An official in an Australian legal society has resigned after plagiarizing much of an article that appeared in the society’s journal, Proctor.
The organization, the Queensland Law Society, has been profoundly uncooperative with the Australian, the newspaper that uncovered the copying, refusing to comment at all even as its director of “people and organisational performance” leaves the organization in disgrace.
Why did it take a newspaper to catch flagrant plagiarism on the part of one of its officials? Why, faced with obvious malfeasance, did the organization react with tight-lipped annoyance to a newspaper’s questions about it?
At the very least, the QLS ought to have released a statement about how the journal’s editors will do a better job of reviewing its manuscripts.
Its pompous denials, and then its clipped, reluctant admissions, make clear that while the QLS considers plagiarism perfectly okay, it finds its disclosure a disgrace.
October 1st, 2009 at 8:47PM
Thanks so much for your comment on my story!
October 1st, 2009 at 9:08PM
Russell: You’re very welcome.