It is amazing how the year 2012 has come and gone. Most have been so busy concentrating on school work or studying for finals that you may forgot to slow down and look back on what a great year 2012 was. I would like (more…)

The media has been hit by some painfully obvious plagiarism cases this past year. As a hat’s off to 2012, we at PlagTracker have put together a list of this year’s Top 10 Plagiarism Cases.

10) Atlantic Wire’s Dolphin Article Purloined by Fox News  

Fox News has committed yet another journalism faux pas by publishing verbatim a text written earlier by John Hudson from The Atlantic Wire. For your amusement, here are excerpts from the two articles that were both written about Navy-trained dolphins.

John Hudson’s text from January 13, 2012:

The invasion of Iraq was the last time the minesweeping capability of dolphins was widely-touted. “Dolphins – - which possess sonar so keen they can discern a quarter from a dime when blindfolded and spot a 3-inch metal sphere from 370 feet away — are invaluable minesweepers,” reported The San Francisco Chronicle. In 2010, the Seattle Times reported that the Navy has 80 bottlenose dolphins in the San Diego Bay alone. They are taught to hunt for mines and drop acoustic transponders nearby.

FoxNews.com’s version from January 15, 2012:

The invasion of Iraq was the last time the mine-sweeping capability of dolphins was widely-touted. “Dolphins – which possess sonar so keen they can discern a quarter from a dime when blindfolded and spot a 3-inch metal sphere from 370 feet away — are invaluable mine sweepers,” reported The San Francisco Chronicle. In 2010, the Seattle Times reported that the Navy has 80 bottlenose dolphins in the San Diego Bay. They are taught to hunt for mines and drop acoustic transponders nearby.

9) Sydney Morning Herald Columnist Tanveer Ahmed Caught in Plagiarism Scandal

The Australian TV program Media Watch named Tanveer Ahmed of the Sydney Morning Herald as a plagiarist. Ahmed responded in hyperbole by comparing his use of plagiarism to that of “an addict forced to look in the mirror and survey the wreckage.” As a professional psychiatrist, you would expect him to know better.  All of his articles were effectively expunged from the newspaper.

8) Fairfield Minuteman Caught Red-Handed in Plagiarism Controversy

Apparently, even small town newspapers are not immune to plagiarism. The Fairfield Minuteman from Connecticut was caught in a blatant plagiarism scandal early this year. At the end of December 2011, it was revealed that the newspaper had stolen texts that were absolutely identical to sports articles written by Pat Pickens from The Fairfield Citizen and The Connecticut Post. These newspapers are The Fairfield Minuteman’s competitors and perhaps they thought that by lifting their competitors’ content that they could increase their readership. Once they were caught, they immediately issued an apology and fired the sports editor Eric Montgomery.

7) Student Plagiarist from ASU

The Arizona newspaper The East Valley Tribune revealed that one of its interns, Raquel Velesco, had plagiarized several small articles in their newspaper. However, Velesco was caught not only plagiarizing for the East Valley Tribune but for The State Press as well. Velesco was reprimanded by being fired from her job at the East Valley Tribune and by being expelled from her journalism program at Arizona State University. Academic and professional dishonestly has almost zero tolerance in contemporary society.

6)  CNN, The Washington Post, and Time Suspend Well-Known Journalist Fareed Zakaria

CNN, The Washington Post, and Time magazine suspended regular contributor Fareed Zakaria after several similarities between his article and Jill Lepore’s article in The New Yorker on gun control. In addition to writing an article with striking similarities to Ms. Lepore’s original, author Clyde Prestowitz accused Zakaria of lifting a quote from his 2005 work and using it in his 2008 book The Post-American World. While Mr. Zakaria has repeatedly apologized for his misconduct and tried to redeem himself in the media, his journalistic career seems to be uncertain for the time being.

5) Boston Globe/ NPR Controversy

The Boston Globe recently included an editor’s note with an editorial that discussed attribution issues. However, iMediaEthics found that the editorial was strikingly similar to local NPR affiliate WBUR’s report. Both media outlets have declined to comment on the situation.

4) Canadian Publisher of The Anchor Weekly Resigned Due to Plagiarism Allegations

Steve Jeffrey, publisher of the Canadian newspaper The Anchor Weekly, promptly resigned after iMediaEthics found that he had plagiarized material in over 40 of his weekly columns. Mr. Jeffrey has apologized for taking liberty with others’ work in his column and the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association has suspended the newspaper for one year.

3) Photo Plagiarism by Pakistani News Agency

iMediaEthic’s Pakistani reporter Malik Ayub Sumbal called out Pakistani Dateline Islamabad for taking and using others’ photos without permission.  The publication had taken photos from other news agencies and changed their appearance slightly while naming themselves as the photographers.

2) Another New England Newspaper Caught Taking and Using Other’s Material

Much like The Fairfield Minuteman in Connecticut, a weekly newspaper in Maine has also been caught taking material from their competitors. The city manager of South Portland Jim Gailey discovered this when he found some similar passages from the newspaper in question that he had found in another newspaper’s earlier-published article. The offending journalist Michael Tobin blames his plagiarism on being overworked and sick at the time.

1) Jonah Lehrer

The top of our list is former journalist for The New Yorker Jonah Lehrer who plagiarized his own work while misquoting and improperly accounting for his material. NYU professor of journalism Charles Seife found that Lehrer was guilty of the following offenses: Press release plagiarism, recycling old material, general plagiarism, quotation issues, and factual issues. This journalist revealed himself as a plagiarizer in June once The New Yorker had noticed that parts of Lehrer’s blog were copied from his pervious published works.

The moral of all these cautionary tales is that it is more difficult than ever to get away with plagiarism than ever before. It is no longer acceptable or practical for journalists, publishers, and newspapers, big and small, to ever use someone else’s material without permission. While one could possibly get away with such practices even a decade ago, it has become increasingly harder not to get caught in lies or plagiarism. As all these plagiarism offenders have discovered too late, plagiarism can dismantle your reputation and your career.

Specially for those who survived the end of the world, we have prepared that funny infographic about Santas in different countries around the world. Check out this little gift.

Merry Christmas everyone!

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Christmas is literally just around the corner and everyone at Plagtracker is hopeful that children and adults have grammar and ‘giving credit to when needed’ is at the top of their list. Okay I know we are asking for a little bit too much, but it’s never too late to end the year with excellent grammar and honesty to avoid plagiarism.

We all are aware of this horrific event that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Plagtracker.com  is sending our thoughts and prayers to those families that have been affected by this sad event, our hearts go out to them.

Just the beginning of this year Tyler Perry released a new film called “Good Deeds” it is about an engaged businessman named Wesley Deeds  that lends a hand to unlucky women that is having economical difficulties, which threatens Wesley’s relationship with his fiancé.

This story may sound a bit similar to who have read the book (more…)

We at Plagtracker have very exciting news to announce, which will help many of our customers out financially. We have looked into our Premium Subscription Plan and noticed not every one needs an unlimited monthly service. Some of our customers (maybe YOU in particular) need to just check one or two documents. (more…)

Plagtracker would like to give (more…)

From all the letters and requests that you are sending to us we noticed one really important idea that requested more frequently and fostering to introduce a new functionality on our site. Here are a few of those examples for the above-mentioned request:

- Rahul “Hi your service is awesome I think you also need to add a grammar-checking feature to your online tools. It would make it much better.”

- Megan “Awesome service! Should definitely add a grammar/spell checker to it and it will be AMAZING!!!”

- Roseanne “Very great online tool! I always use this to check my papers. Why don’t you put up a grammar checker too?”

- Michael “It would be great if you included a grammar/proofreading checker in your service!!! It would be really great! Thanks for creating this awesome website! ” (more…)