Copy Kats

Don’t plagiarize your plagiarism policy.

Members of a committee formed in response to plagiarism accusations levied against a former university administrator received word this week that they need to reconvene and examine documents they may have plagiarized.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the 10-member committee of Southern Illinois University academics and administrators commissioned to develop a plagiarism policy may have borrowed from Indiana University’s definition—without
citing IU.

SIU officials seemed surprised by the news and stressed the policy was still in draft form.It would be a near perfect example of irony: a definition of plagiarism created in the wake of plagiarism scandals may itself have been plagiarized.

Both policies open with similar sentences.

“Plagiarism is defined as presenting existing work as one’s own,” the SIU definition reads.

“Plagiarism is defined as presenting someone else’s work, including the work of other students, as one’s own,” the IU definition begins.

SIU’s 139-word definition is nearly identical to the definition IU adopted in 2005 and currently publishes on its Web site under the heading, “How to recognize plagiarism.”