Real World Examples

Academic Integrity is a serious issue. In the real world, as well as at UC San Diego, "pleading the 5th" won't help you. Take a look at some of the consequences of plagiarizing in the real world.

The Perpetrator	The Case	The Judgment
Jayson Blair	36 of the 73 national news stories written by him for the New York Times included plagiarized quotes or were made up.	Forced to resign from the New York Times. The executive editor and managing editor also resigned shortly after Blair.
College Student	An Ohio University student was charged with plagiarizing a paper because she didn’t cite or paraphrase correctly.	Expelled from the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea program. She was forced to disembark early and go home.
Stephen Glass	27 of the 41 stories he wrote for The New Republic contained fabricated information. Some stories, like “Hack Heaven,” were completely made up.	Forced to resign from The New Republic.
Kaavya Viswanathan	Her novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, had too many similarities to novels by Megan McCafferty, Salman Rushdie, Sophie Kinsella, Meg Cabot, and Tanuja Desai Hidier.	Her book was pulled from publication after the plagiarism was discovered. Her book and movie deals were dropped. Because the novel was not part of her academic work, Harvard took no action against the sophomore.
Janet Cooke	Fabricated parts of her story for the Washington Post that was nominated for and won the Pulitzer prize	Resigned and returned her Pulitzer Prize
Timothy S. Goeglein	Former White House aide, 20 of the 38 stories he wrote for the News-Sentinel (Indiana), copied text from other sources without citing them.	Resigned from White House. News-Sentinel editor stated they won't publish his articles in the future.
Janet Dailey	In two of her books, she borrowed plot points as well as passages from Nora Robert's novels.	Both novels were pulled from print and she paid a settlement to Nora Roberts.
“Tommy Triton”	Your average UCSD student who cut and pasted phrases from Internet websites into his research paper.	He received a zero on the assignment, which caused him to fail the class and he needed to repeat it. He also had to attend a special workshop. For more information see UCSD’s Policy on Integrity of Scholarship

Don't let this happen to you! Start practicing academic integrity skills in college, so you'll be ready for the real world!

Mendez, Mayita. “Jayson Blair.” (image). The making of Jayson Blair. Available from: The Baltimore Sun. <http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/movies/bal-as.blair23,0,4086491.story> (accessed 8 June 2009).

Wink, Jonathon. “Stephen Glass.” (image). Stephen Glass' former colleagues say journalist's deception should have been obvious. Available from: The Post Gazette. <http://www.post-gazette.com/movies/20031122glass1122fnp4.asp> (accessed 8 June 2009).

Ryan, David L. “Kaavya Viswanathan.” (image). Student novelist’s book to be recalled. Available from: The Boston Globe. <http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/04/28/student_novelists_book_to_be_recalled/> (accessed 8 June 2009).

Janet Cooke (image). Free Speech. Available from: The Online News Hour. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bradlee/background_cooke.html> (accessed 8 June 2009).

Timothy S. Goeglein (image). Gone. Available from: Silver in SF. <http://silverinsf.blogspot.com/2008/02/gone_29.html> (accessed 8 June 2009)

Janet Dailey (image). Authors: Janet Dailey. Available from: Simon & Schuster. <http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Janet-Dailey/1077650> (accessed 8 June 2009).

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Real World Examples

Preventing Plagiarism