a paragraph. But if more sources are cited, it shows that you have considered a few options (or sources of references) - and that is scholarly writing.
4- Also be extra careful of the ‘Public Domain’ claims by some websites, resources or institutions - stating that you can take ALL that you can - it may backfire and caught you later. Always cited your source/reference/author’s work (or acknowledgement of the source).
Consequences:
1- Demotion (i.e. lowering in rank). IF you are lucky enough, your institution/university will just only demoted you. In most parts of Third world or developing countries, the issue is quickly swept-off the carpet. But if you are unlucky, and some hot-shot university authority or politician, or person of higher authority, already dislike you, this is their chance to ’kill you off permanently.’ So never make that mistake.
2- Discharge or sack or dismissal, from the institution/university.
3- In some case, legal actions can be taken, this is rampant especially in the music industry, art and design industry, software and technology development based industry, and even in the book industry.
4- For a Masters (MA/MSC), and/or PhD students, he/she can be called back after 5-10-20 years later, to face the institution, and be withdrawn the ‘title’ (or entitlement).
Conclusion:
So with today’s innovation in IT and ICTs, plagiarism is the more all “easy to do“, and likewise, its also the more all “easy to trace” (to the original source), so never assume that if you are staying in a far away place/country, somewhere in the outback of Africa or Asia or Europe, people cannot trace or discover that you plagiarized - think again! DON’T take that risk!
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Plagiarism Worldwide Phenomena
SEE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_plagiarism_controversies
Plagiarism in India by leading Professors and Scientists
SEE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_plagiarism_in_India
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Marks Chabedi, a professor at the University of the
Witwatersrand in South Africa, plagiarized his doctoral thesis. He used a work written by Kimberly Lanegran at the University of Florida and copied it nearly verbatim before submitting it to The New School. When Lanegran discovered this, she launched an investigation into Chabedi. He was fired from his professorship, and The New School revoked his
Ph.D
Source:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071012182522/http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i43/43c00101.htm
Fending Off a Plagiarist: An assistant professor found herself having to prove that her dissertation was really hers
By KIM LANEGRAN, PhD
A colleague on my campus calls me the "scourge of student plagiarists." I'm proud of that reputation. But I had an experience this year in which plagiarism nearly defeated me, shaking my faith in academe's core values as well as my ability to turn my students into honest scholars.
While I was resigned to fighting plagiarists in my classroom, I had not expected to have to fight one for credit for my own dissertation. A doctoral student at Northeast Urban University -- I'll call him Mr. X -- presented my dissertation as his own. He received a Ph.D. and took an excellent research job at Prominent African University. Through my subsequent efforts,
he lost his degree, his job, and his reputation.
Here's what happened: Some years ago, just after I defended my dissertation, I received a call from Mr. X. He had read one of my publications, and because we were studying the same African social movement, asked whether I had written anything else on the topic. An innocent enough question. I've made similar requests myself.
Since my dissertation was not yet bound in my university's library,
I put a copy of it on a disk and mailed it off to him. I put his name and address in my Rolodex and kept a lookout for his work.
Last summer I discovered that he had defended his dissertation three years after I defended mine. I requested a copy of it through interlibrary loan. As soon as the dissertation was in my hands, I flipped first to the bibliography to see which of my works he had cited. Yes, I'm vain.
"Humph. He didn't cite my dissertation," I thought. I flipped to the table of contents. "Wow, he asked the same questions I did." I read the abstract. "Damn. Those are my words."
My heart pounded.
This was my dissertation!
In the acknowledgement, he thanked his beloved for her patience during the years it took him to write it. Write it? He didn't even have to type it; I sent it to him on disk.
He copied many of my chapters
word for word. Other chapters were slightly altered so as to make the arguments totally fraudulent. I did research in three African towns; Mr. X said he had studied two other towns. So where I quoted statements by an activist or scholar from town A, he changed the names and said that they were speaking about town Z.
It was equivalent to taking a quotation from Garrison Keillor about life in Minnesota and saying that Woody Allen said it about New York City.
I immediately contacted the dean at
Northeast Urban University, who quickly started an investigation. Even though my dissertation predated Mr. X's, the dean still asked me for copies of my interview tapes with informants and for copies of some primary sources that I had quoted. Colleagues thought I should be incensed and hoped Mr. X was being asked to produce documentation as well.
While gathering evidence to prove that my dissertation was
actually mine, I confronted many dark thoughts about this profession. Mr. X must have thought that he would get away with his theft because nobody reads dissertations. Was he correct? Was all that work simply a hoop to jump through to get the Ph.D.? What is the value of a doctoral degree if dissertation committees take as little care with their students as Mr. X's did with him?
His adviser is a prominent scholar I've met at conferences. Although he is not an expert in the country or social movement covered in my dissertation, shouldn't he have known Mr. X's ideas and writing style well enough to recognize that the submitted dissertation did not sound like Mr. X's work? Shouldn't the committee have expected to see the process of Mr. X's arguments evolving or read drafts of chapters? At the very least, shouldn't the committee have told Mr. X to update my literature review and rework some of my convoluted logic and awkward prose?
Is cheating so pervasive that even someone who seeks a career in academe will violate the fundamental principle of giving other scholars credit for their work? If so, what hope do I have of inculcating that principle in students eager to escape quickly with their B.A. in hand?
People have asked whether I felt like an idiot for having sent Mr. X my dissertation. Did I want to sue him? Would I share my work in the future?
There certainly were moments when
I was furious. Reading Mr. X take credit for conducting, transcribing, and analyzing my 109 interviews did bring tears to my eyes. Once a student asked me, "So how long did it take you to write the dissertation?" Standing before the class, I realized that Mr. X had essentially taken credit for years of my full-time work.
Certainly, I have learned that researchers must hold on to their
primary sources. I've written this article in part as a cautionary tale to fellow scholars. Send copies of your primary sources to archives if you desire, but
keep the originals to yourself.
Because I had overwhelming evidence that my accusations against Mr. X were true, Northeast Urban University was convinced that it had to take the ultimate step of rescinding his Ph.D. Yet the university consistently signaled to me its desire to maintain confidentiality, which I interpret as evidence that it feared being sued by Mr. X. In fact, the university appeared far more afraid of Mr. X than of me, which I found quite frustrating.
I don't believe Mr. X planned on presenting my dissertation as his own when he first received it from me. But for some reason he became sufficiently
desperate to commit a tragic and foolish fraud. And I do regard this as a tragedy rather than a personal victory. I heard from another faculty member at Prominent African University that Mr. X had been admired by his colleagues and was a role model for young scholars, all of whom subsequently came to feel betrayed by him. He called Mr. X's ouster "a nightmare" for all concerned.
Clearly they think it was outrageous that Mr. X plagiarized my work. But they do not yet see that Mr. X got away with what he did precisely because he did not have a professor who checked all of his sources. They do not yet see that I check their sources so that I can teach them a skill and a principle that could keep them from someday losing a degree, a job, or a reputation.
Kim Lanegran is an assistant professor of political science. For an archive of previous First Person columns, see: http://chronicle.com/jobs/archive/firstpersonarch.htm.
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Source:
http://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciplak
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_plagiarism_controversies
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/mar/24/20060324-104106-9971r/
Vladimir Putin: Former Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of plagiarism by fellows at the Brookings Institution, who allege that "
large chunks of Putin's economics dissertation on planning in the natural resources sector were lifted from a management text published by two University of Pittsburgh academics nearly
20 years earlier."
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David R. Sands (March 24-25, 2006). "Researchers Peg Putin as a Plagiarist over Thesis". The Washington Times.
Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/mar/24/20060324-104106-9971r/
(Friday, March 24-25, 2006)
Researchers Peg Putin as a Plagiarist over Thesis
Vladimir Putin — KGB spy, politician, Russian Federation president, 2006 host of the Group of Eight international summit — can add a new line to his resume: plagiarist.
Large chunks of Mr. Putin’s mid-1990s
economics dissertation on planning in the natural resources sector were lifted straight out of a management text published by two University of Pittsburgh academics nearly 20 years earlier, Washington researchers insisted yesterday.
Six diagrams and tables from the 218-page dissertation mimic in form and content similar charts in the Russian translation of the Americans’ work as well, according to Brookings Institution senior fellow Clifford G. Gaddy.
“
It all boils down to plagiarism,” he said. “Whether you’re talking about a college-level term paper, not to mention a formal dissertation, there’s no question in my mind that this would be plagiarism.” The dissertation, which Putin scholars have tried in vain for years to examine, is one of a number of mysteries surrounding the enigmatic Russian leader’s academic career.
The official Kremlin biography asserts Mr. Putin obtained a “
Ph.D. in economics” in 1997 from the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, but his thesis was for a “candidate of sciences” degree that is considered at least an academic class below a formal doctoral degree.
In a semiautobiographical series of interviews published just after he was named president of Russia in 2000, Mr. Putin does not even mention the thesis, referring only to preliminary work he did on another dissertation on international law at the then -
Leningrad State University in 1990 while still formally an employee of the KGB.
It is not even clear when Mr. Putin wrote the thesis, formally titled “
The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations,” although it is known he returned from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 1997 to defend his work.
What is clear, according to Mr. Gaddy and fellow Brookings researcher Igor Danchenko, is that large sections of the dissertation’s central argument were taken almost word-for-word from the 1978 management text “Strategic Planning and Policy,” by
University of Pittsburgh professors William R. King and David I. Cleland.
Mr. Gaddy said that in the
20 pages that open the dissertation’s key second section, 16 pages are taken either verbatim or with minute alterations from the American work. The book had been translated into Russian by a KGB-related institute in the early 1990s.
The thesis writer does cite the King-Cleland work as one of his 47 sources, but gives no indication that paragraphs and pages are being taken unchanged from the earlier work. “
Somebody was cutting corners,” said Mr. Gaddy, “whether it was Mr. Putin or whoever cut-and-pasted the work for him.”
Western researchers have reported continual frustration since Mr. Putin took power in obtaining a copy of the dissertation. Mr. Danchenko said the Brookings researchers learned that a Moscow technical library had a text of the work in its electronic files.
A friend signed up as a subscriber to the library and was able to obtain a copy, he said
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Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_Constantine
http://chronicle.com/article/Columbia-U-Fires-Teachers/41200
Madonna G. Constantine, is a former psychology and education professor at Columbia University's Teachers College. She was fired in 2008 on grounds of plagiarism (and also other controversial issues).
Education and early career: Constantine earned a B.S. in psychology from Xavier University of Louisiana in 1984, an M.S. from the same institution in counseling, and a
Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Memphis. She worked at the
University of Texas at Austin for five years at the Counseling and Mental Health Center before becoming the
director of the
Temple University vocational counseling center. She joined Teachers College, Columbia University in 1998, earned tenure in 2001, and (after a brief interlude at Ohio State University became a full professor in 2003.
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Source:
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/04/msu_professor_plagiarized_and.html

Michigan State University (MSU), Professor Sharif Shakrani
EAST LANSING – Michigan State University professor Sharif Shakrani is “guilty of research misconduct” for plagiarizing paragraphs in his 2010 school-consolidation study commissioned by The Grand Rapids Press and Booth Michigan newspapers, a university research integrity committee says.
Separately, the committee also found three other articles with “clear instances” of plagiarism by Shakrani, all published in 2008 to 2009 in an MSU publication called “New Educator.” Those instances are unrelated to Shakrani’s 2010 report and were uncovered in the course of the investigation, said James Pivarnik, a research integrity officer for Michigan State University.
A discipline decision is pending, the university said Monday in a statement to The Press. "MSU Senior Associate Provost June Youatt will review the findings in order to determine if sanctions or disciplinary actions are warranted,” Pivarnik said.
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COPY AND PASTE MPs IN AUSTRALIA
Source:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/12354259/thomson-cut-and-pasted-report/
COPIED REPORT ADDS TO MP SCANDAL: LIBS
AAP
Updated December 15, 2011, 11:38 am
The federal opposition says reports embattled
Labor MP Craig Thomson plagiarised sections of a report he made about his taxpayer-funded overseas study tour add to the whiff of scandal around him.
Mr Thomson passed off speeches by overseas officials and outdated
Wikipedia articles as his own work in a parliamentary report on his 42-day trip that cost
$24,000, Fairfax newspapers said.
Liberal backbencher Kelly O'Dwyer called for Mr Thomson to offer a better explanation than he gave to Fairfax newspapers.
Mr Thomson said it was not an academic exercise.
"There is a real whiff of scandal around Craig Thomson," Ms O'Dwyer told Sky News on Thursday. "I think when it comes to entitlements, expenses ... the Australian taxpayers have every right to know that their money is being spent wisely."
Speaking to reporters in Sydney later, Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said that deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop had plagiarised an essay from New Zealand businessman
Roger Kerr in 2008.
"It's a bit rich for people in the coalition to be pointing fingers when they've got a deputy leader,
Julie Bishop, who is a repeated plagiariser and has been caught out in parliament on more than one occasion," Ms Plibersek told reporters in Sydney.
Also see,
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1612773/Thomson-%27cut-and-pasted%27-report
