Plagirism again, please join the discussion on research gate

[Miriam Butt]

Hi,

just to weigh in.  I was also quite bemused by Valia's response to 
Stefan's outraged outreach to the communities that are important to him.

Sure, it is an uncomfortable thing.  But, that is because plagiarism 
itself is uncomfortable.  if there is suspicion of plagiarism, it should 
be aired and the communities that are impacted should be alerted (i.e., 
potential reviewers, editors, etc. should be on the look-out).  So I 
also don't think Stefan should be spending time trying to justify himself.

What he should definitely do in addition to alerting us, is to alert the 
university this lady is at and ask for an inquiry.   (it is also 
interesting that her German falters quite a bit in the bits that are not 
colored in, i.e., that are not from other people --- classic sign of 
plagiarism).

I know of two cases at my university where a PhD was rescinded in 
retrospect.  One involved fabrication of data, the other involved 
plagiarism from a number of different works.   The dissertation plus a 
peer-reviewed journal article (!) liberally used stuff from other 
scholars.   The plagiarism came out when a reviewer who had been asked 
to review the dissertation as a possible book publication was surprised 
to be reading very familiar words --- the reviewer's own.   The reviewer 
alerted the publisher, who alerted the university, who conducted an 
inquiry and ended up declaring the dissertation invalid.

Cheers,

Miriam


On 3/30/14 2:24 PM, Dorothee Beermann wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> After Stefan's posts there seems to be no doubt that this is a case
> of plagiarism. Discussions of the case, and the presentation of 
> evidence add to
> reveal a case of serious academic misconduct, which if pursued might 
> have serious consequences for ----------------.
>
>
> I therefore not only thank Stefan, but also Valia for this discussion
>
> It seems to me that ---------------  university is the right 
> institution to look into this case.
>
> Dorothee
>
> PS. I can not detect a gender issue.
>
>
>
>
> Dear Valia, and colleagues,
>>> I personally feel (from the first moment I read the original message)
>>> extremely uncomfortable that all this sensitive info is being 
>>> discussed on
>>> a mailing list, and we are all implicitly/explicitly being asked to 
>>> pass
>>> judgements on the scientific deeds and the quality of such deeds of a
>>> (female) person, and to take sides. Is she a member of any of the lists
>>> where the original email went to? How can she participate in the
>>> discussion and get the chance to defend herself, if there is 
>>> anything to
>>> defend and if she can? I am really sorry to say this. I strongly 
>>> believe
>>> that such issues should be taken to and resolved by justice 
>>> bodies/courts:
>>> defaming someone is bad an offence as plagiarism.
>> if this were about defaming and taking sides, I'd fully agree. But the
>> thread instead is about discovering and sharing hard evidence that
>> someone working in the field has systematically copy-pasted an entire
>> paper and apparently more works.
>>
>> How is the research community supposed to react to the publication and
>> electronic distribution of such blatantly plagiarized work if not by
>> making it public? (Relatedly, journals also publish reviews of other
>> publications, publicly pointing out their virtues and shortcomings.)
>> The alternative idea of taking up such an intellectural property
>> rights case in front of a court as far as I'm aware is not a realistic
>> solution (e.g., the IPR violation caused no or minimal financial
>> damage).
>>
>> It seems crucial to alert the linguistics community that more
>> attention apparently needs to be paid to the reality of blatant
>> plagiarism. Until Stefan's post it seemed that nobody would bother to
>> seriously plagiarize in such a highly-focused, academic field (outside
>> of student term papers).
>>
>> Best,
>> Detmar
>
>

-- 
*************************************************************
Miriam Butt
FB Sprachwissenschaft
Universitaet Konstanz
Fach 184		Tel: +49 7531 88 5109
78457 Konstanz		Fax: +49 7531 88 4865
Germany		             +49 7531 88 5115

miriam.butt at uni-konstanz.de
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/home/butt

"Xander, don't talk Latin in front of the books."
	 Superstar, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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