PH “Frank's Edit” – Claudine Gay Resigns As President Of Harvard University! A Victim Of Plagiarism And/Or Inadequate Editing Of Her PhD Dissertation

Frank's Edit – How important is editing of a technical manuscript? Devastatingly important, I say as The Editor In Chief with 48-year experience. The proof this time is the resignation of Claudine Gay as President of Harvard University (Matt Egan, Samantha Delouya & Elisa Hammon, “Claudine Gay Resigns,” (02 Jan 2024, CNN Business, cnn.com)). This was amidst amid plagiarism allegations. Ms Gay is Harvard’s first black President in its nearly 400-year history. She assumed office only last July, or 5 months ago – such a short time! But plagiarism is plagiarism. 
(“Avoiding Plagiarism” from aijr.org)

There are other accusations, but I want to concentrate on plagiarism – because this is recorded stealing of other people’s intellectual properties. Not surprisingly, Collin Binkley & Moriah Balingit say, “Harvard President's Resignation Highlights New Conservative Weapon Against Colleges: Plagiarism” (03 Jan 2024, (nbcboston.com):

In a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday, Gay acknowledged making mistakes. She said her published work contained passages where “some material[s] duplicated other scholars' language, without proper attribution."

“Without proper attribution” – that happens all the time in technical papers. I am not accusing Ms Gay of plagiarism – I think I know exactly what happened. As The Editor In Chief 3 times in my career from 1975 to 2008, and having edited quite a number of BS, MS and PhD theses, I am aware that “citations” – name mentions of sources of statements – in technical papers are not strictly followed. Too many authors simply (1) write down the text exactly that they see in a published work but do not indicate the sentences or phrases with quotation marks, and/or (2) do not indicate whose exact statement/s they are borrowing. I now call that the Editor’s Sin (EdSin[FAH1] ) of technical papers.

Authors need good editors all the time!

Deliberately done or not, this EdSin is more properly called PLAGIARISM.

I do not subscribe to such “conservative attacks” because of plagiarism, but as Science Editor, I subscribe to the strict requirement for authors of technical papers to properly acknowledge sources of statements, at the very least using quotation marks.

ANN says categorically (undated, “Citing Sources: Overview,” MIT Libraries, libguides.mit.edu):

To be a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas.

What happened? The Harvard President resigned. Matt Egan, Samantha Delouya & Elise Hammond of CNN quote her (02 Jan 2024, CNN Business, edition.cnn.com):

It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as President.

The resignation was accepted, if grudgingly. The Harvard Corporation’s acceptance of Ms Gay’s resignation (it cannot be denied that she is black), was adding insult to injury (plagiarism), the one she caused on herself.

The Harvard President’s abrupt resignation should be a grave moral lesson for all writers (and editors) of science-based papers to properly acknowledge their sources of information, not the least “to put the exact words in quotation marks” like that. This is The Editor In Chief speaking!@517

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