When Your Work's Been Plagiarized

A researcher writes to Janet Stemwedel to ask what he should do after finding out that his work has been plagiarized. The reader, Doug writes that part of his thesis appeared in a journal article and he wrote to the journal but hasn't heard back. Stemwedel advises him to send a letter to the chair of the editorial advisory board and to carbon-copy that letter to his thesis advisor. "Basically, you want to lay out what you did in the email, possibly including a printout of the article with the plagiarism and a photocopy of your actual thesis, highlighting the lifted passages," she says.