I'd be willing to bet a pretty large sum that if you checked all the graduate theses and dissertations for plagiarism, a large proportion would be found guilty.

The emphasis on plagiarism is relatively recent, I think with the advent of "cut and paste" technology  on the one hand, and the ease of checking with Google and fulltext databases, etc. on the other.

Trying to teach students what plagiarism is and why it is considered wrong has always been difficult, particularly those from cultures that do not put an emphasis on original thought, but on collaboration, respect for authority and rote learning, and students who do not come from university-educated families. It used to be left to students to figure it out by reading Turabian on their own, which few did...now there are whole classes given on it, so younger cohorts are much more aware and it seems many are eager to use that knowledge to take down political opponents...

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