Plagiarized.com Web Log

Ohio University cracks down on plagiarism apathy

Failure to deal with evident plagiarism in graduate theses has lead to the effective dismissal of the chair of the mechanical engineering department, Jay Gunasekera.

A current student noticed the instances of plagiarism while conducting unrelated research (presumably) and reported it. The subsequent two year investigation found that the plagiarism apathy dated back over twenty years.

More info available here: http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/14926595.htm

Noel Gallagher admits to plagiarism, surprised he hasn’t been sued.

Oasis singer Noel Gallagher has, according to this story admitted to copying a Burt Bacharach tune and is surprised he hasn’t been sued yet.

I’ve deleted the forum and replaced it with a blog.

The Plagiarized.com forum was a good idea, I thought. But we were getting 10-20 registrations a day from spammers. The only reason they were registering was to get their profile online with links to their hoodia websites. I would delete them as soon as I saw them, but I just couldn’t keep up.

Anyhow, bring in the blog. I started the blog a long time ago, but replaced it with the forum because I wanted something more interactive. Bad idea. This blog, with comments disabled, will do just what I want.

A newborn slows things down!

Our newest addition, Liam is a wonderful joy... But the combination of a newborn and a 2 year old is terribly draining. I haven't been able to do any work of significance.

Blah!

I have Herman Berg on the brain...

It'd be nice to here from Herman Berg again.

I'm going to get in touch with everyone included in the Dvais paper.

I could provide a nice forum for everybody to express their views - get
the full story.

I'll start tomorrow.

I'm thinking I should contact all the people in the Davis article...

It'd be nice to here from Herman Berg again.

I could provide a nice forum for everybody to express your views - get
the full story.

I'll start tomorrow.

Some more Herman Berg details

http://csdl.computer.org/comp/mags/an/1995/04/a4007abs.htm

Okay... I'm remembering a bit more now from my initial investigations. After Prof.Davis published papers giving record to Berg's struggle, the IEEE printed this article in self-defense.

Herman Berg is a good reason to start a web log.

Way back in August, I received a postcard. It read as follows:
-------
For the latest detail on the mother of all cases of misconduct in science:
Professor Michael Davis
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago Illinois
[phone number omitted for privacy]

For a second opinion:
[name omitted for privacy]
Legal Advisor, State Department
[phone number omitted for privacy]

signed Herman Berg an American [something I couldn't make out]
-------

Now this was interesting... so I turned to Google. "Herman Berg" didn't exactly yield many results... But it looked as if the postcard was related to a discovery made by Mr.Berg of a Charles Babbage letter from 1835. The letter was a major piece of orginal history. It laid out some of the fundamental elements of modern day computing.

Anyhow, I won't get into the details of the letter. The interesting bit is Herman Berg's struggle to get recognised for his discovery.

The contact Berg provided at the Illinois Institute of Technology was easy enough to contact. Google yielded an email address, and Prof.Davis replied immediately. He included a copy of a paper he wrote that was published in 2000. Davis had been contacted by Berg as was compelled enough by his story to write the paper providing official record of Berg's discovery and his subsequent struggle with the academic establishment as it refused to credit him for the find.

The article isn't available online, but I'll find a link to th journal and post it later.

Next... I suppose I should contact the individual at the Department of State and find out where he fits in.