Humanities and social sciences

Political studies

Overview

As with other social sciences disciplines, monographs and journal articles both figure prominently in political studies research, with neither publication type assuming the dominance seen with monographs in the humanities and journal literature in the hard sciences. Hence, both of these publication types should be highlighted in instruction sessions to ensure that students know how to cite them.

In addition to these more traditional publication types, however, political studies is a field characterized by its heavy use of other, non-traditional sources. Many of these fall into the 'gray literature' category, including government documents, publications from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), etc. Data sets, including polling data, survey research, and more, are also increasingly employed in political studies. These unconventional sources pose citation challenges for even more sophisticated users, so students benefit from discussions of how to ethically use them. Libraries increasingly employ data librarians or equivalent positions, and generalist and subject specialist librarians are well-advised to consult these specialized professionals when preparing instructional materials on citation of these sources.

News reports are also important in political studies research. In addition to using and citing conventional sources (newspapers, primarily), students also need to establish confidence in correctly referencing blogs and other new media. Timely political news and much political commentary are now published in these new electronic formats rather than through traditional channels.

The political studies discipline has developed a preference for the use of author/date in-text references, with page number appended where necessary. This style is alternately referred to as the American Political Science Association's Style Manual for Political Science (almost wholly derived from the Chicago Manual of Style) or Harvard Style (especially in the United Kingdom), and is still known as AGPS in Australia (because it was at one time published by the Australian Government Publication Service). Instructors should refer to these guides when working with students, but it is useful to note some of the rationale behind the discipline's preferred citation styles. Political studies, perhaps even more than the other social sciences, straddles the divide between the need for the careful persuasive argument characteristic of the humanities, and the objective data found in the hard sciences. Therefore, it seems appropriate that the field has adopted a style that combines the two approaches: privileging publication date and eschewing footnotes, as in the sciences, but including page numbers to provide context for quotations, as in the humanities.

The American Political Science Association's lengthy Guide to Professional Ethics in Political Science and the United Kingdom's Political Studies Association's shorter Guidelines for Professional Conduct include admonitions against plagiarism, although such a statement seems to be lacking from the International Political Science Association's website. Review of statements from professional bodies such as these serves as a useful reminder to students that plagiarism is not only a grave offense in student papers, but is more widely regarded as a serious professional failing.

Case study: Joseph Biden

As spring 1987 turned to summer, the list of candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for the 1988 US Presidential election was beginning to take shape. Joseph (Joe) Biden, Delaware Senator since 1973, joined the race in June 1987. Senator Biden's victory was far from certain but his fundraising success and the early withdrawal of frontrunner Gary Hart had significantly improved the strength of Biden's campaign. Biden was receiving increasing praise for his speeches, with many regarding him as 'the most riveting orator in the Democratic party . one of the great stump speakers' (Fotheringham, 1987: 68).

Biden was fine-tuning yet another speech as he drove to the Idaho State Fair with an aide on August 23 1987. He decided to use a strategy that had been successful in previous speeches when he had quoted, with appropriate attribution, an impassioned speech by British Labour Party politician Neil Kinnock (Kaus, 1987). This time, however, instead of crediting Kinnock, Biden introduced his 'borrowing' from Kinnock with the words, 'I started thinking as I was coming over here,' and went on to ask:

Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife . is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? . Is it because they didn't work hard? My ancestors who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours? It's because they didn't have a platform upon which to stand. (As quoted in 'A case of plagiarized passion,' 1987: 35)

Biden's words were undoubtedly very similar to Kinnock's questions:

Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys [Kinnock's wife] the first woman in her family . to be able to get to university? Was it because all our predecessors were thick? . Was it because they were weak? Weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? . It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand. (As quoted in 'A case of plagiarized passion,' 1987: 35)

Aside from (and perhaps more damning than) similarities in sentiment, wording, and delivery style, Biden appeared to be 'appropriating Kinnock's life rather than just his words' (Posner, 2007: 37). His father, Joe Biden Sr, had been a car salesman before switching to real estate and the only relative identified with mining was a mining engineer grandfather (McDonald, 1987), who apparently did not spend much time underground. Joe Biden's great-grandfather, Edward F. Blewitt, was a Pennsylvania State Senator (Bumsted, 2008) and so most certainly had 'a platform upon which to stand'.

Revelations about Biden's appropriation of Kinnock prompted further investigation of his past by his political foes, particularly rival Michael Dukakis' campaign manager John Sasso, who lost his job after his involvement in the exposé was revealed (Posner, 2007). Biden's past speeches were mined and unattributed quotations from both John and Robert Kennedy were found. (Interestingly, according to Posner (1988), the passages spoken by Robert Kennedy were actually written by his speechwriter, Adam Walkinsky.) However, the most damaging revelation was that Biden had received a failing grade for plagiarizing five pages of a fifteen page paper while in his first year at Standard University Law School in 1965. The 'F' was upgraded to a 'B' when Biden repeated the course (Kaus, 1987).

Biden offered explanations for the incidents as they came to light. In response to his law school indiscretions, Biden and his campaign argued that the statute of limitations had surely run out on an offense committed twenty-three years in the past. He blamed an unattributed Kennedy passage in one of his speeches on the advisor who had written the speech for him (Kaus, 1987). He responded to criticism of his Idaho State Fair speech by emphasizing that he had acknowledged his debt to Neil Kinnock in past speeches and the Idaho omission was an isolated event. It seems, though, that the damage was done. Biden ended his campaign on 24 September 1987, blaming his withdrawal on the 'exaggerated shadow' of his mistakes that had 'begun to obscure the essence of my candidacy and the essence of Joe Biden' (Dionne, 1987: A1).

Biden remained Delaware Senator but largely stayed out of the limelight until he announced his decision to run for the Democratic nomination once again, in early 2007, but his campaign failed to gain momentum and he withdrew less than a year later. Barack Obama subsequently selected Biden for his running mate; this announcement occasioned a great deal of commentary about his plagiaristic past (a Google search for 'Biden' and 'plagiarism' retrieves nearly two million hits, many of which date from the 2008 selection of Biden as Obama's VP pick). Obama and Biden won the 2008 election and, nearly twenty years after his initial bid to enter presidential politics, Biden became the forty-seventh Vice President of the United States.

Discussion questions

 To what extent is it acceptable to adopt others' thoughts and language? With credit? Without credit?

 What are the similarities and differences regarding appropriate attribution in spoken and written works?

 How does the fact that there was a pattern of offenses, rather than an isolated incident, change your thinking about...