Martin Luther King plagiarised half of his doctoral dissertation!

As for King the person, I shall refrain from comment, except to say that his memory is beloved by many.

As for plagiarism, however, it should be noted one may not plagiarize even from oneself.

Which is to say, if one publishes or adapts from one's own work some part of one's own doctoral dissertation in some other form, one must be very careful to disclose this in the document.

Case in point, chapter 3 of the dissertation I am currently writing proves an open conjecture. I was (naturally) excited about this result, and one of my contacts immediately suggested that I publish. I contacted the university, to be sure about the policy on publishing any part of a dissertation in progress. The result I received was that one must be careful that one can truthfully make the statement that the thesis has not been previously published in the form presented for degree purposes.

Also, all previous writing on the dissertation topic must be included in an attachment, in order that the committee examine it.

I recall an article in Communications of the ACM back a few years ago -- on the topic of "stealing from oneself." April 2005 issue has a similar piece (it just so happens):

Christian Collberg & Steven Kouborov, "Self-plagiarism in computer science," Communications of the ACM, Vol. 48 No. 4, April 2005.

See also:

http://www.warwick.ac.uk/ETS/interactions/vol4no2/evans.htm

There are other articles on "self-plagiarism".

 

Interesting and subtle point, Quinn. Thanks.

 

Yes, this is an important point, but also to the advantage of the thesis author. The best advice I ever received was to ensure that I published at least one paper per chapter. Of course you acknowledge this publication in your chapter at the time of writing. Ultimately, when it comes to examination time, the examiners will see that the majority of the work has already been through a peer review process. The hypothesis here is that the examiners will find it very hard to cane you on the work, if it has already been published. I guess its seen as an insurance policy, and demonstrates that your work is at the cutting edge of the field of study. Do also remember that the signed declaration at the front of all theses requires an acknowledgement of other published works.

Cheers,

George

 

Yes, of course, George. The key is absolute disclosure, and the point is that one must be careful even when one borrows from oneself. If it has been published, even in some other form, one must make that clear. I was lucky to retain the copyright to most of my previous publications (all but one, and not the one that is currently under review). In most cases, one no longer owns the copyright to what one has published.

The university told me that I was free to publish -- but to be careful about the form and scope of what was published, so that I can truthfully say that the dissertation as presented for the degree is not simply a chain of already published papers. Thus, one must be careful to do it with the knowledge and advice of one's supervisor -- so that where, how, in what form -- and so on -- are clearly known to the supervisor and are branded as kosher. (The key is one must be careful it was not "in the form" presented for the degree.)

I didn't get into this much detail in my earlier post because I felt it was a bit esoteric.

Also, since mine is a dissertation towards a higher doctorate, it is required that I defend against any formal criticism of my work that I know of, which kind of covers the "previous publication" thing by osmosis. That is to say, I must answer the relevant outstanding questions raised by other scholars about my work. For instance, a fellow named Carmi made a claim about my work in a conference paper, so my dissertation must soundly put that claim to bed with a solid refutation. (Which it does.)

 

Sharpton and Jackson??????

In the SAME BREATH AS KING?????????????????????????????????????????????

Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He had his faults but I don't think either of these two blowhards could lead a few hundred thousand people on ANY march, to ANYWHERE.

Talk about your publicity hounding, self appointed representative of a coalition assuming, racist baiting, illogical, morally corrupt and hypocritical politicians.

And, rainbow Coalition????? Please!!!!!!!!!!

I am a minority and my color is definitely not in THAT rainbow.

 

As the world grows smaller and the concepts of civil rights and human rights become more global, such statements as Jimmys might need to be viewed on more of a broader stage. For example, I would suggest that Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1991) might well be considered to be the equal of MLK Jr according to any definitions that you might care to establish. Her courage, convictions, principles, sacrifices, etc. are second to none. She simply lacks a media outlet.
Jack

 

I wasn't thinking globally. Thanks for the mention of Aung San Suu Kyi whom I didn't know about until now.