Plagiarism at Harvard

[Langue_doc]

After a couple of these types of paper (none nearly as egregious as this example), Gay's sloppiness just doesn't seem that bad.  I suppose the level expected of a PhD dissertation is a much different criteria, however.

This is much worse, because Gay had the privilege of attending an exclusive private school before going to Stanford and Harvard. A couple of examples might not seem "that bad", but there appear to be several examples of missing attributions in her list of eleven publications. According to her website her Harvard dissertation as well as her Stanford thesis were awarded prizes by the departments concerned.

I earned my PhD from the Department of Government at Harvard University in 1998 and was awarded the department's Toppan Prize for the best dissertation in political science. I earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Stanford University, where I graduated in 1992 with Honors and Distinction and was awarded the Anna Laura Myers Prize for the best senior thesis in Economics.

Dancing around the word "plagiarism" does no one any favors. Regardless of the reasons--laziness or sloppiness to properly credit sources or willfully appropriating someone's ideas/findings, such copying is still cheating. Despite having the honor code in the syllabus, having one of the students read it aloud the first day of class, and warning the class that instructors are required to report instances of plagiarism, I once had a hand go up the first day of class, followed by a question as to whether or not I used Turnitin. I don't use Turnitin, so the student promptly uploaded a plagiarized low-stakes assignment on the LMS. When I showed Stu the original along with the webiste it was copied from, Stu withdrew. Stu had the option of resubmitting the assignment.

What Gay did was egregious, because there appears to be a pattern of forgetting to attribute sources, and even more so because she was the president of a university.

[Langue_doc]

In the NYT today--

Harvard Defends Its Plagiarism Investigation of Its Former President
The university released its most detailed account of its handling of plagiarism accusations against Claudine Gay, who resigned earlier this month.

The first six paragraphs of the article:

In a report to a congressional committee, released on Friday, Harvard gave its most detailed account yet of its handling of the plagiarism accusations against Claudine Gay, who resigned this month as the university's president.

The basic outlines of the saga were known, but Harvard had not disclosed many details, which had led to questions about the impartiality and rigor of its investigation.

In its account, Harvard defended the thoroughness of its plagiarism review. It said an outside panel had found Dr. Gay's papers to be "sophisticated and original," with "virtually no evidence of intentional claiming of findings" that were not hers, even as it found a pattern of duplicative language in three papers.

But its account also shows a university governing board that was slow to do a full accounting of her work. Instead, over several weeks, Harvard scrambled to investigate a steady drip of plagiarism accusations, unable to give an immediate, authoritative response to questions about Dr. Gay's scholarship.

The report is part of a broader submission of documents by Harvard, made in response to a Dec. 20 letter from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which is investigating plagiarism and antisemitism accusations against universities. That committee held the now notorious hearing on campus antisemitism at which Dr. Gay and two other college presidents were criticized for their legalistic answers to questions about antisemitism.

The committee said it was currently reviewing Harvard's submission. So far, only the plagiarism report has been publicly released.

[marshwiggle]

In its account, Harvard defended the thoroughness of its plagiarism review. It said an outside panel had found Dr. Gay's papers to be "sophisticated and original," with "virtually no evidence of intentional claiming of findings" that were not hers, even as it found a pattern of duplicative language in three papers.

So are they basically saying that as long as it's not results published in the paper that are copied, it's not a big deal if other stuff is?

[Wahoo Redux]

In its account, Harvard defended the thoroughness of its plagiarism review. It said an outside panel had found Dr. Gay's papers to be "sophisticated and original," with "virtually no evidence of intentional claiming of findings" that were not hers, even as it found a pattern of duplicative language in three papers.

So are they basically saying that as long as it's not results published in the paper that are copied, it's not a big deal if other stuff is?

Authors sometimes paraphrase too closely to the original.  It's hard sometimes when someone says something so gracefully and perfectly to keep from absorbing it.  I am doubly watching myself as I get stuff ready for the publisher right now----although I assume no one would care as much if I used "duplicative language" as they do with Gay.

[ciao_yall]

In its account, Harvard defended the thoroughness of its plagiarism review. It said an outside panel had found Dr. Gay's papers to be "sophisticated and original," with "virtually no evidence of intentional claiming of findings" that were not hers, even as it found a pattern of duplicative language in three papers.

So are they basically saying that as long as it's not results published in the paper that are copied, it's not a big deal if other stuff is?

Authors sometimes paraphrase too closely to the original.  It's hard sometimes when someone says something so gracefully and perfectly to keep from absorbing it.  I am doubly watching myself as I get stuff ready for the publisher right now----although I assume no one would care as much if I used "duplicative language" as they do with Gay.

Agreed. When are you following an "editorial style" and when are you duplicative?

The sky is... Blue. Azure. Aquamarine. Cornflower. Sapphire.

[marshwiggle]

In its account, Harvard defended the thoroughness of its plagiarism review. It said an outside panel had found Dr. Gay's papers to be "sophisticated and original," with "virtually no evidence of intentional claiming of findings" that were not hers, even as it found a pattern of duplicative language in three papers.

So are they basically saying that as long as it's not results published in the paper that are copied, it's not a big deal if other stuff is?

Authors sometimes paraphrase too closely to the original.  It's hard sometimes when someone says something so gracefully and perfectly to keep from absorbing it.  I am doubly watching myself as I get stuff ready for the publisher right now----although I assume no one would care as much if I used "duplicative language" as they do with Gay.

Agreed. When are you following an "editorial style" and when are you duplicative?

The sky is... Blue. Azure. Aquamarine. Cornflower. Sapphire.

So I guess then if students run someone else's stuff through a synonymizer and submit it as their own, it's no problem, since that's way less "duplicative".

[Langue_doc]

In its account, Harvard defended the thoroughness of its plagiarism review. It said an outside panel had found Dr. Gay's papers to be "sophisticated and original," with "virtually no evidence of intentional claiming of findings" that were not hers, even as it found a pattern of duplicative language in three papers.

So are they basically saying that as long as it's not results published in the paper that are copied, it's not a big deal if other stuff is?

Authors sometimes paraphrase too closely to the original.  It's hard sometimes when someone says something so gracefully and perfectly to keep from absorbing it.  I am doubly watching myself as I get stuff ready for the publisher right now----although I assume no one would care as much if I used "duplicative language" as they do with Gay.

Duplicative language is considered plagiarism, at least in Freshman Comp classes where we spend hours going over examples of what is considered plagiarism. See some of the postings earlier in the week on the Bang your head thread. Institutions and instructors do care. All Gay had to do was to use quotation marks. Harvard and other institutions penalize students for improper citations including the omission of quotation marks. Talk to anyone who teaches writing/comp classes.

[dismalist]

Defining Deviancy Down.

[Wahoo Redux]

Talk to anyone who teaches writing/comp classes.

Well, that would be me.

[Sun_Worshiper]

It is definitely plagiarism, but there are levels, and this does not rise to the level of serious academic misconduct imo. That said, I have come to the conclusion that it is serious enough for her to have lost the presidency over, even though it was obviously not an investigation carried out in good faith by her critics.

[marshwiggle]

It is definitely plagiarism, but there are levels, and this does not rise to the level of serious academic misconduct imo. That said, I have come to the conclusion that it is serious enough for her to have lost the presidency over, even though it was obviously not an investigation carried out in good faith by her critics.

It seems to me that the obvious standard that should be applied is one that is, at least, as strict as what would be applied to students. So, if you'd fail a student for it, then you sure better have pretty serious consequences for the president of Harvard-freakin-University.
Otherwise stop hassling students over it.

[dismalist]

It is definitely plagiarism, but there are levels, and this does not rise to the level of serious academic misconduct imo. That said, I have come to the conclusion that it is serious enough for her to have lost the presidency over, even though it was obviously not an investigation carried out in good faith by her critics.

It seems to me that the obvious standard that should be applied is one that is, at least, as strict as what would be applied to students. So, if you'd fail a student for it, then you sure better have pretty serious consequences for the president of Harvard-freakin-University.
Otherwise stop hassling students over it.

Applying any minimal standard of honesty would bar Gay from a faculty position at any university.

While it may indeed seem that some of the plagiarizing is trivial -- forgetting to enclose one or the other passage in quotes -- there are 40 to 50 of such instances! It seems plagiarism for Gay is a way of life.

Less attention has been paid in public to her apparent data falsification. She got different results in her PhD thesis and the paper that ensued from it. Ostensibly, the same data was used, but it could not have been. She also refused to make her data public. The lack of attention is probably due to the fact that most journalists don't understand the problem.

For all that, if Harvard had wanted to keep her, that would've been OK. Competition among universities would right things.

[Sun_Worshiper]

It is definitely plagiarism, but there are levels, and this does not rise to the level of serious academic misconduct imo. That said, I have come to the conclusion that it is serious enough for her to have lost the presidency over, even though it was obviously not an investigation carried out in good faith by her critics.

It seems to me that the obvious standard that should be applied is one that is, at least, as strict as what would be applied to students. So, if you'd fail a student for it, then you sure better have pretty serious consequences for the president of Harvard-freakin-University.
Otherwise stop hassling students over it.

Applying any minimal standard of honesty would bar Gay from a faculty position at any university.

While it may indeed seem that some of the plagiarizing is trivial -- forgetting to enclose one or the other passage in quotes -- there are 40 to 50 of such instances! It seems plagiarism for Gay is a way of life.

Less attention has been paid in public to her apparent data falsification. She got different results in her PhD thesis and the paper that ensued from it. Ostensibly, the same data was used, but it could not have been. She also refused to make her data public. The lack of attention is probably due to the fact that most journalists don't understand the problem.

For all that, if Harvard had wanted to keep her, that would've been OK. Competition among universities would right things.

A faculty position? No. Not necessarily. It is not imo the case that this rises to serious academic misconduct of the sort that would lead to firing a tenured faculty member. She did not, as far as we know, fake or manipulate her data, for example - if she did, as you suggest, then that is a different story. But the presidency is not like a tenured faculty position, it is a public facing position that requires the confidence of various stakeholders, and she had lost that.

I don't follow what you are saying about competition among universities. That already exists.

And there is no uniform standard for failing students on plagiarism. Everywhere I have ever been, the language is something like "students can suffer various penalties for plagiarism, including failing the assignment or even the class." Plagiarism has levels to it and the penalties for students vary accordingly.

[kaysixteen]

There are levels of plagiarism, and levels of potential punishment for it, but Harvard's own www statement makes it clear that the conduct was plagiaristic, and would produce, ahem, negative consequences for even a first-semester frosh doing what Gay clearly did-- and doing it once, unlike Gay's serial plagiarism adventurism.   And in any case, does any school not punish unambiguous plagiarism at all?

[Sun_Worshiper]

There are levels of plagiarism, and levels of potential punishment for it, but Harvard's own www statement makes it clear that the conduct was plagiaristic, and would produce, ahem, negative consequences for even a first-semester frosh doing what Gay clearly did-- and doing it once, unlike Gay's serial plagiarism adventurism.   And in any case, does any school not punish unambiguous plagiarism at all?

It has produced punishment for Gay. The question is whether that punishment should be expanded to a lost faculty position.