Plagirism again, please join the discussion on research gate

[Claire Bowern]

I think the issue is that just because someone keys your car door,
that doesn't make it ok to slash their tires.
Claire

On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 3:12 PM, Miriam Butt <miriam.butt at uni-konstanz.de> wrote:
> 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 I know of two cases at my university where a PhD was rescinded in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
>
> *************************************************************
>
>