ETHOS

NOVEMBER 2014

A Monthly Publication of the International Center for Academic Integrity Featuring Summaries of Integrity News + News from the Center

Quote of the Month

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

From the Director

-William Shakespeare A Reminder re: Reminders . . .

How the Library of Congress Got Caught Up in a

Mark Twain Plagiarism Scandal
By: Daniel Hernandez

Quartz qz.com

11/23/2014

Mark Twain once joked that whenever a copyright law is to be

made or altered, then the idiots assemble. A lesser-known fact of
Twains life is that he lobbied vigorously for stronger copyright
protections, vexed by piracy of his work both at home and abroad.
They talk handsomely about the literature of the land, Twain told a
House committee in 1906. And in the midst of their enthusiasm,
they turn around and do what they can to discourage it.
The they Twain referred to were the laws and lawmakers
themselves. And in the United States, copyright law is administered
by the Copyright Office, which is a part of the Library of Congress.
So its no small irony then that a new book about Mark Twain, coauthored by the Library of Congress, appears to contain text copied
from at least five different sources, all with no attribution.
An independent scholar, Kevin Mac Donnell, whose sleuthing has
been written about before, announced earlier this month on a Mark
Twain web forum that he uncovered a hefty amount of plagiarism in
Mark Twains America, an illustrated biography by Harry Katz and
the Library of Congress, and published by Little, Brown.
In his review of the book, Mac Donnell noted that its chronology of
Twains life seemed to be lifted without attribution from Mark Twain
A to Z, a reference book by R. Kent Rasmussen. Mac Donnell counted
over 400 lines of prose that match Rasmussens text almost word for
word. More scholars have since joined Mac Donnell on the forum in
scrutinizing Mark Twains America, and they now say the text
includes over 100 factual errors as well
Visit http://qz.com/300305/how-the-library-of-congress-got-caughtup-in-a-mark-twain-plagiarism-scandal/ for the complete article!

In the retail world, Black Friday marks the

point at which merchants hope to go from red
(deficits) to black (surpluses) but for students
and teachers, it signals the start of crunch
timewhen papers and projects are due and
final exams begin. As the stress begins to
mount, so too can the temptation to take
shortcuts (or worse).
Though teachers, too, can be pressed for time
as the semester comes to a close, spending a
few minutes reminding students about our
expectationsthat we expect their work to be
their own; that we expect complete and
accurate documentation of sources, that we
expect them to work individually unless
instructed otherwise, and that we expect them
to consult with us if theyd like to use a
previously submitted work as the basis for a
new paper or project, for instancemight
save hours addressing plagiarism or cheating
issues later.
Along with reminders about what we expect,
it may also be worth saying a bit about why whats at stake both for our students
personally and the reputation of our
institutions as a whole. The very act of
discussing issues of integrity and ethics
even when theyve been discussed
previouslycan make a difference, especially
when so many other things are competing for
students attention.

~Teddi Fishman

Director of Journalism School Suspended for Plagiarism cannot take this sort of thing lightly. This is why, having

11/17/2014 spoken to Agns, I am going to seek an independent evaluation

of the accusations against our executive director In the
The executive director of a prestigious journalism school in Paris meantime, Agns will be relieved of her responsibilities.
has been suspended while the university investigates accusations
The website Arret Sur Images said it fed around 20 of her
she was plagiarising articles for her columns in the Huffington
Post. A news website said Agns Chauveau, who worked for the columns into an online plagiarism checker and found that in
half of them at least one sentence, but more often two or three,
Sciences-Po University, was cutting and pasting chunks of
had been lifted from other articles and presented unchanged
articles from Le Monde newspaper and other French media and
and without attribution
passing them off as her own.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/112
"Plagiarism is a very serious affair in journalism," said Bruno
36081/Director-of-Paris-journalism-school-suspended-forPatin, the director of the school, which much of the French elite
has attended, wrote in an email to staff and students. "The school plagiarism.html
By: Rory Mulholland

The Telegraph

Announcements

Upcoming Events!
Plagiarism Across Europe
and Beyond 2015
University of Brno
Brno, Czech Republic
June 10-12, 2015
http:/plagiarism.cz/

7th Annual Conference on

Higher Education Pedagogy
Virginia Tech
February 3 6, 2015
http://www.cider.vt.edu/conference/

HETL 2015:
Reaching the Summit
Orem, Utah
January 20-22, 2015
https://www.hetl.org/events/2015hetl-sote-utah-conference/

____________________________

www.facebook.com/AcademicIntegrity

http://www.twitter.com/TweetCAI

Reform Group Proposes

Academic Integrity Rules for
Athletics
Andy Thomason
10/29/14

Chronicle.com

Western Faculty Unveil

New AI Website
Mariko Osterberg
10/1/2014

The Western Front

The Drake Group, which promotes

Western Washington Universitys

faculty launched a new academic
academic integrity in college sports,
integrity website geared towards
has released a list of guidelines it
framing integrity as a positive
urges all colleges and universities to
attribute and helping students to
adopt in the wake of recent
avoid difficulties with plagiarism.
academic scandals related to
To promote this academic integrity
athletics. Among other items, the
website, Westerns faculty has been
group suggests that:
collaborating with Westerns library
Freshmen be required to wait one and its Library Information Tutorial
year before playing sports if their (LIT) page, a website providing
standardized-test scores are a
research concepts and tools.
certain amount below the mean of
A revised pilot version of LIT was
the student body.
updated and will launch this fall as
Athletics programs undergo a
an overall introduction to the
national peer review process
Library Commons and the research
once every 10 years.
process. Western geology associate
Academic support programs for
professor, Jackie Caplan-Auerbach
athletes be under the control of
is one of Westerns faculty staff that
the universitys academic arm.
helped to lead the initiative.
No facilities be permitted that
cater to athletes but are not
Integrity is a much bigger issue,
directly related to athletic
she said. Students are very focused
competition.
on this large issue of plagiarism and
An independent report revealed last
week that the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill was the site
of widespread academic fraud
affecting 3,100 students over 18
yearsbegun, in part, to keep
struggling athletes eligible to
compete
Full Story:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/refor
m-group-proposes-academic-integrityrules-for-athletics/88627

The International Center for Academic Integrity grants permission to duplicate and
distribute this newsletter physically or electronically, so long as it is duplicated
and/or distributed in its entirety and without alteration.
Please note that this publication features summaries of and links to
original works that are subject to copyright protection. ICAI does not
claim ownership or credit for any original works found within.

that is because wehave led them

that way. We assume people know
why integrity matters and assume
people know something as simple as
what plagiarism is, and in fact there
isnt any broader discussion of it,
which is not sufficient
http://www.westernfrontonline.net/news
/article_44ad7242-4993-11e4-a8f20017a43b2370.html

Welcome New ICAI Members in

November 2014!
Randolph College Virginia
Texila American University
Guyana
Kevin Kraft MIT, Massachusetts

This publication is sponsored by:

Ethos Staff:

CAI-L@clemson.edu

Aaron Monson:

Editor/Writer

Teddi Fishman:

Executive Editor