MEI-WRITINGCRITICAL THINKINGISSUE ONE: MAY 2014

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We are pleased to present thefirst issue of CriticalThinking, a newsletter fromM e i - Wr i t i n g . C r i t i c a lThinking aims to informresearchers and students oncurrent news and events at theDepartment of AcademicWriting (a.k.a. Mei-Writing) at
the Institute of Liberal Artsand Sciences, Nagoya
University.

PLAGIARISM
IN JAPAN
Plagiarism has become amajor topic in Japan recently.
In the past few months,
several incidents of plagiarism
have made the news. Thiswinter it was discovered thata 2012 paper on accounting
regulations in Japan by aprofessor at the Nagoya
University of Foreign Studies(NUFS), Kazumoto Ido, hadplagiarized more than half its
content from a paper by aprofessor at Kochi Universityof Technology. Since thed i s c o v e r y, o t h e r p a p e r s
published by Professor Ido arebeing investigated for thepossibility of plagiarism. The
university accepted his

request for resignation on
March 29.
Another incident that hasreceived international attention
is the work of Haruko Obokata,a research leader at Riken, alarge natural science research
institute in Japan. She is being
investigated for plagiarizing
her doctoral dissertation she
submitted three years ago atWa s e d a
U n i v e r s i t y.
Investigators believe thetwenty page introduction in the
100 page dissertation appears
to have been mostly copied andpasted from publicly accessible
webpages of the National

Institute of Health (NIH) in the
U.S. The Obokata incident hashelped spread the Japanesephrase “kopi-pe ronbun” (copyand pasted academic paper) on
the Internet.
Some universities in Japanare trying to address theproblem of plagiarism with theuse of technology. The public
universities of Ishikawa
prefecture are introducing acomputer system that detects“copy-and-paste” plagiarism bycomparing submitted papers to a
database of previously published
w o r k . A c t u a l l y, f i n d i n gplagiarism in English papers canContinued on page 2

SUMMER CAMP 2014

MEI-WRITING TUTORIAL NU Ideas 2014

We hope you will join us on
September 8−12!

Get advice specific to you with our oneto-one tutorials.Visit our website forappointments.

Submissions Deadline: June 30, 2014
Visit the NU Ideas homepage.

be quite easy even withoutsophisticated programs. So many
materials are available on theInternet and search engines like
Google are so powerful it
sometimes takes only a few
seconds to find sources that havebeen plagiarized.
The message is clear:plagiarism is not tolerable inJapan. While using previous
research is necessary in allacademic writing, the key is togive proper credit by citing
sources. But more importantly, awriter must add something newto that previous research by
criticizing it,

MEI-WRITINGC O U R S E SS TA RT E D O N
APRIL 14M e i - Wr i t i n gcourses beganon the 14th ofApril. The
courses assist
students with
their academic
writing, startingwith the basics(e.g. forming a hypothesis) andprogressing toward moreadvanced skills (e.g. avoiding
fallacious reasoning). The
courses are unique in that they
are not language courses, but arecourses in critical thinking.
Classes are offered in English,
French, German, and Chinese.
The course content can beapplied to any field, so graduate
students from all departments
and majors are welcome to join.
Students who were not able toenroll during the spring semester
are more than welcome toregister for the fall.
-Nathan Hamlitschbuilding on it, commenting on
it, or applying it.
There are many ways to
avoid plagiarism, butaccording to Professor PaulLai of Mei-Writing “from ourperspective plagiarism isfundamentally about
mishandling ideas. So one way
to avoid it is throughstrengthening argumentation
skills.” Students can learn
more about Professor Lai’smethod in our next issue as wecontinue our series onplagiarism.
-Tom Kabara

IMPORTANT DATESJune 30	

NU Ideas Submission
Deadline	July 1		2nd Mei-Writing Workshop

July 25		

Summer Camp Application
Deadline

September 8-12	

Summer Camp 2014 		

Logic Puzzle Fun!
Here is a short log
ic puzzle to test
your skills. Find theanswer on the
Mei-Writing web pa
ge at http://m eiw rit ing .ila s.n ag
oy a- u. ac .jp / oruse the QR code below.

MEI-WRITING TUTORIALS
If you’re looking to
publish an academic paper
or develop an oralpresentation in English,French, German, orChinese, our tutorials canhelp. The tutorials arefree for all Nagoya
University students andfaculty members. Make
an appointment with oneof the Mei-Writing staff.
The details for making
appointments can befound on the Mei-Writing
homepage.

It’s the beginningof the semester.
You’re sitting in yourresearch office
th ink ing ab ou t wh
ic h cl as s yo u
should take this semester. There are
two classes you ca
n choose from:Class A and Class B.
One class is very
easy, while the other is very hard. You
want to take the easier class.
Two of your classm
ates, Ichiro andJiro, are sitting next
to you. One ofthem always lies and one of themalways tells the truth.
You only havetime to ask one question and it has
to be to Ichiro. What question canyou ask to determine
which class iseasier?

MEI-WRITING
Graduate School of Languages &Cultures Building Rm. 313
meiwriting@ilas.nagoya-u.ac.jp• PLAGIARISM• LOGICAL FALLACIES• LOGICAL THINKING • BASICS OF ACADEMIC WRITING

MEI-WRITING WORKSHOPS 2014

Tel: 052-747-6534@MeiWriting
Mei-Writing