An incident of plagiarism at NAQT

[Important Bird Area]

NAQT has fired one of its writers for submitting plagiarized questions (including some that appeared in finished tournament sets from 2013-14).

Full details

I'll be around here and in the irc to take questions.

[quizbowllee]

Could we see a side-by-side example of this plagiarism?

One of the main reasons I have never submitted questions to NAQT is that I'm afraid that I might inadvertently use "similar language" from other tossups. I'm just curious as to what level of similarity constitutes plagiarism in the eyes of NAQT.

[Important Bird Area]

Could we see a side-by-side example of this plagiarism?

One of the main reasons I have never submitted questions to NAQT is that I'm afraid that I might inadvertently use "similar language" from other tossups. I'm just curious as to what level of similarity constitutes plagiarism in the eyes of NAQT.

For the record, we don't consider "similar language" to constitute plagiarism (after all, there are only so many ways to describe certain basic academic concepts). The questions involved in this case, however, copied text verbatim from publicly-available non-NAQT packets.

[setht]

Could we see a side-by-side example of this plagiarism?

Here's the question that was initially flagged as probably plagiarized:

This scientist mistakenly assumed that phosphate groups are neutral in his theory that DNA has a triple-helix structure. This man proposed the concept of resonance in molecules. This scientist created a namesake scale that ranges from zero point seven to four to measure electronegativity, a concept he introduced. For 10 points--name this this American who won both the Chemistry and Peace Nobel Prizes.

answer: Linus Carl _Pauling_

Here's the presumed source:

This man names five rules for determining the structure of complex ionic crystals. He mistakenly assumed that phosphate groups are neutral in his theory that DNA has a triple-helical structure. With Corey and Branson, this man proposed that alpha helices and beta sheets make up the secondary structure of proteins. This scientist created a scale that ranges from zero point seven to four to measure electronegativity, a concept he created. For 10 points, name this author of The Nature of the Chemical Bond, an American chemist who won Nobels in both Chemistry and Peace.
Answer: Linus Carl Pauling

After receiving the email noting the similarity of these two questions, we began checking more of Hari's questions. Here's another striking example we found:

This author wrote "No lovers lived so great, or died so well," which ends a work based on Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. This author of ~Marriage a la Mode~ parodied Thomas Shadwell in one work. One of his poems chronicles the Battles of Lowestoft and St. James Day, in addition to the disastrous London Fire and is called "Annus Mirabilis." For 10 points--name this British poet of "MacFlecknoe" and "Absalom and Achitophel."

answer: John _Dryden_

The third sentence appears verbatim here, while the first sentence appears verbatim in the following tossup:

This man wrote about Saint Catherine and Maximinus in Tyrannic Love, and Leonidas becomes king and marries Palmyra in another work. This author wrote "No lovers lived so great, or died so well," which ends a work based on Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. He defended Catholicism in "The Hind and the Panther." This author of Marriage a la Mode parodied Thomas Shadwell in one work. He wrote a poetic allegory of the Monmouth Rebellion and Popish Plot, using two Biblical characters. For 10 points, name this author of All for Love, MacFlecknoe, and Absalom and Achitophel.

Neither of those submitted questions was ever used in an NAQT set. Here's one that was:

This shape's area is half the product of two side lengths times the sine of the included angle, and also equals an expression using the semiperimeter called Heron's formula. This polygon is never concave since its angles must sum to 180 degrees. For 10 points--name this three-sided shape.

answer: _triangle_

Compare with:

10. The Euler (“OIL-er”) line passes through the orthocenter (“OR-tho-SEN-ter”), circumcenter, and centroid (“SEN-troyd”) in this figure. The area of this polygon can be found by halving the product of two sides and the sine of the angle opposite of the third side or by simply using Heron’s formula. It is the only polygon that cannot be concave, because its angles must add to 180 degrees. For 10 points, name this polygon with three sides.
ANSWER: triangle

The phrasing is different, but all of the clues in the MSNCT tossup appear in the CMST tossup, and in the same order—including the rare/distinctive "cannot be concave" clue. It's not clear how much the phrasing was changed during mentoring, subject editing, or set editing.


I would like to publicly thank Samer Ismail for catching the first case and bringing it to our attention.

-Seth