article claims the new US Army "Counterinsurgency Manual" is substantially plagiarised
There is an interesting article by David Price in "Counterpunch" which suggests that large sections of the new US Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3-24), co-authored by Gen. Petraeus, is substantially plagiarised - that is it copies or paraphrases substantial sections of text from other published work without attribution or cite.
They quote multiple examples ranging from Lawrence of Arabia to an MIT on-line sociology course.
Some of the stuff is blatant, some might be considered less plagiarism and more a quiet flattering nod to the classics, but it is still improper. Looking at the text, some of the cites whose absence Price complains about are in the bibliography at the end - one could complain about lack of in-text citation, but that is a red herring here, I think, not appropriate to this particular form of publishing.
So, a mixed bag: some egregious copying, some homage to classics, and some actually cited but in a "read this big list" style bibliography, rather than footnoted or in-text cites.
What is really bad about this is that there is another purpose of citing; other than acknowledging priority and origin of others' ideas, and that is providing the reader with additional information so they can read up on the original material and ideas.
To put it another way, a major in an infantry battallion probably mostly doesn't give shit about whether the definition of a "ritual" is copied from Victor Turner's 1972 article, or was thought up from scratch by Nagl, Petraeus or the anthropologist co-authors McFate and Kilcullen. But, if that major wants to become a good general, someday, s/he might be interested in knowing the original source, and what else it had to say...
If something is worth copying it is worth citing and if it is worth citing then some of the readers ought to find it worth reading, in the original, not the stripped down and cleansed army manual form.
(h/t kos)
It is slightly weird that the Counterinsurgency Field Manual is being sold commercially, when it is available freely in PDF
Must be the snazzy cover...
- Log in to post comments
Virtually all of the Security Theater being staged by DHS is counterfeit, so why is this any surprise?
Amazon, the commercial cover, and the document itself claims that Petraeus wrote the forward.
Would not a manual be normally written by staff?
Generals hardly ever do anything for themselves, save a few personal grooming chores, and even then ...
However, it is not surprising that some or even a lot of the manual is copied without proper attribution, if that is, indeed, the case. That is pretty much the standard in work done for the military. The problem is not so much that it is (if it is) copied, but that Petraeus has been deified for it and other things, with the substantial, blind collaboration of the American news media. And I'm not even counting Fox,
Only useless academics could complain that a very practical military field manual is written in a manner distinctive from the way that useless academics write useless papers that are then largely ignored by other useless academics.
I wonder just how practical that particular manual is, since the primary author doesn't follow it.
Tsk, you miss the point Brannen.
Ignoring any ego things, like who actually had the relevant ideas, who gets credit and promotion and credibility - there are two essential reasons for citation practises: one is so that the reader can verify the information for themselves, where it came from, in what context, how dated it is etc; the second reason is to provide direct resources for readers who want to go deeper - a manual needs to be compact, concicse and practical for the bulk of the readers, but some are going to want to go beyond the manual, or to provide input to manual revisions, or indeed write the next manual - as a matter of pragmatism, the writer ought to provide the citations to expedite this.
Oh, and if the manual is wrong, it is good to have a source to trace back the origins - especially since they brought in a couple of useless academics to co-author sections of the manual.
... Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".
And ever since I meet this man my life is not the same,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache...
... In the studio recording the part of the hypotenuse was played by Ingrid Bergman
That is pretty much the standard in work done for the military. The problem is not so much that it is (if it is) copied, but that Petraeus has been deified for it and other things, with the substantial, blind collaboration of the American news media. And I'm not even counting Fox...