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Poet Withdraws from Forward Prize Over Plagiarism

First off this issue, the BBC reports that poet CJ Allen has decided to withdraw his name from the prestigious Forward Prize shortlist after admitting to plagiarism in his earlier work. The plagiarism was spotted by fellow poet Matthew Welton, who claims to have noticed the plagiarism back in May of 2012, shortly after seeing Allen give a reading in Nottingham and he realized that several of Allen’s poems were early versions of his own work. Welton said that, at the time, he wanted to write something about it but didn’t feel any urgency. However, Allen’s Forward Prize nomination helped to spur him to speak publicly about his discoveries. Allen, in turn, has admitted to plagiarizing “certain works” but said that he never intended to deceive and that his submission to the Forward Prize was original. Welton, for his part, also believes the Forward Prize submission to be original. Nonetheless, due to “negative publicity” surrounding his actions, Allen felt it best to withdraw. The Forward Prize will be awarded in a ceremony on October first that will include a reading of all the nominated poems. Allen’s poem, however, will not be among those that are read.

In August, we posted about an incident where the UK newspaper The Daily Mail faced accusations of plagiarizing from the popular comedy website Cracked. However, Cracked finds itself once against the center of a plagiarism scandal and, once again, as the victim, but this plagiarism scandal has a twist: The plagiarists managed to rip off Cracked’s articles before they were even published.

In October of last year, the University Grants Commission (UGC) in India proposed new regulations for the awarding of MPhil/PhD degrees in the country. Among the requirements were that all schools must begin “using well-developed software” to detect plagiarism and other forms of “academic theft” and also provide an electronic copy to the UGC for inclusion in the organization’s Information and Library Network Centre (INFLIBNET), which is open to the public.

According to a recent report in The Register, three doctors, Dr. Afroze Khan, Dr. Zishan Sheikh and Dr. Shahnawaz Khan in the UK are being brought before Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service (MPTS) and face either withdrawal or suspension of their licenses to practice medicine over allegations of plagiarism.

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Taiwan Defense Minister Resigns Amid Plagiarism Row

First off in this edition, the BBC reports that Taiwanese Defense Minister Andrew Yang resigned a mere six days after taking the office due to plagiarism allegations. Yang, who took the office after his predecessor stepped down in the midst of a scandal involving the death of an army conscript, found himself embroiled in controversy after it was discovered that an article written under his name contained plagiarized material. According to Yang, the article, which was about mainland China’s People’s Liberation Army,  was written by a friend of his for him. Yang quickly admitted to the plagiarism, calling it a “personal mistake” and apologized for the infraction. In his resignation, Yang said that the government was facing “great challenges” and that his actions had hurt the ministry’s honor. Yang, who was the first civilian to have held the position, was succeeded by Yen Ming, who is currently the Minister of National Defense.