"Something Borrowed"

Malcolm Gladwell's "Something Borrowed" explores a plagiarism charge in some complexity, identifying ambiguities. So why didn't she credit me and Lewis? How could she have been so meticulous about accuracy but not about attribution? Lavery didn't have an answer. 'I thought it was O.K. to use it,' she said with an embarrassed shrug. 'It never occurred to me to ask you. I thought it was news.'

UC Berkeley re-considers plagiarism

"To turn back a rising trend of plagiarism incidents, UC Berkeley faculty may step up efforts to identify and punish cheating by creating a new grading category on transcripts or purchasing new campuswide anti-plagiarism software." See Daily Californian Online.

Student cheating revisited

Donald McCabe recently spoke at Central Michigan University, where he enumerated some old and new statistics. During the course of his various surveys, he's found that upwards to two-thirds of students have cheated; he's also found that "44 percent of faculty members have ignored cheating and 52 percent have never reported cheating to their superiors."

Citation Machine

Citation Machine, is "an interactive Web tool designed to assist teachers and students in producing reference citations for crediting information from other people." It generates citations in both MLA and APA formats. "The principal goal of this tool is to make the proper crediting of information property so easy that it becomes a habit, not a laborious task that we stop doing outside of school."

Plagiarism and the law

A defense lawyer for Lorillard Tobacco accused "a witness for the U.S. government of plagiarism" in an attempt "to undermine his testimony." According to the defense, the witness, Michael Weitzman, a pediatric scientist, had "transplanted" large parts of a 1999 World Health Organization report into the conclusions of his own trial report on how parents' smoking affects children.

New plagiarism scandal @ Newcastle Uni

"Newcastle University has confirmed the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is investigating a student's claim that English-language exams were sold to overseas students."

Plagiarism report labelled a whitewash

Matthew Thompson, who has been covering the Newcastle Uni plagiarism scandal, reports: "An independent expert who was paid $2000 a day to look into allegations of academic misbehaviour produced a report that was a 'whitewash' and a 'cover-up', the Independent Commission Against Corruption heard yesterday.

Combining prevention and detection

Indiana University Pennsylvania provides students with Writenote and Endnote to help avoid plagiarism. And offer the Turnitin service to faculty to help detect plagiarism.

Swedish universities suspend students for plagiarism

Swedish universities are suspending "an increasing number of students" on account of plagiarism. Tina Israelsson at the national body of universities and colleges suggests that the increase in suspensions does not necessarily mean that cheating is on the rise, but rather that "universities are just getting better at spotting plagiarism.

Plagiarism scandal @ Gujarat University

A lecturer in GU's Economic department is alleged to have committed plagiarism. He's accused of having published under his own name the work of another scholar.