Lessons from plagiarism

School plagiarism and professional theses have always been preventable or avoided, but now technology can expose and eradicate them. For decades there have been software and platforms that perform this comparison with databases, algorithms and Artificial Intelligence, even in different languages ​​and in seconds. UNAM has been extremely parsimonious in adopting this and other types of technological solutions.

The UNAM, through the Faculty of Higher Studies (FES) Aragón, confirmed the plagiarism (euphemistically called it “misappropriation of the texts”) of the thesis of the current minister Yasmín Esquivel Mossa to the then student Edgar Ulises Báez.

Many writers are commenting on the legal and administrative actions that must be carried out by both the UNAM that graduates students, and the Ministry of Public Education that issues the professional license to those who have completed an academic degree. Not to mention the political repercussions within the Supreme Court and the resignation or not of the minister.

I prefer to make some reflections that have not been sufficiently addressed, as a professor at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the UNAM and other academic institutions.

1. The faculties of the universities are called like this because one of their main functions is to develop during the years that the degree lasts, the intellectual faculties of the student, such as perception, will, imagination, memory, intuition and reason.

The development and exercise of these intellectual faculties allow, among other actions, to identify, observe, remember, classify, analyze, synthesize and summarize. If the university institutions really developed these intellectual faculties among their population, plagiarism would be less, because the student would have the conscious capacity to investigate and carry out the work in a genuine way.

2. The bachelor’s degree is an official document that licenses or authorizes the student to practice their profession. In jobs, it is requested to display the original of the title and deliver a photocopy, because it is the way to “demonstrate” that someone is a professional in their field and is legitimated to perform it.

Graduated people earn better salaries than non-degrees and are more likely to rise to higher positions and responsibilities in their organizations. It is common for professionals with many years of experience in the labor field to want to graduate many years later, because they have received a job offer that requires a bachelor’s degree. The eternal interns are in a hurry to graduate, but also a lot of experience. Some faculties have opened the degree modality called “professional experience”, in response to that population that does not have time to do a traditional thesis, but has extensive knowledge and knowledge.

3. The professional title (as it is also called) is extremely important in certain professions and not so much in others. It is relevant for lawyers and doctors, but not for communication scientists and journalists, who can carry on their activities without having graduated.

In the stands, the litigants are required to show their professional identification to act in a trial or carry out any procedure. The offices of Similar pharmacies do not have windows, but the professional title of the doctor is hung on the wall. No one would allow themselves to be defended by a lawyer without a license and no one would allow themselves to be operated on by a doctor without a title. Hence the importance of these documents in society. Instead, many journalists do publish without having graduated.

4. For a thesis or synod director (they are also called “readers”) it is relatively easy to identify or assume plagiarism. Ideally, teachers have previously read the work, are familiar with the literature and the thinking of other authors and theorists.

If the professors really read the theses (a synod has barely a month to do it), it is easy to identify the personal style of writing. We all have it. It jumps out when an idea or paragraph does not fit that style. We all identify the style of Cervantes, Víctor Hugo, Dostoevsky or García Marques. Also, all students have a style even if they are not skilled in writing (that helps a lot) or have won a Nobel Prize in literature.

The functions of the thesis supervisors are mainly three: methodologically guide the student, reveal relevant bibliography and read the progress of the thesis, precisely to identify and avoid plagiarism, in addition to assessing the structure, coherence, research and methodological rigor.

5. The primary objective of a thesis research is to generate original knowledge. That is why plagiarism is extremely frowned upon in academic circles.

6. The student must register their thesis topic at the corresponding study center and, in general, they have one year to complete the research, always extendable. The theme registration has two reasons: to identify that this theme has not been previously investigated and carried out, for which reason it can be rejected because it would not be original, and to reserve it from other students who also want to investigate it. There are fashion themes that may be similar, but the focus should always be different and original. Some institutions allow you to modify the initially registered subject and title, others do not.

Between 1985-87 the Internet that we know did not exist, but there were rudimentary databases, files and thesis records, as well as abundant bureaucratic procedures that have not disappeared. It is unacceptable that the FES Aragón (then School) has missed the registration of two theses with exactly the same title.

7. It is extremely intellectual and academic dishonesty that a teacher has directed more than 500 theses, as is the case of the tutor Martha Rodríguez Ortiz.

These types of academics who direct an unusual number of theses are common in faculties and are highly identified both by students (who spread the word and consider them “boat”) and by their peers. Many have their own “graduate seminars,” a private academic business that must go. It must be said: those of us who participate in a professional exam are paid by the university according to the grade of the test or oral exam of the written exam (thesis). It is not surprising that many teachers want to participate in many professional examinations, because it is a minuscule additional income in the face of such precarious salaries.

They are dishonest teachers because so many theses cannot be properly directed or read carefully (if they do), no one is an expert on so many topics and, worst of all, they take away opportunities for other professors to direct theses on topics that they do know.

8. Minister Esquivel’s behavior is indefensible, her reaction to the scandal even worse, but it must be admitted that the student has not been taught not to plagiarize. The politically correct expression of “misappropriation of texts” is appropriate, because many students are unaware of the multiple forms of citation and paraphrasing. Unlike 1985, the Internet has made this “misappropriation of texts” through “copy and paste” even easier and more uninhibited, without implying that it is ethical. It is even very easy to plagiarize from other languages, thanks to the Google translator.

9. The informative campaign to raise awareness among students and the training for teachers that UNAM will implement as a result of this scandal is essential, but it must be from the beginning of their studies, even from high school, and not only “when they are close to graduating from their studies and opt for the presentation of the thesis or a written report as degree modalities”.