2008 Woodie Awards
Plagiarism is rampant among teachers, too
Matt Eveland
Staff Writer
Issue date: 4/21/08 Section: Opinion
As students most of us are probably used to the lectures and lessons of plagiarism, the temptation and the watchful eyes on the other side. I can hardly remember a class where that same old paragraph didn't lay it's head on the pages of a syllabus or the lips of a stern teacher. And most of us tend to look at those teachers as the ever vigilant enforcers, which is reasonable I suppose. Academia after all, is built on the idea of the teacher as an authority, and its one we all like to believe, more than that want to believe.
Earlier this year an article came out on a little program designed to search through academic journals; the point being to give scientists a tool to allow for rapid searches of scientific papers to save time, until a grad student came across the idea of using it to search out the less reputable sides of science. In just a handful searches they turned up dozens of instances of double publishing and more than a handful of articles out right plagiarized. A few heads I suppose rolled, and at least one prominent scientist is looking at a career quickly falling, beyond that the controversy soon died before it ever seemed to begin.
In fact most people have never heard of it, and probably never will. Many of those who do know, and those that read this article, probably won't ever know what to make of it: a few bad apples out of so many, so what's to make a fuss about? But it touches on something, and something no just limited to the sciences, but that cuts across the entirety of academia. So much of our schooling, and so much of our world as a whole is rooted in the idea of infallibility, the idea of an authority figure that it seems we don't want to let go of it. And the fact that not much else will probably ever come of this just helps to bury our heads deeper. Looking good is always more important than doing what's right, a truth most people seem unfortunately apathetic toward.
What to take away from this is admittedly hard to say: should we loose the trust, should we let it go? To even look its self it seems would destroy much of that trust we rely on, but may be in the end that's what needs to be done.
Earlier this year an article came out on a little program designed to search through academic journals; the point being to give scientists a tool to allow for rapid searches of scientific papers to save time, until a grad student came across the idea of using it to search out the less reputable sides of science. In just a handful searches they turned up dozens of instances of double publishing and more than a handful of articles out right plagiarized. A few heads I suppose rolled, and at least one prominent scientist is looking at a career quickly falling, beyond that the controversy soon died before it ever seemed to begin.
In fact most people have never heard of it, and probably never will. Many of those who do know, and those that read this article, probably won't ever know what to make of it: a few bad apples out of so many, so what's to make a fuss about? But it touches on something, and something no just limited to the sciences, but that cuts across the entirety of academia. So much of our schooling, and so much of our world as a whole is rooted in the idea of infallibility, the idea of an authority figure that it seems we don't want to let go of it. And the fact that not much else will probably ever come of this just helps to bury our heads deeper. Looking good is always more important than doing what's right, a truth most people seem unfortunately apathetic toward.
What to take away from this is admittedly hard to say: should we loose the trust, should we let it go? To even look its self it seems would destroy much of that trust we rely on, but may be in the end that's what needs to be done.
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