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It's Not Just Us

  • August 5, 2005 at 6:17 pm

    #186882

    Thanks to Brian Kelley for sending me this post by Bruce Schneier on plagiarism. Apparently the SIGCSE Bulletin published a paper by three people at the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan. This is academic publishing, something that goes on your resume or CV for sure, as opposed to casual SQLServerCentral.com publishing, which is probably on my resume and no one else's 🙂

    I exchanged some emails with various people and it seems that India's IP laws are similar to ours. Although I have some Pakistani heritage, I don't have any knowledge of their government and so I'm not sure if the laws there are the same. However, anyone that's ever attended school and had to author a paper has almost assuredly been told about plagiarism and the consequences.

    My sixth grader hadn't been exposed to it, but my wife and I stopped him from copying something two years ago on the Internet and pasting it in his paper. Last year he was definitely told by instructors that plagiarism isn't allowed and that you need to cite references and quote or paraphrase appropriately. I can't believe that anyone in college anywhere in the world doesn't know that plagiarism is wrong and intolerable.

    The world of technical publishing, especially the type of work that we do here, gets a little murky. Trying to explain how to backup SQL Server can only be done in so many ways and most of us are paraphrasing someone else's work for their own. I certainly admit I've read lots of SQL Server 6.5, 7.0. and 2000 books and used lots of that knowledge in writing my own work. I just don't have the books in front of me copying or paraphrasing what's said.

    Instead, what we've strived for here is a more casual, less formal approach. We read something, learn it, and then make up our own version of what we've read, in our own style. Admittedly in more of an editorial than proper literaturial (is that a word?) format, but for sure it's our style. Read a few of my articles, and a few of Andy's and you'll certainly notice a difference in the writing.

    Once again, thanks to everyone for keeping an eye out for blatant copying and for those authors or prospective authors, copying is not allowed.

    Steve Jones

  • August 8, 2005 at 8:00 am

    This was removed by the editor as SPAM

  • August 8, 2005 at 4:13 pm

    #580547

    Steve,

    Glad to see your admirable stance on this issue. People need to simply do what's right. If you didn't write it, don't claim that you did.

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