A little earlier I posted on some examples of what I’d usually consider to be plagiarism, in a post called Science – So What (?) Is Being Really Communicated About The Shape Of Jobs To Come?
Now it’s been reported in the Time Higher Education Supplement! ‘Misleading’ science career report criticised, by Zoe Corbyn:
A report commissioned by the Government as part of a campaign to promote science has been criticised for its “cut-and-paste” text and use of Wikipedia as a reference source.
…The report, published last month, was promoted by many including Lord Drayson, the Science Minister, and Gordon Brown.
…Jonathan Mendel, a lecturer in human geography at the University of Dundee, said the report used “unjustified methodologies” to reach its conclusions and was “overly reliant” on weak online sources and media reports, with some sections referencing only Wikipedia.
Although sources are referenced, he said the report lifted “significant passages of text” word for word.
Apparently Talwar says that ‘citing websites, news reports and blogs was “accepted best practice in horizon scanning”.’ In a report commissioned by the Government, as part of a campaign to promote science??
How did I help contribute to this story? A little anti-plagiarism program called ‘TurnItIn’, which I have access to as a researcher. Probably slightly more useful than the old ‘take random dodgy elements and search on Google’, which was how I once caught a student who lifted three separate reviews of the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’, jumbled them together and handed it in as their own work. Perhaps some things never seem to change…
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s embarrassing.
Wikipedia is an useful tool for everyday use – when one wants a brief introduction to a subject, or as a starting point to further investigation – but it must never stand instead of proper research.
A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t even had made the claim about it usefulness in everyday use, but Wikipedia has done a lot to remove the influence of fringe groups, and promote the scientific consensus in their articles.
Yes, and there’s also the factor that it was HUGE chunks of previously published material that was done prior to the study. I was confused about how something that was online in August, when a survey was done in October, and then published the year after as if the two were linked? Huh. :/
Well, using existing work just makes it a meta-study/-survey
No, sounds like an all-round bad piece of work. I hope that whoever got paid to conduct the work is forced to pay it back
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