plagiarism
TagTheoria Publishes Recap & Assessment of CNRS Plagiarism Scandals
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) hosted two related plagiarism scandals in recent years. One concerned the serial plagiarism of one of its medieval philosophy researchers. The other concerned the attempted whitewashing of this plagiarism by a CNRS-appointed commission tasked with investigating the plagiarism charges. A recent editorial in th..
The AI-Immune Assignment Challenge
AutomatED, a guide for professors about AI and related technology run by philosophy PhD Graham Clay (mentioned in the Heap of Links last month), is running a challenge to professors to submit assignments that they believe are immune to effective cheating by use of large language models. (more…)
It’s All Too Hard to Get Plagiarizing Philosophy Publications Retracted (guest post)
“It can involve an unreasonable amount of time, an unreasonable amount of work, and an unreasonably uphill struggle to obtain retractions of philosophy publications, no matter how blatant the plagiarism discovered and how indisputable the documentation.” (more…)
Plagiarized Articles at the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy? (updated)
Mark Thakkar (St. Andrews) says he has discovered plagiarism in around 40 articles in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (more…)
Citations and the Ethics of Credit
A philosopher putting together resources for a professionalization seminar for graduate students in his department writes in with concerns about the “ethics of credit” in philosophy. (more…)
CNRS Commission Defends Roques in Response to Plagiarism Accusations / Update: Roques Dismissed from CNRS (updated)
A commission formed by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) has issued a statement defending a researcher in medieval philosophy against multiple charges of plagiarism. (more…)
Philosopher Revealed as Serial Plagiarist (multiple updates)
A researcher specializing in medieval philosophy has plagiarized the writings of a number of scholars in several of her published works, according to an editorial in Vivarium, an academic journal of medieval and early-modern philosophy. (more…)
Students Have Easy Access to Ghostwriters for Hire — What Should Teachers Do?
Recently, Eric Winsberg (South Florida), as an experiment, tweeted, “Who could I pay to write a five-page essay for me that I need to turn in for my philosophy class?” (more…)
Translation Plagiarism in Philosophy
“Many readers—from peer reviewers to journal readers—are underprepared to discern that a plagiarizing work has already appeared in print in another language under different authorship.” (more…)
Topic-Appropriate Excuses for Plagiarism in Philosophy Papers
For a paper on time travel: “I didn’t plagiarize David Lewis’s 1976 American Philosophical Quarterly paper. In 1975, he traveled to the future and plagiarized me!”
(more…)
Philosophy’s Plagiarism Patrol
The body of published scholarship in my discipline—academic philosophy—suffers from a host of authorship violations, including plagiarism, undisclosed pseudonyms, and duplicate publication. These problems appear to be largely unknown to many in the field, even though some of the most egregious cases have appeared with the top presses. (more…)
Plagiarist’s University Issues Criticism …of the Whistleblower
Last month we learned how philosophy professor Michael V. Dougherty (Ohio Dominican) and his students discovered and reported that Peter J. Schulz, a Professor of Communication in the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Lugano (also known as Università della Svizzera italiana, or USI), plagiarized the work of philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny and Pope..
Peter J. Schulz Plagiarizes Again—And Is Caught By Philosophy Prof.’s Class (updated)
Peter J. Schulz, who has a PhD in philosophy from Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Germany) and is currently employed as Professor of Communication in the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Lugano, and who already had four plagiarism-related retractions (and three citation-related errata) to his name, was again found to have plagiariz..
When You Should Have Been Cited, But You Weren’t
A philosopher writes in with a query at the intersection of research ethics, publishing norms, and academic etiquette. (more…)
Plagiarism In Philosophy: How Publishers Respond
How do publishers respond to cases of plagiarism in philosophy? Michael V. Dougherty, professor and Sr. Ruth Caspar Chair in Philosophy at Ohio Dominican University, looks into the matter in a new article in Metaphilosophy, “Correcting the Scholarly Record in the Aftermath of Plagiarism: A Snapshot of Current-Day Publishing Practices in Philosophy.” (more…)..
Did Gorsuch Plagiarize? Philosophers & Others Consulted (updated)
Politico has consulted several “experts on academic integrity” to assess whether Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch plagiariazed parts of his book, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, which was a revised version of his D.Phil thesis, as well as an article in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, while the White House has produced statements from sev..
Crispin Sartwell Removed from Dickinson Campus (updated with responses from Nehamas and Zagzebski)
Crispin Sartwell, associate professor of philosophy at Dickinson College, reports today that he has been “removed from campus” for posting a video of Miranda Lambert’s song, “Time to Get a Gun.”
Over the past several days, Professor Sartwell had launched accusations at his blog that his work had been plagiarized or at least had gone wrongfully uncited by Alexande..
Student Plagiarism in Philosophy Classes
Do you use Turnitin or SafeAssign in your courses to help deter and catch plagiarism? It turns out such software is not very good, reports Inside Higher Ed. Here are the results of a recent test conducted by Susan E. Schorn, a writing coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin:
Out of a total of 37 sources, the software fully identified 15, partially identi..
Plagiarism Policies
In November of last year, Daily Nous hosted a guest post that exposed the extraordinary plagiarism of Iranian philosopher Mahmoud Khatami (follow-ups here and here). One of the articles alleged to be a work of plagiarism was a 2007 article of his in Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy, entitled “On the illuminationist approach to imaginal power: outline of ..
University of Tehran Statement on Khatami
The University of Tehran has issued a statement on the plagiarism allegations against Mahmoud Khatami (reported earlier here and here). I have been provided with two translations of the statement. One is by someone who prefers to remain anonymous. It is reprinted below. The other is by Shirzad Peik Herfeh, assistant professor of philosophy at Imam Khomeini Internat..
Update on Khatami Plagiarism Case
University of Tehran philosophy professor Mahmoud Khatami, who has been accused of extensive plagiarism (including his Durham University PhD, several articles, and an allegedly ghost-written book about him) is on sabbatical in Canada and has not yet responded to inquiries about the charges, according to sources in Iran.
The story has been pursued in several Irani..
A Case of Extensive Plagiarism (guest post) (updated)
The following guest post* provides evidence that Mahmoud Khatami, a professor of philosophy at the University of Tehran who is well-known and widely-celebrated in Iran, plagiarized parts of his dissertation, which he wrote for his 1996 Ph.D. degree from Durham University. It also provides evidence that a book about Khatami’s work was plagiarized (and notes that the ..
Philosophy Professor Implicated in UNC Academic Fraud Investigation (several updates)
Philosophy professor Jan Boxill was named as an active participant in an academic fraud scheme in a 136-page report issued earlier today by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill entitled “Investigation of Irregular Classes in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies.” The report details the existence of a number of phony “paper classes.” Accordi..