Q&A …

… Philosophers, meet the plagiarism police. His name is Michael Dougherty. – Retraction Watch. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

My first plagiarism discovery occurred in 2009: I was doing some research for a book I was writing on medieval moral dilemma theory, and I came across an article that provided a stunning experience of textual déjà vu. Via Facebook, I contacted the primary victim of the plagiarism (who had left academia and was serving as an MP in the Finnish government) and with his publisher we jointly requested a retraction on the basis of plagiarism. My first venture in correcting the scholarly record in philosophy for plagiarism resulted in a retraction. I was contacted by other colleagues, and we eventually sent retraction requests for more than 40 articles and book chapters by the same author of record (who thereby earned a brief appearance on the Retraction WatchLeader Board). So, my first foray in correcting the scholarly record for plagiarism went surprisingly well, but not all subsequent cases have gone so smoothly.