Germany’s plagiarism hunter spies victory in war on misconduct

It would be important to clarify the definition of plagiarism. Virtually all scientific publications will have a similarity index above zero. Some may have quite a high similarity index, say 20%, but still be on safe grounds in terms of plagiarism. Some disciplines (such as literature, sociology and philosophy) may include substantial quotes from other sources and these will push up the similarity index without raising any concerns about plagiarism, provided citations are in order, etc. Plagiarism is a huge threat to both academic standards in higher education and to the sustained credibility of scientific publishing, but what exactly constitutes plagiarism is not always that clear cut. As previous editor-in-chief of the European Management Journal, I rejected a number of papers because they were plagiarised, but I also accepted some with a high similarity index as they clearly made an independent contribution to new knowledge.

Interesting article, but could you please stop using Google to translate the quotations from German. There are two mistranslations which should be obvious to any native speaker of English, because they don't make sense: 1. “there are clear rules. When you go over the rules, your home team is punished.” The German was probably: "Wenn man die Regeln übertritt..." = "If you break the rules, then your team is punished". 2. 'In German politics, “you only come forward if you use your elbows” '. The German was probably: "man kommt nur vorwärts, wenn man die Ellbogen benutzt." = "You only get on (or progress) if you use your elbows." I am amazed that the author of this piece didn't notice this but, more importantly, are there no sub-editors at the THE?

I find this a bit disturbing. If someone has plagiarised, surely they know what they have done, even if they don't want to admit it to anyone else - so why ask for an external check? But more seriously, is not the problem with academic supervision? Why have the doctorates been awarded in the first place if the research is not original? What does this say about all those doctoral candidates who haven't chosen to go into politics? Or does this fellow have a completely different concept of 'plagiarism' from the standard academic meaning of passing off someone else's work as your own?

I too am puzzled by this. In fact I’ve just tweeted my puzzlement. Supervision is to guide the student towards ensuring originality in all parts, especially the research itself. The literature review must of course use previous work. Plagiarism is avoided by correctly citing. The examination process of the thesis, including the Viva Voce, unearths anything untoward. Is it really the case that in Germany every aspect of the quality assurance process is omitted? I find that hard to believe. In any case, as has already been stated, those who plagiarise know what they’ve done. So it’s even odder that they want to ‘unearth’ it...

A useful contribution and comments on plagiarism. This is one aspect of academic integrity being examined further under the Council of Europe's ETINED platform. Do ensure your views are fed back to the Ministry which sends representatives to the ETINED meetings. Currently a working group, to which I belong , is finalising a questionnaire to all 50 participating states.