Commentary comments on plagiarism

by the Editor-in-Chief, AJFAND.

The Commentary for this Issue (Volume 11 No. 2 (2011) is on Plagiarism, which of course is a perpetual concern for those of us in the publishing world.

We have to assume it is rampant and try as much as possible to minimize it.  In Kenya news reached us of the very popular French Minister, only 39 years old who had no choice but to step down as Minister of the Government after it emerged that he had plagiarised his Doctor of Philosophy thesis. Nobody will fault you for giving credit where it belongs, or for paraphrasing someone’s work and acknowledging it. However, lifting whole paragraphs and expressions is unacceptable.

Knowledge is an intellectual resource, so are ideas.  Some people generate ideas better than others. I believe, however, that each one of us is capable of generating great ideas and we should then go ahead and put them down; that is the difficult part. As Prof Richard Douglass points out in his commentary for this issue, the web- based resources are extremely tempting. The technology has robbed many of us of the ability to think and to innovate. However, all that we find on the web was generated by human beings, even if their names may not always appear. One can virtually source anything on the internet, and some very good writing too, and expressions. I imagine it can be tempting, but you know what? It is not acceptable. In addition to the Commentary by Prof Douglass, we have a link to the first ever court case on Plagiarism where a postgraduate student in one University lifted paragraphs of material from a thesis of another postgraduate student at another University. The first studentr had difficulty proving her innocence. Please see: www.kenyaylaw.org/newletter/ (Accessed March 2011). It is also reproduced in full in this issue of AJFAND.

We at AJFAND take plagiarism very seriously and once it is proven, the guilty person risks being blacklisted. So authors, be warned.

Commentary comments by the Editor-in-Chief, AJFAND