Dear Crit-Geog Forum
this last message has made me feel very sad; in fact it makes me feel really depressed. I have never met Prof Gordon below and I have never met Linda Kaucher either. However, the flavour of this email is just nasty. To be honest with you I thought the idea of the critical geography forum was to be critical. However, in the case below it seems that being critical is actually just an excuse to be nasty. Now I know we all have strong views - me included - and sometimes I am sure that when see things that we believe are 'unethical' we feel very angry and I think this is fair.
But the last email is personal. And I think that these personal comments are themselves very bullying and/or victimising. Indeed, the email has a certain medieval quality to it; that is by being openly nasty about Prof Gordon to the whole forum he is paraded in 'cyber stocks' so that we can see the rotten fruit that is being thrown at him. Now if Linda Kaucher really has a problem with Prof Gordon she should either take it up with him personally or the LSE. But I really do not think that this public parading is fair. And I really don't think this list is the place for this kind of behaviour. I think this list is about being critical but the message below, is simply more than critical.
Secondly I feel increasingly sad by some of the people in our profession. In the last few years I have begun to receive increasingly nasty comments in the form of reviews - especially to articles. Thankfully I have received a lot of great reviews as well even when my papers/chapters have needed revising or when they have been rejected out right. It shows that there really are many of us who can separate criticism from just plain old personal nastiness...However, I have noticed an increased amount of nastiness in many quarters of our profession and this observation has been made by other people from a wide range of disciplines (way beyond geography). In light of this wider problem, I really think that this increased culture of nastiness has a lot to do with the intense pressure that many academics are under: deadlines, research assessment pressures, teaching, short term contracts, alienation etc....
I do not of course have any neat solutions or answers; but as someone with a long standing interest in labour relations, I really hope we can find a way forward to arrest these problems before they get worse. I have to say that I came into this career (after working for the ruthless, horrible world of insurance) to get away from this stuff.... and I feel sorry that I am seeing this behaviour here in academia. I still think this job is great, and I still find my colleagues and all the people in this profession fascinating and wonderful to work with, but I am increasingly finding that the system of pressure that positions academia is becoming more and more intense and I think that an increasing culture of nastiness is one of the symptoms of this. As someone who has been a number of jobs in my life - including factory and unskilled jobs - when the pressure is on people tend to blame each other rather than the system which is stressing them out.
If we really are critical geographers, critical sociologists, or critical social scientists more generally I really we hope we can turn our sites on the institutions and/or systems of pressure that really deserve our contempt.
With respect and praise to you all
Andy Law
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From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda Kaucher [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 03 April 2010 10:44
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Turnitin
I do wonder what it is you are smelling, Gordon
Because the documented student bullying and victimising that you have so far got away with, with the inherent abuse of power, produces quite a stench.
Even more malodorous is prostituted research - produced for the Corporation of London, the City; research that, below the headline, is just guesswork, yet always plays the right tune for those who pay the piper. You emphasise to students that you don't actually live in London, with some perverted pride; perhaps that's why you are okay producing and selling 'research' that is so detrimental to Londoners' lives. That is in addition to inane research on the East End, again, undertaken on a ridiculously unsound basis, producing false results that others then have to live with.
How do you live with yourself?
Presumably none of this does you any harm with a Director, who, as Mr Light Touch Financial Services Authority, hand in glove with City financial services, is fundamentally responsible for the destroyed economy of this country.
Not only has LSE failed to act on your abuse, but it is notable that you are that very rare case, a 'professor' who doesn't have a PhD - something else you seem to perversely tout proudly to students. A professorship would make your researching much more marketable to City, and, in that customer's interest, more credible for the press. It all fits together remarkably well.
I am surprised that, with your record, you choose to put your head above the parapet.
LK
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From: A forum for critical and radical geographers on behalf of Ian Gordon
Sent: Fri 4/2/2010 12:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Turnitin
And, to endorse David's point about Turnitin as just a tool, it doesn't actually pick up everything that is available on the internet - there are some important exceptions which I will not mention - or (where multiple versions of some text exist on the web) indicate how much of a piece of work might actually have been derived from a single source.
In my experience, though it can save a lot of effort, the traditional tools of 'smelling a rat' and following up with a web search engine are also still invaluable, in identifying the scale of potential plagiarism, and interpreting what lies behind the symptoms that Turnitin reports.
Best,
Ian
Ian Gordon
Department of Geography and Environment
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
44+(0)20 7955 6180
[log in to unmask]
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From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lambert, D
Sent: 01 April 2010 19:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Turnitin
Dear Paul,
The program doesn't. It's just a tool that aids a human being who knows the field to do the actual investigation into a possible plagiarism case. (I speak as a chair of exams who has used it a lot.)
Regards,
David
* * *
Dr David Lambert
Reader in Historical Geography
Royal Holloway, University of London
http://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/Lambert/ <http://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/Lambert/>
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From: A forum for critical and radical geographers on behalf of Paul H.
Sent: Thu 01/04/2010 19:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Turnitin
Great question. How does the program differentiate between cliche phrases and often entextualized discourse and actual plagiarism? What portion of the final score is actual plagiarism?
Paul
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Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 18:50:04 +0100
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Turnitin
To: [log in to unmask]
Can anyone advise me what is the current collective wisdom on Turnitin?
(Shame there's not a programme called Leaveitout, I reckon)
Dr Kelvin Mason
Distance Learning Tutor
Graduate School of the Environment
Unit 7 Dyfi Eco Parc
Machynlleth
SY20 8AX
[log in to unmask]
Tel: 01654 703065 ext. 25
Skype: kelvin.mason1
Centre for Alternative Technology Charity Limited (CAT), Machynlleth, Powys, SY20 9AZ, Wales, UK.
Centre for Alternative Technology Public Limited Company; a company limited by shares. Company no. 1459589, registered in Wales. Registered office: Llwyngwern, Machynlleth, Powys, SY20 9AZ.
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