Plagiarism

A lot of politicians are being accused of plagiarism at the moment - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21395102. 

10 of my students have been awarded PhDs and I have as many ongoing students - none have plagiarised. How do I know?

Because I have alerted them to the dangers and monitored them step by step and chapter by chapter. Their work is about their professional practice and is therefore unique. Similar material not downloadable. No one else has done their particular research focus before . 

If students have plagiarised, their supervisors should have spotted it. Universities in their turn need to give supervisors sufficient paid time to supervise properly. One of my Masters students once plagiarised in his dissertation draft. One third of the dissertation was copied and pasted from an uncited article on the internet. It was easily found, via google, not even the specialist software. He had to resubmit honestly. I suspect he had a history of academic cheating never picked up before.

Less deliberate acts of plagiarism are much more common, and it is these that may be getting the politicians into trouble, as they do not appear to be aware that they have plagiarised. It happens because of poor research practice. They read a book, jot down points they are interested in but don't remember to put quotation marks around verbatim notes. Later, they read their notes and use the passage, not remembering that it is a verbatim quote and treating it as their own words. So a little bit of plagiarism creeps in.

I recommend therefore research hygiene: always put quotation marks where they are needed even in rough notes - it is not arduous. And put the page number in the margin to save you trying to find the page reference later.

Some plagiarism is academic incompetence and some is deliberate deception. Deception (cheating) should put politicians out of a job, but incompetence is a different matter. Few politicians are competent anyway.