Plagiarism 101
LEIGH POMEROY
I confess. In order to help pay the bills I teach courses part-time at Minnesota State University Mankato, often in film, sometimes in mass communications, and periodically — when I'm totally desperate for cash — English composition.
I love the students. They're often the bright part of my day, and certainly more friendly than the LCD screen on my Apple PowerBook, which unfortunately is on the verge of giving out — the screen, that is, not the PowerBook.
At any rate, one of the chief lessons I teach my students is that plagiarism — the representation of someoone else's material as one's own — is a no-no. Some of them are not taught this in high school, or so they claim. Others know what plagiarism is but figure, "What the heck? I won't get caught, so I'll try to grab something off the 'net. I've never been caught in the past anyway." Fortunately, the vast majority of my students, if they haven't mastered the concept by the time they enter my class, learn it by the end.
Unfortunately, sometimes our government leaders at home and abroad have never had the benefit of taking my class... or a class like it. Those of us who are old enough to remember 1987 recall that a younger Joseph Biden had an inside track to the Democratic nomination for the Presidency until he was caught cribbing a speech from a British politician.
Something I just came across recently, actually in the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, is that some of the false information used by U.S. and British administrations to justify attacking Iraq was discovered by sleuthing out grammatical errors. In fact, a British dossier used by then Secretary of State Colin Powell to justify the Iraq invasion in his now infamous presentation to the U.N. General Assembly was heavily plagiarized from a report written by a graduate student in the U.S. The Brits had lifted the student's work word-for-word, failing even to correct misspellings and misplaced commas, which is how an enterprising British scholar discovered the academic theft.
Not only did Powell fail to acknowledge the true sources of the dossier, but he represented the information as being current when in fact the plagiarized material was written some 11 years earlier. It is unclear as to whether Powell was aware of the plagiarism or the date discrepancy.
In my classes I constantly hammer upon the students the rigors of proper grammar, punctuation, spelling and mechanics. I also stress the importance of crediting the sources they use in their papers. If they do both their work will earn the credibility it deserves.
If they choose to be sloppy, they'll earn a poor grade. If they choose not to abide by the rules of academic integrity they could fail the course. These are not life threatening consequences.
On the other hand, if such errors are made at the highest levels of government the results can be more extreme. The consequences, as we have seen, can lead to war.
For further reading, see:
I confess. In order to help pay the bills I teach courses part-time at Minnesota State University Mankato, often in film, sometimes in mass communications, and periodically — when I'm totally desperate for cash — English composition.
I love the students. They're often the bright part of my day, and certainly more friendly than the LCD screen on my Apple PowerBook, which unfortunately is on the verge of giving out — the screen, that is, not the PowerBook.
At any rate, one of the chief lessons I teach my students is that plagiarism — the representation of someoone else's material as one's own — is a no-no. Some of them are not taught this in high school, or so they claim. Others know what plagiarism is but figure, "What the heck? I won't get caught, so I'll try to grab something off the 'net. I've never been caught in the past anyway." Fortunately, the vast majority of my students, if they haven't mastered the concept by the time they enter my class, learn it by the end.
Unfortunately, sometimes our government leaders at home and abroad have never had the benefit of taking my class... or a class like it. Those of us who are old enough to remember 1987 recall that a younger Joseph Biden had an inside track to the Democratic nomination for the Presidency until he was caught cribbing a speech from a British politician.
Something I just came across recently, actually in the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, is that some of the false information used by U.S. and British administrations to justify attacking Iraq was discovered by sleuthing out grammatical errors. In fact, a British dossier used by then Secretary of State Colin Powell to justify the Iraq invasion in his now infamous presentation to the U.N. General Assembly was heavily plagiarized from a report written by a graduate student in the U.S. The Brits had lifted the student's work word-for-word, failing even to correct misspellings and misplaced commas, which is how an enterprising British scholar discovered the academic theft.
Not only did Powell fail to acknowledge the true sources of the dossier, but he represented the information as being current when in fact the plagiarized material was written some 11 years earlier. It is unclear as to whether Powell was aware of the plagiarism or the date discrepancy.
In my classes I constantly hammer upon the students the rigors of proper grammar, punctuation, spelling and mechanics. I also stress the importance of crediting the sources they use in their papers. If they do both their work will earn the credibility it deserves.
If they choose to be sloppy, they'll earn a poor grade. If they choose not to abide by the rules of academic integrity they could fail the course. These are not life threatening consequences.
On the other hand, if such errors are made at the highest levels of government the results can be more extreme. The consequences, as we have seen, can lead to war.
For further reading, see:
- "Caught red-handed" from Al-Ahram Weekly Online
- "Brits admit plagiarizing Iraq report: Even spelling, punctuation errors repeated" from SFGate.com
- "British Intelligence Iraq Dossier Relied on Recycled Academic Articles" from the Centre for Research on Globalisation
- "UK accused of lifting dossier text" from CNN
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