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Sat, 07 Apr 2007 13:16:43 +0800

Hi everyone, I am the napkin dad. Thanks for not plagiarizing my napkin drawing quote on plagiarizing. Of course since I didn't attribute the quote to anyone I could be accused of plagiarizing the quote on plagiarizing, but I promise I didn't. Please don't plagiarize this comment about my non-plagiarizing.

zhwj

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 20:02:31 +0800

The "turn of phrase" line is probably just an unfortunate turn of phrase by the New Scientist reporter (and the last paragraph of that short article doesn't really make much sense, either). The plagiarism problem that exists (if you take the word of a blog commenter) involves the basic presentation of research. Scientists are seeking ways to present something they are competent in (their research and their data) in a medium they are not comfortable using (English). It's often simpler just to copy an existing analysis, plug in the numbers, and tweak the discussion a bit; high-impact journals will reject out-of-hand papers that don't reach a minimum level of English fluency. Mandarin gets singled out because Chinese submissions to technical journals rank near the top by numbers and scientists aren't native English speakers. Here's a report about an ACS delegation that came over last summer. It doesn't mention the plagiarism issue, but it does imply a general attitude toward Chinese research that's more that just hearsay.

Shanghaiist: Stammering Sino scientists steal sayings so says snipey supervisor

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zhwj