A sweet disorder in the prose
Kindles in me oohs and ohs:—
A plagiarism has me thrown
Into a fine distractión,—
An erring line, which here and there
Enthrals the happy reader fair —
A quote neglectful, and thereby
Prose that flows confusedly,—
A shocking theft, deserving note,
From something that was ‘fore that wrote —
A careless word-string, in whose sense
I see fantastic fraudulence,—
Do more bewitch me, than when prose
Is too precise in every pose.
****************************
Can UD be the only person who thrills to tales like these?
An elected member of the Nevada Board of Regents is amending his 1995 University of Nevada, Reno dissertation following the discovery that more than four pages of it were copied from an uncited California report.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in late August that Regent Jason Geddes, who has defended the Nevada System of Higher Education against allegations it plagiarized a think tank’s report, had copied material in his own academic work.
Geddes has a doctorate in environmental sciences and health and has been a member of the Board of Regents since 2006.
Geddes’ adviser Glenn Miller was adamant Geddes did not plagiarize — despite pages of paragraphs being copied exactly, with the exception of an occasional word change and conversions to the metric system. Miller said it wasn’t plagiarism because dissertations aren’t widely read, the copied work was accurate and the copied language wasn’t creative …
Breathes there the soul which aren’t widely read fails to quicken? The copied work was accurately copied! The copied work was not creative! Please tell UD she’s not the only person bewitched not merely by plagiarism, but by (recalling this classic) excuses for it!
Yet for all the delight one takes in the defenders, there is nothing like the audacious copyists themselves. Recall, merely among professors, the selfsame University of Nevada’s Mustapha Marrouchi, who had apparently been plagiarizing (from hundreds of sources) for decades. Think, more recently, of Arizona State’s Matthew Whitaker, whose “resignation” will cost that university hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But if you ask UD, hundreds of thousands of dollars is a bargain. These guys and their shenanigans (note what Whitaker’s got going on with the City of Phoenix) might be fun for UD to follow, but when you get down to it, they’re really embarrassing.
January 17th, 2016 at 2:25PM
I wrote this earlier. Thought you’d like it. Here’s the beginning:
I think that I shall never see
a poem as lovely as a tree
January 17th, 2016 at 3:39PM
What you have to remember, UD, is that while these guys and their shenanigans (note what Whitaker’s got going on with the City of Phoenix) might be fun to follow, when you get down to it, they’re really embarrassing.
January 17th, 2016 at 4:01PM
Dr_ — Wish I’d said that.
January 18th, 2016 at 8:18AM
I have a feeling that someone might want to take a look at Glenn Miller’s other doctoral prodigies.
January 18th, 2016 at 8:23AM
Probably a whole band of them, tp.
January 18th, 2016 at 10:01AM
Well, y’know, Your Honor, I killed the sumbitch, nobody knew him, nobody’ll miss him, I hit center of mass of mass, didn’t waste no ammo . . . so why’m I being indicted?
January 18th, 2016 at 3:43PM
“aren’t widely read”
That sounds like MY dissertation. Hmm.