While writing the literature review for my doctoral dissertation, I picked up a few recent dissertations on similar topics from the library to get some pointers on references and style. As I was reading some of the articles cited in one of these theses, I discovered that this person had lifted large blocks of text from the cited works verbatim. Although the original works were cited, the borrowed text was not presented as a quote, but used directly in the thesis.
I checked a few more, just out of curiosity, and realized that basically the whole literature review by this author (who graduated with a PhD two years ago) was cut-and-paste verbatim quotes strung together (and who knows how much more of the thesis is plagiarized - I only checked this one chapter).
This really ticks me off, as I (and many students like me) spend a great deal of time reworking cited information into proper coherent explanations for our projects. I happen to know the offending author's advisor pretty well, as we currently work together outside of my graduate program.
Should I say something or should I just let this person get away with plagiarizing large parts of their dissertation?
Edit:
I still don't know what I will do about this -- no-one wants to be a tattle-tale, and it really isn't any of my business how other people go about getting their doctorates. However, as I am currently writing my dissertation, it really irks me when I see someone else getting away with this, as I know from experience how much hard work goes into writing a PhD thesis.
I just have one more comment -- I ran the chapter in question through the TurnItIn software, which I have access to as an instructor at my institution. The thesis came back as 52% unoriginal. Turnitin only counts exact matches, so the 52% figure doesn't even include some of the paragraphs that I caught, where the author has changed one or two words but kept the sentence structure.
I doubt that there would be any legal consequences, even if I report the thesis for plagiarism -- it is more a question of academic dishonesty and what steps the institution that awarded the degree would take. I will show it to my advisor and see what he says before I do anything.
Answer
This is of course a sensitive issue. However, the ethically correct behavior is to notify someone responsible about the problem. Etiquette says to go to the advisor first, as the advisor is the person who, after the author who committed the plagiarism, stands to lose the most from the accusation.
However, if you feel squeamish about doing it by yourself, you can talk to your advisor about the best way to proceed.
The main issue on your part is if you will need to rely on the plagiarizer's advisor for recommendation letters. Then you should definitely proceed with caution, and with the support of your advisor, department administrators, or both.
Of course, make sure that you've done your due diligence before going public with your charges, and to have the evidence with you when you meet with anyone about this matter.
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