This letter was written in response to the Dec. 6 installment of the Arts section series, "The Artist's Experience," in which the writer was found to have directly plagiarized several paragraphs from Leonard Shlain's 1991 "Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light."
To the Editor:
It is an unfortunate coincidence that a case of plagiarism has descended on the Tufts Daily at the end of the semester, as it robs the Tufts community and The Daily a chance to respond appropriately.
I would hope that plagiarism hitting so close to home would spur The Daily into action on several fronts, regardless of when the behavior was revealed.
As such, I implore The Daily not to let the plagiarism go unexamined and launch a full investigation into the matter.
This should include an examination of the author's past contributions to the paper, as well as the current procedure in place at The Daily to prevent such plagiarism.
Also, as the publication of record on campus, it is up to The Daily to utilize Mr. Kirk's inappropriate behavior as a catalyst to investigate the state of plagiarism on campus.
This should include a thorough look at the university's efforts to curb the practice, as well as its prevalence both inside and outside the classroom.
These efforts would only befit a news organization that upholds journalistic ethics.
Sincerely,Chadwick Matlin, senior
Editors' Note: We take plagiarism very seriously, as entrenched in our constitution, and the writer in question was immediately terminated from his place on the Daily staff. Several other instances of plagiarism this semester were caught before they went to print, and those writers were likewise terminated.
