iThenticate Blog

When reporting or confronting plagiarism, many fear reprisals and for good reason. In the past those accused of plagiarism have responded by suing their accusers, accusing them of racism and filing complaints of sexual harassment.

In March of this year the Gawker blog TKTK published a piece by James King entitled, “My Year Ripping Off the Web With the Daily Mail Online”.

It has been a difficult few months for Arizona State University professor Matthew Whitaker.

In July, Whitaker was demoted to an associate professor at ASU following allegations that he had plagiarized passages in his most recent book, Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama.

In December 2014, an article published in the journal Science claimed that canvassers could changes the minds of conservative voters on same-sex marriage with a brief conversation. The study began to attract a great deal of attention in the mainstream press due to its relevancy to both an ongoing political divide and Supreme Court case.

In April, the U.S. Army published a 55-page manual entitled Cultural and Situational Understanding, which was meant to serve as a guide for servicemen working in environments with cultures different than their own.

In a recent post on Retraction Watch, the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention published a note by Yong Jiang, a researcher who sought to retract an earlier paper of his due to plagiarism issues.

Vice reporter Brian Merchant wrote a post for Vice’s Motherboard blog entitled “The Girl Who Would Live Forever”, a story about a cancer-stricken girl in Bangkok who was cryogenically frozen in hopes of finding a cure later.

Last month, Gawker reported that Mic news editor Jared Keller had plagiarized at least 20 passages in his writing for the online publication. Keller was quickly fired from his job and most agreed that his career in journalism was, most likely, over.

Though we are in the early weeks of 2015, we already have our first major plagiarism scandal and termination in journalism.