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RA plagiarism scandal n.X+1
#1
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MORE PLAGIARISM FROM THE SAME OLD CHOSEN FEW

Quote:The fact that it was not just any college student, but the Premier of Alberta himself engaging in a bit of cut and paste plagiarism, made for some scandalous headlines across most major Canadian newspapers. From composition instructors to university students, everyone wanted a chance to weigh in on this case of plagiarism involving Alberta’s Premier.

University students in particular were outraged that Klein was able to slide by with a 77% for such a derivative paper, and many academics criticized Athabasca University for not adhering to its own policy on “Intellectual Ownership and Honesty”. This case is a practical illustration of how a simple cut and paste composing strategy can quickly morph into a major political brouhaha involving Canadian university officials, top government officials, professors, university students, and members of the general public.

The alleged plagiarism in Klein’s paper came to light after some highly controversial comments about the Pinochet regime on the floor of Alberta’s legislature. With members of the Chilean-Canadian community demanding an apology from their Premier for his insensitive remarks, Klein made what he thought was a noble gesture intended to demonstrate that he knew what he was talking about and that he intended no offence toward his Chilean-Canadian constituents.

In this gesture, Klein offered up his paper for public scrutiny. This turned out to be a move he would deeply regret, since perceptive readers in this expanded public audience were quick to note that large sections of the paper had been copied from Internet sources without proper acknowledgment. The paper in question was a thirteen page discussion of “Allende, Pinochet and the Chilean Media” which Klein had submitted for a communications course he was taking from Athabasca University.

Once the allegations of plagiarism were brought out into full public view, Athabasca University had no choice but to conduct a review of such allegations. At one point in this review, Klein’s paper was submitted to Turnitin.com for an originality check. This originality report verified the previous allegations.
Klein’s paper had been composed using a basic cut and paste strategy, and the chunks of lifted text lacked proper citation and quotation marks to indicate that portions of source text were being reproduced verbatim. Since Klein had made his paper available for close scrutiny by the public, there was no taking back the essay once the plagiarism had been discovered.

Many university students expressed dismay at Klein’s evident plagiarism. Students thought he should have received an “F” for such a cut and paste job on a university level research paper. One student remarked, “We as students get kicked out of school for that [plagiarism]”, making reference to Klein’s seemingly preferential treatment by university officials reviewing the case.

A social studies teacher from Edmonton wrote in a letter to the editor of a prominent Canadian newspaper, “My own (junior high) students could have done a better job citing their sources than the premier did”.

University professor Nancy Robbins thought that the passing grade of 77% which Premier Klein received on his paper was rather “generous” and that “for a premier, it says a lot about the type of politician that is running our province.”

Another instructor, Laurie E. Harnick, stated emphatically, “I would have failed him on my course”.

Meanwhile, the outrage and dismay over Klein’s academic infraction continued to be accompanied by demands from the Chilean-Canadian community that Klein apologize for his ill-advised remarks about Pinochet basically being “forced” to stage a coup to put an end to the socialist Salvador Allende’s rule. With regard to these comments--made during a legislative discussion about auto insurance--opposition leader Kevin Taft remarked, “I don’t know what connection was going on in his brain, it [the Pinochet remark] was just so bizarre it just left people shaking their heads.”

For Athabasca University officials, this was an indescribably embarassing moment. To have such a spectacle as the Premier’s plagiarized essay in full public view was nothing less than a public relations nightmare. Klein’s own office staff went into damage control mode and Klein’s line was “I did the paper according to the instructions received, submitted my paper, it was marked by a university professor, end of story. What is the big deal?”

For Athabasca university, however, it was not just “a big deal”. It was a really, really, big, BIG deal. Especially when their phone lines were bombarded with “calls complaining that large portions of the paper were copied straight from the Internet” reported CTV.

With pressure mounting, Klein is on the record as saying “This is crap!” at one news conference where he was pressed for more information on the plagiarism debacle. Expletives and outbursts notwithstanding, Klein’s attempts at damage control seem to have had some influence, particularly as the university review members would be quick to conclude that Premier Klein had done nothing wrong.

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Quote:The premier declined to comment Friday but issued a news release saying he considers the matter now closed.

"Like any student would be, I am relieved to have been cleared on what is to me an important issue of personal integrity," Klein said. "It has disturbed me that Albertans might have been left with the impression that I behaved dishonestly in completing my course work."

Hughes stressed that the university took the complaint seriously.

"We have a pretty clearly prescribed process, and when someone in the community raises a complaint about possible academic misconduct, we are required to conduct a process, and we've done that," she said.

"We're satisfied and comfortable that the process was applied properly, that we applied the process that we would apply to any of our students."
A.A Mole University
B.A London Institute of Applied Research
B.Sc Millard Fillmore
M.A International Institute for Advanced Studies
Ph.D London Institute of Applied Research
Ph.D Millard Fillmore
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#2
(03-31-2011, 04:56 AM)ham Wrote: Klein’s line was “I did the paper according to the instructions received, submitted my paper, it was marked by a university professor, end of story. What is the big deal?”

The fact that he passed the class proves why Klein is so damn smart. He obviously avoided any non-politically correct thought crimes in his paper. He just copied the approved viewpoint: Allende the Marxist = Genius, wonderful, progressive, etc. So what if Klein forgot to change a word in every sentence; every sentence he stole was an approved sentence. If he had actually done any independent thinking or failed to support the party line, then he would have been in some real trouble.

Has anybody checked the prof's syllabus for plagiarism? I bet it was copied verbatim and without attribution from some other prof's syllabus.

I once googled some idiotic comment a prof made on one of my papers and found it was verbatim from the über verboten Wikipedia. The only standard in higher ed is no standard. If it's good enough for Comrade Putin it's good enough for you and me.
Reply
#3
(03-31-2011, 09:56 AM)WilliamW Wrote:
(03-31-2011, 04:56 AM)ham Wrote: Klein’s line was “I did the paper according to the instructions received, submitted my paper, it was marked by a university professor, end of story. What is the big deal?”

The fact that he passed the class proves why Klein is so damn smart. He obviously avoided any non-politically correct thought crimes in his paper. He just copied the approved viewpoint: Allende the Marxist = Genius, wonderful, progressive, etc. So what if Klein forgot to change a word in every sentence; every sentence he stole was an approved sentence. If he had actually done any independent thinking or failed to support the party line, then he would have been in some real trouble.

Has anybody checked the prof's syllabus for plagiarism? I bet it was copied verbatim and without attribution from some other prof's syllabus.

I once googled some idiotic comment a prof made on one of my papers and found it was verbatim from the über verboten Wikipedia. The only standard in higher ed is no standard. If it's good enough for Comrade Putin it's good enough for you and me.

Here is the original paper.

Quote:Allende did not control the entire state machinery — he did not have a
majority in Congress, he did not control the judiciary, he did not have the loyalty of the
entire civil service nor of much of the army high command, which had been trained in the
United States. The upper classes owned most of the mass media, and used it against him
(the CIA also gave money to conservative newspapers and radios to do a vicious smear
campaign playing on fears of communism). (Internet)

Wow...is this awesome referencing style APA, Harvard or MLA?

But what would you expect from some social-communist crackpot named GHH-LAAH-EEH-EEEN (that's how you'd hear it spelled in original, not Kleen or something).
A.A Mole University
B.A London Institute of Applied Research
B.Sc Millard Fillmore
M.A International Institute for Advanced Studies
Ph.D London Institute of Applied Research
Ph.D Millard Fillmore
Reply


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