Abstract:In 2007, Routledge published Theory for Performance Studies as part of its Theory 4 series, listing Philip Auslander as author. When, in August, The Chronicle of Higher Education revealed that much of the book was lifted word-for-word from the template for the series, Theory for Religious Studies by Timothy K. Beal and William E. Deal, TDR editor Richard Schechner convened via email and phone conversations a “TDR Forum,” asking leaders in the field to respond to the book and the series. Schechner and other res… Show more
“…Perhaps the most famous example of template plagiarism in the humanities was targeted at William E. Deal's and Timothy K. Beal's 2004 book, Theory for Religious Studies (Deal and Beal, 2004). A couple of years after its publication it was converted into a book with the title Theory for Performance Studies by another scholar, who reused more than 90 per cent of Deal and Beal's book without attribution, and only made very small additions of his own (Schechner et al, 2009). When interviewed by the Chronicle for Higher Education , he maintained that he had done nothing inappropriate.[He] reacted strongly when a reporter asked if he had committed plagiarism.…”
SOME FORMS OF PLAGIARISM are more difficult to discover than the standard copyand-paste variant. In his recent book, Michael V. Dougherty (2020) investigates various forms of what he calls disguised plagiarism, i.e., plagiarism concealed by other means than just the lack of attribution to the true author. He also introduces a useful terminology for different forms of disguise.Readers of Theoria are already acquainted with Dougherty's work on translation plagiarism (Dougherty, 2019). Let us have a close look at two of his other categories, dispersal and template plagiarism.
Dispersal plagiarismSome plagiarists plagiarize a book, not by copying it in one piece, but by publishing various parts of itoften whole chaptersas journal articles. This seems to reduce the risk of discovery, and the plagiarizer can add a sizeable number of journal articles to his CV. Dougherty exemplifies dispersal plagiarism with three remarkable cases from philosophy.In 2003, Hans Kribbe obtained his PhD from the London School of Economics with a thesis in political philosophy, Corporate Personality: A Political Theory of Association (Kribbe, 2003). He did not attempt to get the chapters published as articles, since he believed that they could not be published without significant revision. He had taken up a new job and did not have the time for this.But he was wrong. His chapters could in fact be published without revision. Several years later he learned that a professor at an English university had published six articles, consisting almost entirely of text from his thesis. 1 But the professor in question had published these texts in his own name, instead of Kribbe's. In fact, he published the first chapter of Kribbe's thesis three times in his own name, in three different journals. The only significant difference between the articles was that they had (very) different titles, which gave the impression that they dealt with quite different subject matter. This must have been an almost unbeatably effortless way to get three published journal articles on one's CV: copy a text written by someone else, invent three different titles, and send it to three journals.1 References to these and other plagiarizing texts referred to here can be found in Dougherty (2020). I follow the practice of not citing such texts directly, when it is possible to cite instead an easily accessible source in which the exact reference is given. The purpose of this practice is to avoid adding to the plagiarist's citation statistics.
“…Perhaps the most famous example of template plagiarism in the humanities was targeted at William E. Deal's and Timothy K. Beal's 2004 book, Theory for Religious Studies (Deal and Beal, 2004). A couple of years after its publication it was converted into a book with the title Theory for Performance Studies by another scholar, who reused more than 90 per cent of Deal and Beal's book without attribution, and only made very small additions of his own (Schechner et al, 2009). When interviewed by the Chronicle for Higher Education , he maintained that he had done nothing inappropriate.[He] reacted strongly when a reporter asked if he had committed plagiarism.…”
SOME FORMS OF PLAGIARISM are more difficult to discover than the standard copyand-paste variant. In his recent book, Michael V. Dougherty (2020) investigates various forms of what he calls disguised plagiarism, i.e., plagiarism concealed by other means than just the lack of attribution to the true author. He also introduces a useful terminology for different forms of disguise.Readers of Theoria are already acquainted with Dougherty's work on translation plagiarism (Dougherty, 2019). Let us have a close look at two of his other categories, dispersal and template plagiarism.
Dispersal plagiarismSome plagiarists plagiarize a book, not by copying it in one piece, but by publishing various parts of itoften whole chaptersas journal articles. This seems to reduce the risk of discovery, and the plagiarizer can add a sizeable number of journal articles to his CV. Dougherty exemplifies dispersal plagiarism with three remarkable cases from philosophy.In 2003, Hans Kribbe obtained his PhD from the London School of Economics with a thesis in political philosophy, Corporate Personality: A Political Theory of Association (Kribbe, 2003). He did not attempt to get the chapters published as articles, since he believed that they could not be published without significant revision. He had taken up a new job and did not have the time for this.But he was wrong. His chapters could in fact be published without revision. Several years later he learned that a professor at an English university had published six articles, consisting almost entirely of text from his thesis. 1 But the professor in question had published these texts in his own name, instead of Kribbe's. In fact, he published the first chapter of Kribbe's thesis three times in his own name, in three different journals. The only significant difference between the articles was that they had (very) different titles, which gave the impression that they dealt with quite different subject matter. This must have been an almost unbeatably effortless way to get three published journal articles on one's CV: copy a text written by someone else, invent three different titles, and send it to three journals.1 References to these and other plagiarizing texts referred to here can be found in Dougherty (2020). I follow the practice of not citing such texts directly, when it is possible to cite instead an easily accessible source in which the exact reference is given. The purpose of this practice is to avoid adding to the plagiarist's citation statistics.
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