Until a quick Google a second ago, I forgot that I’d already written about this experience before. But in brief, I once had University of Regina English professor Susan Johnston’s legendary plagiarism speech delivered to me and me alone. It’s the kind of speech that’s intimidating when she’s doing it for the benefit of a class. The emotion went up by a factor of ten when she’s starring at you. I feel like she’d particularly appreciate news of German politicians stepping down over plagiarism in their school days. (Especially since one feature of her speech is her claim that if she suspects you of any wrongdoing, she will not stop trying to prove it once the class is done.) A group of online cheat hunters have been effective enough to discover and encourage the resignation of a defense minister in the German government. The NPR report where I’m reading this ends up in grey area — is crappy citation technique really plagiarism? — but the core idea, that being honest in your academic career and not stealing the work others should paramount in intellectual pursuits, is important. Also, the fact that this is a big enough deal over there to actually get people to step down is heartening.
