Posted on 11/12/2007 10:18:43 AM PST by SmithL
Columbia, Mo. (AP) -- A distinguished University of Missouri-Columbia journalism professor will no longer write a weekly newspaper column after admitting to plagiarizing material from a student reporter.
John Merrill, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, also wrote a Sunday column for the Columbia Missourian, a community newspaper affiliated with the school.
But a Nov. 4 column by Merrill about the university's women's and gender studies program used three quotes and other phrases taken directly from an Oct. 5 story in The Maneater, an independent student newspaper.
Missourian Executive Editor Tom Warhover disclosed the plagiarism in his own column Sunday. A review of Merrill's earlier work by Missourian editors found five more columns in which at least one quote had been taken from other publications without attribution, Warhover wrote.
"Missourian policy does not allow any writer to appropriate someone else's words as his own, even when those words are within quotation marks," he said.
While Warhover said that several colleagues he consulted described Merrill's transgression as "the ethical equivalent of a misdemeanor, not a felony,"
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint from the following sources.
Articles from the Washington Post, March 24 and 25, 1935. Copyright © 1935, the Washington Post. Reprinted with permission.
Editorials "Strange Rehabilitation", Washington Post, March 25, 1935, and "After the Tragedy", Washington Post, September 7, 1935.
Copyright © the Washington Post. Reprinted with permission.
Articles from the Miami Herald, September 5, 8, 9, 11, and 15, 1935. Reprinted with permission of the Miami Herald.
Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyrighted materials in this book, but in some instances this has proven impossible. The author and publisher will be glad to receive information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent printings of the book and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions.
-v-
Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com
Publication Information: Book Title: FDR and the Bonus Marchers, 1933-1935. Contributors: Gary Dean Best - author. Publisher: Praeger Publishers. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1992. Page Number: v.
Key word is "copyrighted". Student papers rarely, if ever, qualify.
If you're going to publicly accuse a college professor by name of plagiarism you might at least give some evidence beyond just a link to his book. Is your paper somewhere we can see it?
has a lot of interesting and similar stories about the press. Interesting site.
I liked this professor and learned much from him. I apologize if my words have come across as a charge of plagiarism. My ego was slightly bruised when the book came out, as I thought a few words of acknowledgement might be a boost to any student. He told the same story I did, followed some of my leads, but I do not claim he copied any of my words. I assumed that undergraduate papers are fair game for use by professors. I didn’t think his use of some of my research was out of the ordinary. My paper of course never appeared anywhere, and I regret if I raise this as a charge of plagiarism.
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