Malaysian Media Matters (MMM) last week detailed in three consecutive blog postings a prima facie case for plagiarism in The Star.
A columnist in the MCA-owned tabloid had apparently lifted passages verbatim from The Daily Mail (UK paper), from The New York Times, from a Yahoo! article, from a UK property website, from trade journal Psychology Today, from a professional guide to resume writing, from the work of a professor in a Columbia University publication, and likely from many more sources … but who’s counting.
Ref: Blogger uppercaise (cited viz. MMM above) on
Up till now, all quiet on the Starry front still.
The paper seems to think that by pretending to be a blur sotong in refusing to issue any statement or apology, nobody would be any the wiser.
This buat tak tahu attitude merely mirrors the paper’s credo of adamantly living in its own Lalaland.
For the moment, the plagiarism is only being highlighted by a small handful of blogs.
But nonetheless, it has already caught the attention of a University of Nottingham lecturer. I wouldn’t be surprised if the said lecturer makes a case study of out this in-denial syndrome of The Star as his teaching material. Congrats to the paper.
Congrats too, MCA
Just as how Buletin Mutiara reflects DAP, and Selangor Times reflects the Pakatan Chinatown clique, The Star reflects MCA (those times when its conflicting inner-self Rocket mode is successfully subdued).
You might remember the July 8 debate between MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek and DAP sec-gen Kim Guan Eng who wagged his finger several times rebuking “Shame on you”.
Star iPad
Why is The Star behaving in this way?
Is it because it is a child of the MCA — bapa borek anak rintik?
Below is a tweet by the paper’s Most Favourite Person aka the DAP Subang Jaya state assemblyman expounding on the “shameless” leitmotif that is DAP’s signature tune.
The Star‘s behaviour is not all the inexplicable really.
It in only keeping with the nature of the beast that panders to twits and promotes the founts of Twitdom with a missionary zeal. This plagiarism episode is demonstrably The Star finding its level, that’s all.
Do you really expect higher standards of a daily that habitually licks the likes of public relations executives (career field of the aforementioned plagiarizing columnist) and “event planners” (ex-career field of the personality cult proselytized by the paper) as exemplars of A Brave New Malaysia and elevating these twittering individuals to its own brand of ‘Star’dom?
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Helen Ang 
A media outlet that has to quote tweets, is one which does not have access to the actual source / principal. Or it could just be lazy journalism, as reflected by a columnist who indulges in plagiarism.
I hear Dawn Jeremiah is one kind of high-nosed makcik gemuk…
Plagiarism is thievery. Worse, the stolen goods are repackaged and put back into the market for a gemuk profit.
procrastinate-due date, alamak…copycat… remember uni assignments? :) I bet this fella still doing this until now. old habit die hard, bad habit die harder. penyakit plagiarism kekal hingga dibawa ke tempat kerja.
Plagiarism has become a major problem in higher education institutions around the world. It became restless to all parties when the graduates stealing in order to get a degree. According to Dr. Megawati Omar, in The Star Online, June 5. 2011, “plagiarism means kidnapping and stealing the work of others, which is blatant dishonesty. That she added, “education, which has a role to define and advance society, cannot be run on deceit.”
Ronald B Standler’s opinion on 3 distinct wrong in plagiarism as mentioned in his essay: Plagiarism in College in the USA, Legal Aspect of Plagiarism, Academic Policy,
1. “Plagiarist fraudulently represent plagiarized material as the plagiarist own work, which invite readers to give credit, reward or some benefits to the plagiarist. In this plagiarist was unjustly enriched is.
2. The plagiarist denies the true author credit for his / her good work.
3. In reading and listening for the above wrong, if the text is Copyrighted, (ie., not in public domain), then the plagiarist may also have infringed the copyright of the copied text, because the plagiarist may also have the copyright infringe on the copied text, because the plagiarist does not has the right to copy (or paraphrase) large amounts of some other author’s text.” (Source: http://www.rbf2.com/plag.pdf)
There are various types of plagiarism. Among the most popular according to Wawasan Open University essay, are:
1. “Word for word plagiarism …, (verbatim)
2. Using other writer without acknowledging the source of ideas …,
3. Acknowledging the source but reproducing the passage (verbatim) without quotation marks…,
4. Paraphrasing the source too closely and not giving due credit…. ”
(Source:http://woulibrary.wou.edu.my/library/mozilla/requesting_rwplagiarism_avoid.aspx)
Based on Malaysians and USA writers’ opinion, we know that plagiarism is really big issue and it is happening worldwide. Why do students plagiarize other writers in particular, even though they knew the act was wrong? There are many reasons why students plagiarize. Top 4 of them are:
1. Lazy to try and take the easy way to plagiarize ideas and writings of others and claiming to be his / hers.
2. Doing university assignments at the last minute because students like to procrastinate and did not have time to write their own ideas.
3. Do not understand the assignment and not asking for certainty and plagiarize other people’s work.
4. Special case in Malaysia, for students who are less fluent in English, plagiarized work (English) of others in the hope that no one will notice.
After knowing about the definition and why people plagiarize, we should also know by now that this is unethical practice. Moreover, it can also be detected by using similarity detection software. There is also the easiest way to capture internet plagiarist by placing a quotation mark in a phrase. Then, put an opening and closing quotation marks on words (“abcd”), copy then paste to Google and press search button. If there is similarity, Google will show the source of texts, where does it comes from. It would easily catch plagiarist even without sophisticated software!
As all of us know, today’s students are future leaders. Is it okay to be leaded by unethical people, thieves that claiming others idea as his / her own work. If these leaders are to lead, there will be so many regulation and ethics to be broken by them. If the purpose of education is to shape future leaders, then plagiarism may be the best tool to shape corrupt future leaders.
the above I c & p from my own note. :)
The Star is not known for intellectual journalism. The only parts worth reading in The Star are the parts where the news originated from Reuters, Agencies etc, the foreign syndication, plus those by Jocelyn Tan. The rest are half baked journos, err…..I don’t think they are half baked. I think they are empty water buckets.