Plagiarism rampant among lawmakers

Posted on : 2012-05-08 14:01 KST Modified on : 2012-05-08 14:01 KST
Independent investigation into academic history finds blatant cheating

By Lee Kyung-mi, staff writer 
An examination by the Korea Progressive Academy Council (KPAC) of academic papers written by seven newly elected lawmakers suspected of plagiarism has concluded with the judgment that “all of the papers” contain “serious plagiarism.” The KPAC urged those involved to “resign voluntarily from their positions as National Assembly members.” Of the seven implicated lawmakers, Jeong Se-gyun is from the Democratic United Party; the remaining six are all from the New Frontier Party.
At a press conference in central Seoul on Wednesday, the KPAC stated, “All of these papers constitute plagiarism of a serious level that violates the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology‘s (MEST’s) 2008 ‘Guidelines on Plagiarism’ and amount to ‘cheating in research’ as defined by the MEST and the National Science & Technology Commission.” Based on this definition, the council further divided the plagiarism it had detected into eight different categories, including “copying verbatim,” “splicing several papers together,” “stealing entire introductions or theoretical backgrounds” and “serious theft of ideas.”
It emerged that the doctoral thesis and master‘s dissertation of lawmaker-elect Moon Dae-sung, who has already been judged guilty of plagiarism by Kookmin University, fell under the categories “copying verbatim,” “splicing several papers together” and “stealing entire introductions or theoretical backgrounds”.
The KPAC stated that lawmaker Jeong U-taek’s University of Hawaii doctoral thesis also counted as a case of “copying verbatim.” It was confirmed that Jeong had copied several paragraphs at a time from papers written by other Korean and foreign writers, exposing 952 of the total 1,759 lines of his paper (52.6%) as plagiarism. Kim Gi-yun‘s master’s theses copied considerable amounts of content from three theses by other scholars, including the master‘s thesis of a Chung-Ang University student by the name of “Kim.”
Yeom Dong-yeol’s 2011 doctoral thesis was confirmed to contain an entire four-page report by undergraduate students in the public administration department at a certain university. The KPAC said, “This actually gives rise to suspicions of ghostwriting.”
Jeong Se-gyun‘s doctoral thesis was judged guilty of “stealing entire theoretical backgrounds.” The majority of the eight pages of the foreword to Jeong’s thesis, except for some conjunctions and endings, were almost identical to the paper that he had plagiarized. Professor Lee Dong-yeon of Korea National University of the Arts said, “‘plagiarizing theoretical background’ is a serious form of plagiarism that involves taking the research of others and using it unaltered.”
Sin Gyeong-rim was found to have plagiarized herself, taking part of a research paper she wrote jointly in 2005 with a professor by the name of “Kim” and having it published in a UN academic journal in 2009. It was also confirmed that another research paper she had published in a Korean journal in 2004 stole and used intact a research theory and variables to be measured from a 2001 master‘s thesis by a student named “Park.”
Standing delegate Han Sang-gwon of KPAC said, “We cannot but take issue with the way both the ruling and opposition parties are overlooking these criminal acts and trying to move beyond them by drag their heels. Strict measures must be imposed upon these lawmakers-elect, who have cheated by plagiarizing other’s papers to a serious extent in order to use academic qualifications and degrees to boost their political credentials.”
 
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