Kara Richardson has now updated her NDPR review of the The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy (2 vols.) so that its readers are aware the hardback (box-set) edition contains plagiarized pieces by Martin Stone. She also has the happy news that future editions will contain brand new articles by Rudolf Schuessler and Maarten Hoenen.
What happened in the earlier version of her review goes to the heart of the matter. For it shows that even specialists can be unaware of plagiarism--not everybody is addicted to blogs, after all! In addition to retracting plagiarized pieces (and/or replacing them with other pieces in future editions) editors and publishers have a duty to alert their purchasers and readers of known cases of plagiarism. [Here is a website that keeps track of the very slow dribble of journal retractions in the Stone case.] Editors and presses also have a duty to prevent plagiarism more diligently, but about that some other time. Here are, for example, some low-cost things that CUP should be doing in this instance:
- Presumably institutional buyers purchase the volumes directly from CUP. So there may be a list of places that own the book. These could be contacted directly via email. (Moreover, if such a list doesn't exist, it still makes sense to contact libraries--academic publishers are not shy about contacting libraries and buyers of books!)
- In general publishers send the book out to journals to be reviewed. (Given how expensive this box-set is, I doubt CUP send it to lots of journals.) These journals should be contacted/warned, so that they can contact reviewers, if any.
- CUP websites/PR material should be very clear about the plagiarism case. The way CUP handles it on its websites is a bit sneaky: it doesn't mention it on the main page advertising the box set, nor on the online version of the box set, and even some versions advertising Stone's chapters pretend as if there is no problem.
- Perhaps short notes could be added at major retailer websites (Amazon, B&N, etc).
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