I know you ask yourself constantly: "What does plagiarism look like in the age of simulacrum?" Now we know:

In 2007, after several high-profile plagiarism scandals, Southern Illinois University released a 17-page report on how to deal with the issue. The report includes a lengthy definition of plagiarism, explaining exactly what does and does not merit the dreaded "p" word.

One problem: That definition appears to have been plagiarized.

The 139-word definition used in the report is nearly identical to the definition adopted by Indiana University in 2005. Here, for example, are passages from each definition, explaining what constitutes plagiarism:

Southern Illinois: "... directly quoting another's actual words, whether oral or written; using another's ideas, opinions, or theories; paraphrasing the words, ideas, opinions, or theories of others, whether oral or written; borrowing facts, statistics, or illustrative material; and offering materials assembled or collected by others in the form of projects or collections without acknowledgment."

Indiana: "1. Directly quoting another person's actual words, whether oral or written; 2. Using another person's ideas, opinions, or theories; 3. Paraphrasing the words, ideas, opinions, or theories of others, whether oral or written; 4. Borrowing facts, statistics, or illustrative material; or 5. Offering materials assembled or collected by others in the form of projects or collections without acknowledgment."

In other passages, just a few words of some sentences have been changed. For instance, Indiana University's policy says: "What is considered 'common knowledge' may differ from course to course." Southern Illinois's report changes the end of the sentence to "subject to subject."

Uncertain Authorship

So how, when writing a report on plagiarism, did Southern Illinois manage to lift much of the content without citation?

The chairman of the committee that put the report together, Arthur M. "Lain" Adkins, said he didn't know. Mr. Adkins, who is the director of the university's press, acknowledged that the language is "very similar" but wasn't convinced that his committee had done anything wrong. "It could be a coincidence," Mr. Adkins said. "Any definition by nature is going to be close to another definition."

While the report was signed by all 10 members of the committee, that particular section of the report was, according to Mr. Adkins, "most likely" written by R. Gerald Nelms, an associate professor of English at Southern Illinois at Carbondale. Mr. Nelms has been quoted as a plagiarism expert by publications like The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Nelms said he wasn't sure if he was responsible for that definition and didn't know why the language would be almost exactly the same. "If there are any similarities," he said, "my suspicion is they are coincidental."

Both men said they did not believe that anyone on the committee had intentionally copied the definition. Mr. Adkins said he didn't remember any mention of Indiana's policy during the committee's discussions.

Indiana adopted the current version of its plagiarism policy in 2005, well before Southern Illinois issued its report. Pamela W. Freeman, an associate dean of students and director of the office of student ethics and antiharassment programs at Indiana University at Bloomington, has been involved in writing the university's polices on topics like plagiarism for 15 years.

"I don't think it would be the norm to verbatim use it without citing it," said Ms. Freeman.

Her response after hearing the two policies read aloud was simply, "Wow."

In fact, Indiana's policy has been cited elsewhere. Case Western Reserve University's School of Dental Medicine uses (and credits) Indiana's definition as part of its policy on academic integrity. The Web site Scriptovia.com, which allows students to share class notes, also includes Indiana's definition and conspicuously cites the university.

Previous Problems

In recent years, Southern Illinois has had more than its share of plagiarism cases. In 2006, the chancellor of the Carbondale campus was asked to step down after it was discovered that portions of a strategic plan he wrote for Southern Illinois had been taken from a strategic plan he helped write for another university (The Chronicle, November 9, 2006).

The following year it was revealed that the president of the system, Glenn Poshard, had copied large sections of his 1984 dissertation without citation (The Chronicle, September 10, 2007). A university committee deemed the copying "errors and mistakes" rather than plagiarism (The Chronicle, October 12, 2007).

The report has not been officially adopted by the university's Board of Trustees, which meets next month. Mr. Adkins said his committee plans to review its report in light of the similarities to Indiana's policy. "If we've made a mistake, we will cite it," he said. "And we will own up to our mistake."

Margaret's was posted at 8:33 a.m., from her perch on the east coast. It is now 8:16 a.m. from my perch in the west. I didn't read her post before I wrote mine. I just went over and got the link when I was done--because I knew she would have been there first, even though I'm posting earlier in the morning.