Daily Times

Plagiarism is a very serious, common problem everywhere. Students, professors, politicians, and writers, when caught with plagiarized material in their articles, speeches, and books, are punished by being dismissed or fired from their institutions, while others admit, apologize, and move on. In one case, a faculty member who had plagiarized her dissertation not only lost her job but also her degree. In another case, a faculty member was awarded tenure, but when a whistleblower reported the plagiarised material in her work, her tenure was rescinded without any further consequences. In most cases, no action is taken or plagiarized work is never found and life goes on. Many more examples of academic plagiarism are addressed in my article, “Plagiarism in Academia” published in 2009 in the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Plagiarism has many definitions. Oxford University defines it as “presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgment.” Plagiarism is unethical and unprofessional. No one should benefit from other people’s work. However, if students are caught, they pay a higher price than others.

In an anonymous op-ed in TheGuardian online on October 27, 2017, the writer reported that: “When a professor ripped off my work in a journal, they escaped unpunished. How can we expect academic originality from students if we don’t uphold it?” The writer found a portion of his/her article copied by a professor: “It turned out a whopping 285-word chunk in the article was copied verbatim, just minimally changed, but several other sections in the article used my arguments without credit. No footnote or reference acknowledged my work.” The author pursued the matter with the editor, who made the writer admit to the plagiarism and made the correction. However, the writer states, “Despite this having happened three years ago, something still rankles: the plagiarist got away scot-free. We try to instill in our students a deep respect for source material and references. But if established academic tries to pass off other people’s work as their own, and gets caught, is a retroactive citation the only consequence?”

Plagiarism is a common problem. The plagiarist admits the offense but nothing happens because of his/her position while students are summarily punished and their future is destroyed. The anonymous writer in The Guardian states that: “Having spoken to colleagues over the years, I have gained the impression that the unattributed use of others’ ideas is something widely known and strongly resented, but rarely talked about or openly problematical. In academia, kudos for original analysis should be a key to success, and we need to be forthcoming about acknowledging others’ contributions.”

Educators are supposed to set examples of honesty, ethics, and morality for the children of the nation, and these educators should not receive promotions or tenure by unethical, dishonest means

The plagiarism problem can be easily solved if the reviewers and the editors of academic journals take the responsibility to check every article for plagiarism and require every author to submit along with the manuscript a signed statement that the article contains no plagiarized material. Unfortunately, with the pressure on editors to produce a journal on time with a certain number of articles, they are hesitant to do so. Also, most editors do not require the reviewers to check for plagiarism as reviewers are given a limited time to review an article. Also, reviewers are not paid for their work, so the editors are reluctant to impose additional responsibility on them. These reasons allow plagiarism to continue with no end in sight.

My article “Plagiarism in Academia” lists many examples of plagiarism including several suggestions on preventing and catching plagiarism. Since the publication of my article, not much has improved. Many cases have occurred and many writers have been caught. Recently, a well-known alumnus and a professor at Harvard were found to have published plagiarised articles, and a professor at a university in Wisconsin was caught having plagiarized a publication. As a result, in 2019 some newspapers, i.e. The Harvard Crimson, a student paper of Harvard University, and The Wisconsin State Journal contacted me to find out how to solve and/or eliminate this problem. My article suggests many methods for preventing plagiarism, catching plagiarists, and solving the problem of plagiarism. Unfortunately, my methods require someone following the procedures, which takes time. For example, they require all candidates for promotion/tenure to first submit a signed statement saying none of their publications contain plagiarised material, and all promotion/tenure committee members must review submitted material for plagiarised content and sign a statement attesting to whether the publications are plagiarism-free.

In addition, in many cases, the candidate’s department colleagues make a decision about promotion/tenure which could be biased/subjective. I suggest that only the university-wide committee should make promotion/tenure decisions or preferably a state/province-wide committee will remove any bias and prejudice in personnel decisions. Tenure awards lifetime employment, which not only affects the lives of students but may cost the institution millions if the wrong person is awarded tenure. Therefore, tenure should not be taken lightly by awarding it to a person who has unethical, dishonest tendencies. Educators are supposed to set examples of honesty, ethics, and morality for the children of the nation, and these educators should not receive promotions or tenure by unethical, dishonest means. Therefore, enforcing higher standards for educators will teach children to follow a high moral, ethical, and honest life.

The writer is PhD (USA), Professor Emeritus (USA)