PhD Thesis in Department of Mechanical Engineering at UKZN : S. Shaikh 961129282
 

2007-04-30

The Chairman
Higher Degrees Committee
King George V Avenue
University of kwaZulu-Natal
Durban
kwaZulu-Natal
 

PhD Thesis in Department of Mechanical Engineering at UKZN : S. Shaikh 961129282

 
Analysis and Evidence

1. There is practically no possibility that the thesis passed in 2002 could have been plagiarized from the paper published in 2003.

I do not think that such simplified logic would withstand critical scrutiny.

As there are numerous instances of identical text and diagrams in both this journal paper and the thesis and neither has cited the other, then this is a clear case of plagiarism - either the journal article's authors plagiarised the work of the thesis's author or vice versa. Just because the journal paper is dated 2003, whilst the thesis was submitted in November 2002 does not invalidate this argument. Either the journal paper could have been in preparation from much earlier, or was awaiting publication or had been recycled from the authors' other publications or work. As one of these three authors is a professor and specialist in the specific area of interest and the other two are full-time academics and doctoral graduates in this same speciality area, it is highly unlikely that they would plagiarise the work of a very recent doctoral candidate.

But plagiarism or not, the claims of both this paper and the Thesis are almost identical, as is a not insubstantial amount of the content. This shows very close collaboration which is simply not acknowledged in the Thesis. This is not only unacceptable in a PhD thesis, but in direct violation of the declaration.

What is striking is that both the authors of the journal paper and the doctoral candidate make almost precisely the same claim, i.e. the main claim of the thesis which is the higher-order theory pertaining to both mechanical and thermal stresses in composite structures.

It is surely trite logic that it is impossible for both claims to be valid.

It is peculiar that one of journal paper's authors is the doctoral candidate's own supervisor who is making the same academic claim as his very recent student.

In my opinion, a PhD candidate cannot merely copy material from any publication, including one that he co-authored, without formally and precisely citing the copied material by way of reference to author names, publication name and pages numbers.

Merely referring to such a publication in full by means of inclusion in a Bibliography is totally and hopelessly inadequate.

If the Thesis author was not a primary contributor, but say assisted in the experiments or literature searches for example, he would not be entitled to either merely copy the entire material, copy any of the material without proper citation, or claim it as his own unaided work.

There is indeed a very clear statement in the thesis; that is the candidate's signed averment in the Declaration on Page ii of the Thesis that :
"I declare that this dissertation is my own unaided work except where due acknowledgement is made to others".
This simple averment is contradicted in fact by the Thesis in two instances :
1.      it is not his own unaided work;
2.      due acknowledgement to others has not been made.
 
There may be such instances, but there is an accepted convention and contravention thereof is surely a flawed style.
Inconsistency is equally flawed.

However, in this instance there are items in the Bibliography where the candidate's name does appear 1/4, 3/3, 4/4, 3/4. In all instances the other authors are senior to far more senior than the candidate.

More importantly, in the case of Item [95], of which some 95% is word-for-word regurgitated in the Thesis, I have it on the authority of the second author, Theodore R. Tauchert, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering , University of Kentucky, that :
"I believe that the order of the authors of this paper does reflect the magnitude of the personal contributions; i.e., Verijenko was the primary contributor, etc."
This would prove that this was not the candidate's own unaided work.

This might be so under normal circumstances, but in this instance it would appear that there has been illegitimate collaboration between at least the supervisor and the candidate.

A good place to start is to look at relationships.

If both the library and microfiche copies are missing pages, then there is a high probability that all the copies made for the purpose of submission also had missing copies, including the examiners' copies.

This is certainly no indication that this copy actually included Page 50. This sounds more like a general reference to the latter part of the Thesis.

I very much doubt there has been an express omission of these pages. It is surely the result of a defective copying and pre-collation checking process. If only one of the library or microfiche copies had pages missing, then this defect might relate only to that one copy. But when both the library and microfiche have the same pages missing, then this sounds more systemic. At least the supervisor's and internal examiner's copies should still be available within the university (even the external examiners' copies could be available) and coupled with the fact that the missing pages have to be obtained from the candidate himself indicate that all the copies are defective in the same way.

If it is true that all the copies are defective, then this also proves that the examining process was also defective.

As I have pointed out previously, I doubt that there was a final corrected version of the thesis because of the inordinate number of spelling, grammatical, consistency, typographical and layout errors contained within the microfiche copy of the thesis lodged in the university's academic repository. I have counted some 100 of these in number, including Freudian slips such as "trough" instead of "through" (at least four instances). For illustration and not for completeness, others include "mwethod" instead of "method", "summering" instead of "summing" (or "summing up" or "summarizing"), "evness" instead of "evenness", "oddeness" instead of oddness", "really" instead of "readily", "are remained" instead of "remain", "them" instead of "then", "corresponded" instead of "corresponding".

To show that something else is wrong, Chapter 2 of the Thesis refers to Appendix 1, Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 (P47 to 48), yet there are no such appendices (there is just one appendix at the end of Chapter 2 and another separate and independent one at the end of Chapter 4). The only conclusion that can be made is that some other material has been copied which includes references to three appendices, but this has not been correctly reflected in the Thesis.

It is also somewhat peculiar to have appendices at the end of chapters and not at the end of the document. This leads one to the inclination that the original works from which the Thesis has been derived each had their own appendices and that the copying process caused the residual section appendices.

What is also noteworthy is that the main text of the Thesis has pages and pages of continuous mathematical derivations, which are ideal candidates for proper appendices at the end of the Thesis were they do not interrupt the flow and understanding of the main topic. But to the contrary, the two appendices that are provided at the end of Chapters 2 and 4 are a mere 3 pages each, which hardly warrant separate treatment under the circumstances.

Having stuck my neck out and considering my rather extensive efforts thus far, as well as having provided prima facie evidence of plagiarism and incontrovertible evidence of unreported collaboration, I would sincerely hope that my allegations are not prematurely rejected.

This being said, the way that this response is couched, i.e. "cannot yet reject your allegations", sounds ominously like that this is the more probable result.

I urge you not to be premature in this regard because my own efforts are merely cursory ones as I just do not have the necessary access or resources to conduct a fuller investigation on my own. For example my digital communications is limited to a maximum of 21,6 kbps, often lower.

On the other hand, the University has all the necessary access and resources to do so. Timewise, with the initial efforts already undertaken and relevant pointers furnished, this is an investigation that can be completed in two weeks.

I am convinced that comparison of the Thesis with other journal papers, both those quoted in the Bibliography and others, will show an even higher correlation. Prima facie this indicates a level of plagiarism - in one direction or another.

Also, I am quite curious how a PhD, where the thesis is submitted in November, can be awarded in February or March.

Indeed, I believe that on the existing evidence alone, that a full review and enquiry is necessary.

As always, a quality control mechanism is required.


Richard Young