Crowley’s Dissertation….

Via Politico:  Trump Pick Monica Crowley Plagiarized Parts of Her Ph.D. Dissertation.

An examination of the dissertation and the sources it cites identified around more than a dozen sections of text that have been lifted, with little to no changes, from other scholarly works without proper attribution. In some instances, Crowley footnoted her source but did not identify with quotation marks the text she was copying directly. In other instances, she copied text or heavily paraphrased with no attribution at all.

[…]

By checking passages in the document against the sources Crowley cites, focusing on paragraphs that come before and after footnotes of key sources in her bibliography, we found numerous structural and syntactic similarities. She lifted passages from her footnoted texts, occasionally making slight wording changes but rarely using quotation marks. Sometimes she didn’t footnote at all.

Parts of Crowley’s dissertation appear to violate Columbia’s definition of “Unintentional Plagiarism” for “failure to ‘quote’ or block quote author’s exact words, even if documented” or “failure to paraphrase in your own words, even if documented.” In other cases, her writing appears to violate types I and II of Columbia’s definition of “Intentional Plagiarism,” which are, respectively, “direct copy and paste” and “small modification by word switch,” “without quotation or reference to the source.”

This is not surprising, given revelations about her book.

 

FILED UNDER: US Politics, , ,
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. CSK says:

    Did she write it herself, or was it another cut and paste job done by research assistants? Cowley was a commentator and a columnist prior to her doctoral candidacy.

    I had a colleague once who was either too lazy or too inept (possibly both) who hired what she called an “editor” to write her doctoral dissertation for her.

  2. C. Clavin says:

    In the new normal…this is fine. Perfectly ethical when there are no ethics. And obviously this makes her over-qualified for the Trump administration…as she did at least do some research instead of simply making shit up.
    Interested in seeing what Columbia does about it.

  3. MarkedMan says:

    This is the era of modern Republican control. Plagiarists, liars and thieves. The Unvetted led by Putin’s Bitch. If someone two years ago had said “Would you concede that the Republican Party is nothing more than looters if they came into total power and the first thing they did was gut ethics oversight for themselves, the second thing they did was jam through approval of billionaires and lobbyists to Cabinet level and Director positions without vetting them first, and that their leader, the President, was obviously in hock to the Russians and was personally involved in literally hundreds of scam businesses?”, well, even asking that question would have bought nothing but jeers. But now that it has come to pass it is disgusting to watch so-called conservatives bending over backwards to somehow justify it. The American Conservative, for one, has become pathetically unreadable.

  4. Franklin says:

    I called it in the other thread.

    You’re welcome.

    /no I didn’t do any hard work … just let me enjoy my moment, it’s been a hard week.

  5. slimslowslider says:

    @MarkedMan:

    The American Conservative, for one, has become pathetically unreadable.

    Ain’t that the truth. The column from yesterday regarding Streep and MMA was a new non-Dreher low.

  6. SenyorDave says:

    And the hits just coming. Kushner says that Trump didn’t believe any of the birther stuff he was pushing. So our president-elect actively pushed a racist narrative that he didn’t personally believe for political reasons. And his son-in-law, who will be a senior adviser to the president, apparently thinks its great. These two deserve each other, but the country doesn’t deserve them. How can any thinking person support Trump at this point?

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-didnt-really-believe-the-birther-conspiracy-he-was-pushing-son-in-law-reportedly-says-165840299.html

  7. Liberal Capitalist says:

    As my grandmother used to say:

    You are defined by those with which you surround yourself.

    DailyKOS had an article about hitting bottom before admitting that we need change. America, meet bottom.

    Let’s hope we can all survive the next 1,470 days.

  8. al-Alameda says:

    @MarkedMan:

    If someone two years ago had said “Would you concede that the Republican Party is nothing more than looters if they came into total power and the first thing they did was gut ethics oversight for themselves, the second thing they did was jam through approval of billionaires and lobbyists to Cabinet level and Director positions without vetting them first, and that their leader, the President, was obviously in hock to the Russians and was personally involved in literally hundreds of scam businesses?

    A significant minority of the voters wanted this.

  9. michael reynolds says:

    Forget this fraud’s bogus credentials, why has no one looked into Trump’s school years? He reads at a fifth grade level and most likely suffers from ADD, so I very much doubt he got through college without cheating. Somewhere out there are people who were paid money to get little Donald through school.

  10. @michael reynolds: It would probably be impossible to gain access to the materials needed to investigate such an issue (if they even exist any longer).

  11. MarkedMan says:

    @slimslowslider:

    The column from yesterday regarding Streep and MMA was a new non-Dreher low.

    I used to read Dreher, but his several year fixation on how laws that provide equal access for sexual orientation are destroying civilization and truly moral people have no choice but to remove themselves from society, has gotten really old and really fast. What a drama queen…

  12. MarkedMan says:

    @Liberal Capitalist:

    DailyKOS had an article about hitting bottom before admitting that we need change. America, meet bottom.

    This is something frequently said and acted on – We must pull down the system and rebuild from scratch – but has it ever worked in real life? Has it ever improved anything? This is the Trump-state mentality – first order of business is never to learn how to govern, but to destroy government.

  13. CSK says:

    @SenyorDave:

    He also didn’t believe Clinton was a crook who belongs in jail. He admitted he said that to get elected, too. Trump knows what the bottom-feeders want to hear, I’ll give him that.

  14. @CSK: And he admitted that “drain the swamp” was just something that he was told to say.

  15. CSK says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    Kushner appears to be his ventriloquist. I read somewhere, a few months ago, that Kushner made a practice of assuring Trump’s major donors that Trump “didn’t really mean” the things he was saying about the wall and Mexicans and Muslims.

    I’m not sure how Conway manages to keep a straight face–but that may be her principal qualification for her job.

    And of course Kellyanne Conway has admonished the press (and the rest of us, presumably) that we shouldn’t listen to what Trump says, but “listen to his heart” instead. I don’t know how Jake Tapper managed to keep a straight face.

  16. CSK says:

    @CSK:

    Second and third paragraphs above got mysteriously reversed. Oh, well.

  17. SKI says:

    If there is one lesson from this whole election/experience that keeps getting drummed in time and time again; it is truly understanding the power of shamelessness.

  18. CSK says:

    @SKI:

    There’s that. But there’s also another lesson, which is that there is nothing, no matter how appalling, that Trump can do or say that will discourage his acolytes.

  19. gVOR08 says:

    @michael reynolds: Failing investigation, could the supposedly liberal MSM report that he got a BS in real estate from Wharton instead of vaguely ‘he received an Ivy League education.’

  20. gVOR08 says:

    @CSK:
    Suggested rephrasing:

    And of course Kellyanne Conway has admonished the press (and the rest of us, presumably) that we shouldn’t listen to what Trump says, but “listen to his heart” instead. I don’t know how why Jake Tapper managed wanted to keep a straight face.

    (Access, and having developed over the years an indifference to being lied to on camera.)

    If you think about it, Conway is making a serious admission – that Trump’s word salad speaking style is deliberate, allowing his fans to read into him what they want. (Romney did the same thing, less obviously.) And the press should report what his fans hear, not his words.

    At a personal level, one of the most regrettable aspects of this whole debacle is that Lying Conway is still on my television machine.

  21. gVOR08 says:

    @MarkedMan: As many have said, if you’re going Galt/Benedict, why can I still hear you?

  22. CSK says:

    @gVOR08:

    Palin did the same thing with the word salad: unfinished sentences, digressions, vague allusions, etc., intended, presumably, to allow her audience to hear whatever they wanted to hear. As I said the other day, Trump is Palin on steroids.

  23. Scott says:

    @CSK:

    “listen to his heart”

    I think a lot of people have listened to his “heart”. They heard the color black.

  24. gVOR08 says:

    @Scott: I think this is an astrophysics issue. What sound does a black hole make?

  25. grumpy realist says:

    @MarkedMan: It’s what I call The Samson Gambit–the idea that if you pull everything down on top of yourself a new, better world will somehow magically appear from the ruins.

  26. Jen says:

    I’ve lost track. Is there a single person who has been appointed a position in the new administration who doesn’t have some lying/cheating/stealing documented in his or her background? This is unreal. I hope Columbia yanks her PhD.

  27. grumpy realist says:

    @Jen: So do I.

    I hope she gets so laughed at and her plagiarism gets mentioned every time she is introduced to anyone, to the point where she turns into an agaraphobic and remains stuck at home for the rest of her life.

  28. gVOR08 says:

    @Jen: I’m unaware Flynn has any scandals (except his for real security issues), he’s just nuts.

  29. slimslowslider says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Looking forward to Dreher’s Watersportsgate post(s)!

  30. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @slimslowslider: Your comment forced me to go to TAC to see the article in question: WTF??????????

  31. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: Considering Trump’s age, such records may well never have existed in the first place–especially for a child from an upper income family.

  32. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @gVOR08:

    At a personal level, one of the most regrettable aspects of this whole debacle is that Lying Conway is still on my television machine.

    Switching from cable to Hulu has worked wonders for what I can keep off of my television.

  33. slimslowslider says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker:

    I am sure he will get right on this story as soon as he finishes his 200th “SJWs are the worst thing to happen EVER” post …