Orsdxy

I found that a Ph.D. student, recently graduated, plagiarized over a dozen passages from a book I based on my own Ph.D. dissertation of some years ago.

In most instances the student cited me as a source at the end of sometimes long, closely paraphrased passages. I believe this still constitutes plagiarism in the form of "excessive paraphrasing."

As UNC-Chapel Hill notes, for example:

"Even if you cite your source, paraphrasing can still be plagiarism if all you do is rearrange the author's words, delete a phrase or two, or insert a few synonyms and claim the passage as your own."

When I reported the student to their dissertation committee chairperson, nothing happened. The chairperson did not even report the matter as required to the administration.

Dissatisfied, I took the matter to the university's director of student ethics, who told me I had a strong case not only for plagiarism, but for unprofessional conduct. The director assigned a random professor to investigate, who absolved the student of wrongdoing. The only reason given was lack of evidence of intent to deceive.

Again dissatisfied, I took the matter to the president of the university, who agreed to hear my concern. Once I revealed the nature of that concern, however, the president no longer responded. Even the president's assistant, whom the president had included on the discussion, no longer responded.

I have been careful not to come across as a loon (between the president and his assistant, for example, I sent only four emails, only two of which were follow-ups saying "I haven't heard from you: can you confirm receipt?") In short, I think I have responded as any rational person might in such a situation.

I should add I am an experienced scholar widely known in my field. But because I am no longer affiliated with a university, I have no one to represent me. (My publisher says it will take action only if the plagiarism appears in print.)

My question is: at what point should I give up seeking justice? (I would have been content with the student merely rewriting the paraphrased material - but discussions never reached the subject of remediation.)

As you know, there are two separate issues with plagiarism:

• Claiming ideas as one's own


• Claiming words as one's own

You have a legitimate concern about the second -- if this student is going to directly use your words, he needs to use quotes. Attempts to get around this by making one or two insignificant changes are not appropriate.

That said, I can understand why the president of the university didn't want to get involved -- as academic crimes go, this one is quite minor. I agree that the "lack of intent to deceive" ruling was erroneous, which is unfortunate; getting the student to re-write the content, with no other penalty, would have been a far more appropriate outcome.

At what point should I give up seeking justice?

I think it would be appropriate to reach out to the student (I would have started here, personally), their advisor, and the university's ombudsperson (in that order), just asking them to rewrite those sections and to not do it again. If they refuse, it would probably take a lawyer to get them to listen -- but you don't have any damages (not even to your reputation), so that seems a bit excessive in this case.

You seem to be confusing two things. Copyright is about words. Plagiarism is about ideas. If you have something copyrighted (almost anything you write and publish) copying your words is possibly a violation. The other paper may be have overstepped the bounds of copyright here.

But if they credit you with the underlying ideas behind the words, then it isn't plagiarism and is probably why people stop responding when you explain what happened. If the other person says or implies "these are my ideas" when, in fact, they are yours, they have plagiarized and that is true even if they use none of your words to express the idea.

But if you are credited, it just isn't plagiarism. A reader of the other work seem to be able to go to your work to find a more complete context of the idea and the original words.

You may, however, have a copyright claim or not, but it is a completely different issue. It is possible, also, that in publishing a book, you gave your copyright to your publisher. In that case it is up to them to make the claim.

Note that I'm not saying that what was done was ok, just that it better to be accurate in a claim of wrongdoing than to be inaccurate and confuse things.

And to be honest, I'm not close enough to the problem nor do I know enough to be able to say definitively that there is wrongdoing here or not. So I reserve judgement on that.