One project had some nice results that I thought would be of scientific interest to a colleague.
This was not one of the projects in which I had previously identified plagiarism, and I had not told the colleague about the plagiarism identified in other projects.
I showed the project to the colleague with the intent of helping the student, and letting the student know that people appreciated the work.
Here is a quote from the scientist’s feedback to the student:
“The relationship between unemployment and differenced life expectancy is harder to see than when HP-detrended.” Do you mean “differenced suicide rate” rather than “differenced life expectancy”? To do “copy and paste” is OK and practical but ONLY if you clean up what you copy and adapt it for your own purposes. Imagine using CUT AND PASTE for love letters and forgetting to change the name after “Dear”.
I had failed to notice this plagiarism, which involved cut and paste from my own notes rather than some other source.
Based on the discussion last class, we should add to this feedback that it is also necessary to give proper acknowledgment to the source.
The scientist was distracted from thinking about the statistical results in the project by having to identify and explain a problem with the scholarship.
The statistical results have diminished credibility when the scholarship of the author is brought into question.
We can all pause to think about trying to live up to the standards that are expected for good scholarship.