[Marxism] Summers exonerates Harvard's - with a little help from his friends

[Brian Shannon <Brian_Shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

What’s the solution to plagiarism? Yesterday I listened to part of a 
BBC program on the subject. There are estimates that up to 80% of 
students are plagiarists. One student said that he used Stigler in 50% 
of his economics essays because he knew that his teacher considered him 
the ultimate authority. He never attributed Stigler, which probably 
helped, and was never caught! Perhaps some other graduate student was 
doing the reading.

The same student said that he got nothing out of the lectures, only out 
of seminars.

One of the owners of a plagiarism mill was both apologetic and 
defensive. Her opinion was that with the old tutorial system was much 
better, wherein students were paid attention to and wrote their papers 
under the direct supervision of a tutor. The modern universities are 
little more than diploma mills collecting money from the students and 
the government.

One of the biggest problems in the UK is the expectation of the parents 
of foreign students. They are expected to write the King’s English. 
They may have the intellectual preparation, but not the language.

I propose (1) that the author integrate the material into his/her text, 
attributed only in the footnote with “This paragraph and the 2 
immediately preceding were lifted almost in their entirety from 
Professor XX. I don’t have the time to track down which book, article, 
page, etc. And thanks.”

Or (2) name all the possible sources in the introduction and make a 
contest of it, with the one who discovers the most unattributed 
extracts to receive a prize consisting of credit for editing and fact 
checking in any new edition.

Or (3) adding to the author’s page the notation “with a little help 
from my friends.”

Yesterday, in an e-mail to my son, I found that I had treated some 
stuff from the Boston Globe that I had sent to Marxmail as my own. I 
simply ended the paragraph with [Boston Globe, April 12, 2005]. This 
took away what my own contribution was, but it made clear that most of 
it was from another.

One aid for writers could be to highlight all quoted material in 
another color, perhaps several other colors, identifying each author 
with a note to yourself. The labor at the end would be to go back and 
specify the work and page. However, for most articles it might be 
sufficient just to list the works at the end of the article. Merely go 
back and put the author’s last name in brackets at the end of the 
quoted material.

Finally, a confession that may be good for the soul, but not 
necessarily for my image.  When I was in grammar school or junior high 
school, my parents bought me a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica for 
Juniors (it may have been the adult set, which we got later). I 
discovered that you could send a letter asking for more information. I 
wrote for material on Edgar Allan Poe. I got back long extracts from 
three books or articles. I simply connected the paragraphs together and 
turned it in. Got an A, of course.

Later in high school, I turned in the same paper. By this time, I had 
learned that this wasn’t kosher. Miss Charlotte Brickler gave me an F! 
She pointed out that I hadn’t done anything except write something like 
“So and so says.”

It was one-third of the grade for the course. I had an A for the final, 
an A for the tests, and the F. An A and an F equals two Cs. An A and a 
C equals two Bs, plus the C, giving me a B for the course. I ended up 
salutatorian instead of valedictorian (to a bright student, but one who 
didn’t even take academic courses). I have been angry at authority ever 
since, and it is obviously why I became a revolutionist.

By the way, from time to time, after church choir practice we used to 
go out and steal apples and serenade some locals with dirty songs. She 
was one of those serenaded. I was a good singer, often as a soloist. 
Hmmm ... wonder if there’s a connection.


from Brian Shannon


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