As an academic, I am always offended when I see plagiarism. But I am not surprised when a Trump admin pick, such as Monica Crowley, is caught red-handed, having plagiarized much of her book. I am envious of CNN's graphically clear way of presenting the offending texts. I wish I could do that when I spot plagiarism.
Why should we care? Because dishonesty is bad. If Crowley cheats when she "writes" a book, will she be honest in her job as, wait for it, senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council. Yes, NSC officials can lie, but to have a reputation as a proven liar means that her credibility both within and outside of the Trump admin comes pre-tarnished.
Also, it suggests that, if the iron law of cheating is correct, Crowley is lazy and dumb. Not great attributes for someone who is working on the National Security Council.
Will the Trufolks abandon her? Probably not, as shame is not something these folks care about. Which juxtaposes quite clearly with what happened to a rising star in German Politics, former Defense Minister Von Guttenberg who lost his job because people found out he plagiarized his dissertation. The upside: my favorite video from his retirement ceremony
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Showing posts with label plagiarism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plagiarism. Show all posts
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Self-Plagiariasm: So Hip These Days
Thanks to the latest Trump-tastic night of conventioneering, self-plagiarism is now mainstream. Last night, Donald Trump Jr.'s speech used the words from an article in the American Conservative by F.H. Buckley:
To be clear, self-plagiarism is not as clearly problematic. I don't think I heard the phrase until a few years ago. Scholars often published pieces of the same research in different places, and there used to be very little comment about it or expectations. Over time, the norms have changed, with the expectation that one publishes distinct enough pieces from the same project OR one clearly acknowledges the source material.
Sometimes, it is hard to be completely new, as the data speaks most clearly in a certain way. I have used the same graph of the percentage of question period in Canada dedicated to the detainees issue in my book and in a piece on executive-legislative relations for a special issue (if it survives the R&R process). But, of course, for the latter piece, I include a note referencing the former piece.
Political speeches don't have footnotes, so one cannot treat them quite like academic pieces of work. Stump speeches are the same basic speech over and over again with just some revisions to fit the news or fit the location. Big speeches at conventions have higher expectations, and speechwriters are expected to write completely new speeches rather than recycling old material. Buckley was either too lazy or too enchanted with his previous phrasing to write a completely new speech or strangely enough to toss in, "as argued recently in the American Conservative."
The larger point is that this Trump organization is a bunch of amateurs who are poorly supervised, led by those with really no principles. Donald Trump Sr has made a career of taking other people's stuff and then only reluctantly paying, usually underpaying. It has worked so far, so why should he change his ways?
Many folks will say this plagiarism stuff is distraction sauce, as it causes us to focus on this rather than the racism in some speeches, the anti-democratic content of others, and the lunacy of Carson. I focus on the rancid serving of distraction sauce here less because I am an outraged academic and more because there is something positive about these bursts of writing misdemeanors. That is, Trump's campaign is a mess--it is poorly organized, is messing up the easy stuff, and stepping all over its messages. This is good news for November, as it is very unlikely that the campaign will become more professional as it goes along. The learning curve is simply very flat here, and even if lessons are learned, the organization and the candidate lack the discipline to follow the lessons.
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 20, 2016Turns out that the guy who wrote the article also wrote the speech (despite assertions that Trump wrote it himself). Recycling your work is self-plagiarism, which is not as bad as the old-fashioned plagiarism that Don Jr's step-mom did the night before.
To be clear, self-plagiarism is not as clearly problematic. I don't think I heard the phrase until a few years ago. Scholars often published pieces of the same research in different places, and there used to be very little comment about it or expectations. Over time, the norms have changed, with the expectation that one publishes distinct enough pieces from the same project OR one clearly acknowledges the source material.
Sometimes, it is hard to be completely new, as the data speaks most clearly in a certain way. I have used the same graph of the percentage of question period in Canada dedicated to the detainees issue in my book and in a piece on executive-legislative relations for a special issue (if it survives the R&R process). But, of course, for the latter piece, I include a note referencing the former piece.
Political speeches don't have footnotes, so one cannot treat them quite like academic pieces of work. Stump speeches are the same basic speech over and over again with just some revisions to fit the news or fit the location. Big speeches at conventions have higher expectations, and speechwriters are expected to write completely new speeches rather than recycling old material. Buckley was either too lazy or too enchanted with his previous phrasing to write a completely new speech or strangely enough to toss in, "as argued recently in the American Conservative."
The larger point is that this Trump organization is a bunch of amateurs who are poorly supervised, led by those with really no principles. Donald Trump Sr has made a career of taking other people's stuff and then only reluctantly paying, usually underpaying. It has worked so far, so why should he change his ways?
Many folks will say this plagiarism stuff is distraction sauce, as it causes us to focus on this rather than the racism in some speeches, the anti-democratic content of others, and the lunacy of Carson. I focus on the rancid serving of distraction sauce here less because I am an outraged academic and more because there is something positive about these bursts of writing misdemeanors. That is, Trump's campaign is a mess--it is poorly organized, is messing up the easy stuff, and stepping all over its messages. This is good news for November, as it is very unlikely that the campaign will become more professional as it goes along. The learning curve is simply very flat here, and even if lessons are learned, the organization and the candidate lack the discipline to follow the lessons.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Political Plagiarism and Trump Campaign Incompetence
I went to sleep last night thinking that Melania Trump's speech was the only decent highlight of the night. The political experts I follow were wondering how the Trump campaign could not close with it, as LTG (Ret.) Mike Flynn's speech was more of the shit-show that was the rest of the day at the RNC. I wake up, I find myself having flashbacks to plagiarist episodes in my career. Why?
Oh my.
First, plagiariasts, like pathological liars, often look better than their colleagues. I had one class where the best student was the plagiarist: he/she could do the reading and talk about it during the class sessions because he/she was not doing the writing. He/she had more time! Melania looked better than the rest of the speakers because she was using, in part, the words that had been well written and revised and edited by professionals .... unlike the rest of the speakers. That should have been the giveaway.
Second, Chris Christie really said tried to excuse the speech as being 93% original since only 7% appeared in Michelle Obama's speech in 2008--the part about hard work and ethics!!!! This reminds me of the plagiarist who, when asked by a staff member in my department if he/she plagiarized, said a little bit. Which leads to two responses:
This reminds me of the Iraq invasion. I knew that Rummy and his folks would screw it up, but I could not imagine how badly they would screw it up. I thought this convention would be a shit-show (sorry, no other word for it), but I had no idea that the first day would start with:
So that's pretty blatant, right? pic.twitter.com/EPnHME7afV— Mike Hearn (@mikehearn) July 19, 2016
Oh my.
First, plagiariasts, like pathological liars, often look better than their colleagues. I had one class where the best student was the plagiarist: he/she could do the reading and talk about it during the class sessions because he/she was not doing the writing. He/she had more time! Melania looked better than the rest of the speakers because she was using, in part, the words that had been well written and revised and edited by professionals .... unlike the rest of the speakers. That should have been the giveaway.
Second, Chris Christie really said tried to excuse the speech as being 93% original since only 7% appeared in Michelle Obama's speech in 2008--the part about hard work and ethics!!!! This reminds me of the plagiarist who, when asked by a staff member in my department if he/she plagiarized, said a little bit. Which leads to two responses:
- A little bit plagiarized is like being a little bit pregnant. You either are or you are not. No middle ground.
- 93% My guess is that that other parts of the speech came from other sources, as plagiarists, in my humble experience, tend to borrow from more than one source. Folks just found the most obvious source--the speech by a candidate's wife at a national convention. [Update: I forgot that she RickRolled].
This reminds me of the Iraq invasion. I knew that Rummy and his folks would screw it up, but I could not imagine how badly they would screw it up. I thought this convention would be a shit-show (sorry, no other word for it), but I had no idea that the first day would start with:
- Alienating the Colorado delegates by messing up the voting procedures
- Alienating the Utah delegation with Trump fans threatening one in a (women's) bathroom. She wasn't even trans gender, which would have been going along with the general GOP policy guidance, I guess.
- Alienating the Ohio delegation as Paul Manafort, the campaign "manager", spouted off about the Governor of Ohio, John Kasich.
- Platform gets more news than they would like as it softens language on Putin, because GOP just love Russia?
- Donald Trump walking in to the music of a gay man who died of AIDS--Freddie Mercury.
- The candidate's wife was given a speech that might have been 93% original.
- Scott Baio.
- Did this set such a low bar the media can claim that the next three days are successful simply because they are better than the first day?
- Could it possibly get any worse? (Not sure the country could handle it)
- This convention stuff is actually supposed to be the easy part of the campaign as it can all be stage-managed. If Trump and Manafort and the rest of his dis-organization cannot handle this, how will they handle the debates, the media as it gets more assertive, HRC and her surrogates as they ramp up their attacks, etc?
Monday, January 4, 2016
Iron Law Omission: Cheating
When I posted the Iron Laws of University Life, I forgot one key Iron Law:
Of course, I may take too much comfort in this Iron Law--that smart cheaters get away with it. And that probably happens, but the majority of cheating I firmly believe is detectable precisely because the people involved are dim and lazy. Whether it is detected depends on the assignments professors develop and how attentive they and their teaching assistants are.
I always used cheating as an example of expected utility:
But yet some cheat--those who don't get this math. Which then goes back to dim...
Whenever I think of cheaters who get away it in the short term, I am reminded of:
Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg (yes, I copied his name from Wikipedia), who was the German Defence Minister before he was revealed to be a plagiarist. He went from being seen as the potential successor to Merkl to giving a lousy talk at defence conferences in Canada.
The bright side is that it gives me an excuse to post one of my favorite videos of all time:
Iron Law of Cheating: Most cheaters are either not bright or are very lazy, but most are both dim and lazy.I was reminded of this tonight by Max Fisher:
This axiom is, um, axiomatic cheating can be risky, leading to F's and even expulsions, so why cheat if one is bright and not lazy? Ok, when one is ambitious... I had a student who was on the edge of qualifying for honors, and chose to put together three or four papers into one master argument for an honors class. In his/her presentation, it sounded pretty good. But then when I read the paper, the cutting and pasting eventually revealed itself, including the inclusion of a footnote thanking big name scholar for his comments.just got a very strange email from a student asking about an article i never wrote pic.twitter.com/XSATjefri7— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) January 5, 2016
Of course, I may take too much comfort in this Iron Law--that smart cheaters get away with it. And that probably happens, but the majority of cheating I firmly believe is detectable precisely because the people involved are dim and lazy. Whether it is detected depends on the assignments professors develop and how attentive they and their teaching assistants are.
I always used cheating as an example of expected utility:
postulating the benefits of cheating are an improvement of one grade (from a C to a B or a B to an A in the grade in one class), which might mean a slight uptick in one's GPA over four yearsFor most students, the calculus would deter against cheating as the small uptick of one's GPA is not worth the slim chance of an F on one's record. The student who caught cheating got an F in an honor's class. You can imagine what signal that sends to potential graduate programs.
the likelihood of being caught is low, say 10%
the penalty for cheating is a F for the course
so small change in GPA > or < .1*F
But yet some cheat--those who don't get this math. Which then goes back to dim...
Whenever I think of cheaters who get away it in the short term, I am reminded of:
Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg (yes, I copied his name from Wikipedia), who was the German Defence Minister before he was revealed to be a plagiarist. He went from being seen as the potential successor to Merkl to giving a lousy talk at defence conferences in Canada.
The bright side is that it gives me an excuse to post one of my favorite videos of all time:
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Cheating Bots and Profane Reactions
I was kind of soliciting opportunities to be a discussant rather than write a paper for the next APSA, which led to a bot tweeting me this:
Anyhow, I have received questions from folks:
I responded thusly@smsaideman Our tutors will write your paper for you. Send the directions to us at homeworkdoer@gmail.com https://t.co/IhDi3PytQ5— Savan gib (@savan_gib) December 31, 2015
I think I might be ending my twitter year with the most liked tweet with the fewest retweets. That is, my academic friends are in agreement but perhaps don't like to retweet that which has profanity.Fuck you and all of your kind. https://t.co/k0Z6KU0MFM— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) December 31, 2015
Anyhow, I have received questions from folks:
- is this legal? I have no idea.
- Can students be punished for using such services? Hells yes. The question is of detection. If professors write the assignments well, then the "tutors"/cheating-facilitators will likely write papers that don't pass the sniff test. The reward for being caught? Often an F, sometimes expulsion, definitely the burning of bridges and academic cred. I did have a student in an honors class seek to get a better grade to keep his/her status, but his/her cheating was detected and punished with an F. So much for letters of recommendation from me....
- Why do students do this? Because a few are lazy, fearful, late, or desperate or all of the above.
- Is it always bad? Um, I discovered only last week or two, that my work was being cited in a paper assignment (the prof's statement of what he/she wanted in the paper) that had been deposited at the website of one of these paper mills. So, all citations are good ones, right? No. Not when used to provide instructions to the paper mill.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
We Are Role Models for Evil!
I stumbled across this on the internet. I was pretty flattered to see this:
I tried to find the course for which this paper was assigned. I didn't find any smoking guns, but it might have been assigned by the European Institute for Public Administration.
What started out as an early Christmas present turned into an ewwwwwwww. Ick.
Anyhow, as I have said here and on radio lately, anything can be used for good or evil: pop culture references, the force, etc. So too, apparently can our style of presentation. Damn. Can I blame el Nino and climate change? Nope, because students cheating is as old as education, and paper mills existed long before the internet. Alas.
Under this assignment, you should work through all of these questions and then present the topic as you would in a final work, i.e. talk about the concept first and then present the cases (remember how Cohen or Saideman/Auerswald presented their work!).But then I checked out the website: it is a paper mill!!! They take students' paper assignments and write papers for students for $$. What started out as a cool feeling that our work was being used as a model for papers turned into a sick realization that our work was being used to evil.... for students to dodge their own assignments by paying someone else to do it for them.
I tried to find the course for which this paper was assigned. I didn't find any smoking guns, but it might have been assigned by the European Institute for Public Administration.
What started out as an early Christmas present turned into an ewwwwwwww. Ick.
Anyhow, as I have said here and on radio lately, anything can be used for good or evil: pop culture references, the force, etc. So too, apparently can our style of presentation. Damn. Can I blame el Nino and climate change? Nope, because students cheating is as old as education, and paper mills existed long before the internet. Alas.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The Educational Political Peter Principle
Germany is about to lose yet another minister to plagiarism. This time it is the ..... what for it..... Minister of Education. Before, it was the Minister of Defense. For some reason, politicians in Germany think that a PhD is a requisite for higher office, so they end up cheating along the way to get there. I think the Germans would do themselves a huge favor by changing expectations--that an MA in a policy-oriented program, perhaps just with classwork and no thesis, might be sufficient for high political office.
Am I posting this due to schadenfreude? No. I am posting this because it gives me an excuse to post my favorite video: the retirement ceremony of former Minister of Defense Von Guttenberg
Am I posting this due to schadenfreude? No. I am posting this because it gives me an excuse to post my favorite video: the retirement ceremony of former Minister of Defense Von Guttenberg
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