“Good artists copy; great artist steal” is an interesting quote attributed to Pablo Picasso. It is a common belief that every work of art is inspired by something, so nothing is really original. However, there is a fine line between inspiration and outright theft of ideas. Though it is impossible to know for sure, after […]

While students are often the ones receiving accusations of plagiarism, there are cases in which professors are also guilty of this crime. South Korea is known for a rigorous academic system. However, in 2015 two hundred South Korean professors were indicted for plagiarism and copyright violations. The professors were from 50 different universities and committed […]

Since I am definitely running short on interesting cases of plagiarism, today I am going to write about plagiarism offenses in literature. One interesting example of this is the book Roots by Alex Haley. This was a unique case because the book had many positive cultural impacts which came into question once the plagiarism was […]

So this week I was running short on stories about stolen discoveries or scientific plagiarism, so I am instead turning to the increasingly important concept of plagiarized computer code. Most people realize that copying a sentence written by another person is wrong and could result in academic punishment or loss of a job. Today, in […]

When asked who invented the telephone, most people would say it was Alexander Graham Bell. However, the less well known Antonio Meucci really deserves the credit. Meucci was born in 1808 and studied mechanical engineering while living in Florence. Later in his life he was working on technology to treat illness with electric shocks when […]

Consider the well known songs Blurred lines and Stay With Me. What do they have in common? These are two examples of popular songs that were accused of being plagiarized from other pieces of music. For this week’s blog I am going to take a slightly different angle on my overall topic of plagiarism and […]

Vladimir Putin is frequently in the news for various political scandals. However, in the past his negative publicity has even included plagiarism. In 2000 reporters asked the St. Petersburg State Mining Institute for a copy of Putin’s doctoral thesis but were refused. A few years later in 2005 two researchers finally got their hands on […]

In the past couple weeks I have received multiple suggestions that I discuss question of who discovered the structure of DNA. For a long time the credit was given to James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins, who won a Nobel prize in for their work in 1962. Later on people realized there was a […]

My subject for this week’s investigation of stolen ideas and discoveries is Sir Richard Owen. He was a British anatomist and paleontologist who lived from 1804-1892, and as a rampant plagiarist, he is proof that being knighted by the queen does not necessarily prevent one from stooping to the level of stealing others’ scientific discoveries. […]

If you have ever labored through MLA citations or submitted an assignment to turnitin.com you understand the lengths most people go to in order to avoid plagiarism. Nowadays, with harsh academic integrity rules and websites that can scan for copied information, students are help to a high standard for producing original work. However, this was […]