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Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
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The essays on plagiarism and professional conduct in the March 2004 JAH need comment. |
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Those of my generation (Ph.D., Harvard, '57) were taught that except for direct quotations it was sufficient to indicate in the sources a bibliography of archives, persons, and works consulted. In my field of aviation history the overall intent was to write readable prose for three groups of readers—scholars, professionals, and buffs. The aim was the exploration of new ideas and fields, as well as a classroom necessity for explaining complexities by simple patterns the students could grasp. At the Journal of the West we have long tried to get authors to write short summary paragraphs or essays on sources, and to avoid repetitive lists of newspaper citations. |
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As an author, I have twice been asked by university presses to cut down the bibliography in my monographs, in the latest case from 191 double-spaced pages to 60. Costs of editing and printing do affect the practice of acknowledging sources, especially in a book for the general reader. |
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Recently we became involved in a case that we believe explains a professional weakness. In 1992, we ran an article in the Journal of the West. In 2002, we received a copy of a term paper written in 1976 and deposited in a university archive. When we compared that term paper with the published article, they were 75 percent identical. The author of the JOW article had said that the article was based on his M.A. thesis and that he had received a Ph.D. for further work on the same subject. We tried unsuccessfully to contact him for an explanation. We wrote to the president of his Ph.D.-granting institution, presenting the facts, and suggesting that since the degree was based upon plagiarism, it should be revoked. We received a curt "mind your own business" response. So much for professional standards and honesty! |
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One more aspect of professional conduct disturbs me—that is faculty responses and responsibilities in reading and grading students' work and in refereeing articles and manuscripts. In my day at Kansas State University we put in a rule that if a member of the committee failed to read a thesis or dissertation chapter within two weeks of receiving it, barring chair-approved delay, that person had no say on the final oral and his vote had to be a pass. |
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Equally unprofessional are some of the readers' reports on manuscripts submitted to presses and the lack of reaction to them on the part of their directors. My favorite is "this man did not take his Ph.D. with me and does not read Greek; therefore it cannot be any good." |
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For historians and others to communicate freely, we need to be able to operate within a loose net, inside of which the reader can gain access to any source cited that may be of interest. Otherwise we will end up, again, with very expensive nineteenth-century-style works on the Middle Ages, in which the notes take up more space than the text. |
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| Robin Higham, Emeritus
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Kansas State University
Manhattan, Kansas |
Editorial note: Robin Higham was editor of Military Affairs, 1968–1988, and of Aerospace Historian, 1970–1988. Since 1976 he has been editor of Journal of the West.
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