Plagiarism rant!!!

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Hi everyone,

this isn't really about anything personal, but it is something that has just bothered the beejeebers out of me and I need to rant about it. Remember back in December when I came on here and told you all about this girl on the fan fiction site who swiped my ideas and used them as her own?

Well, along those same lines, I have to completely vent about someone else who did this. I don't know if anyone here follows the news, and this may not be a big deal anywhere else but in Germany. First of all, a bit of background as to why it grates on my nerves. My husband has his Ph.D. in Chemistry and knows first hand how hard it is to write a dissertation. He is a very intelligent man, and graduated at the top of his class (with honors). He has carried the doctor title since long before we met. He completed his doctoral thesis in 1991 and he did it completely honestly.

Just last week in our news, or Defense Minister (of all people) released a book with his doctoral thesis. 400 plus pages, of which 67 percent of it turned out to be plagiarized! It's been proven, in fact, some of it was directly copied from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Conservative Frankfurt Newspaper). The news program here even showed a copy of the article and the page from the 'thesis' to people on the street and they confirmed, it was the very same text (with small alterations).

When I was at the university, if someone was suspected of and proven to have plaigerized someone else's work, then they would have been expelled from the university and any titles or awards would have been revoked. So why is this not happening here? Is it because this guy is well known or popular? Anyway, there is now a big 'to do' about all this being a political attack by his opponants and arguments that he is such a 'nice guy'. The woman who was defendin him on TV last night was just as big of a swindler as he is. She took part in ballot box stuffing for goodness sakes. Birds of a feather flock together it seems.

This just makes me so angry. As a writer, I have always tried to be considerate of other writers, and I know for a fact that it took my husband 3 years to write his doctoral thesis. So, what is the deal here? Why does this guy get preferential treatment and his thievery is dismissed because he's a 'nice guy' or 'did a good job as defense minister'. Well, there are probably other people who have done similar things who got totally raked over the coals for it.

What sort of example does this set for kids? That it's okay to steal someone else's written work so long as one doesn't get caught for it? This totally devalues not only the work that my husband did, but it pretty much says that plagiarism is okay so long as one doesn't get caught. The more I think about this, the angrier I get.

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Just to let everyone know, the man who plagiarized his Doctoral thesis quit his post today. I am relieved...but it is about time.