Guttenberg retirement

[kölscheklüngel]

Hello,

Mr Guttenberg is retirement. I have read on internet that Mr Guttenberg withdrawal from his position. My opinion is that it is a right decision. He didn't get his Dr. titel on a right way and he didn't write his thesis. A normal employee whichever works in a company and get his job with a wrong Dr. titel, the company get dismiss his job. Mr Guttenberg has cheated the puplic and for me he is a guide for young people, students and pupils. I have heard in TV that he made jobs by a newspaper but that were only an internship and not a good job. Maybe he is not so intelligent as he showed us and I think he felt a lot of pressure from his father.

kölscheklüngel

[eeboot]

Dr-Titel = "doctoral degree";

Right or wrong in respect of his retirement is a difficult question, in my opinion.

Some people demand for an equal treatment and they are right; everyone else, in the civil service or in a company, would have been fired immidiately if they lost their academical degree (for what reason ever). On the other hand, the most people consider him to do a good job and being charismatically; a soft-skill the most politicans lag. Furthermore, the doctoral degree has not been a formal condition for becoming a minister. So why should he leave just because he lost his degree for something so "usual" like copying text found in the internet. That such a situation causes schadenfreunde among the other parties is just naturally.
That it was a neglect to take part of newspaper articles without marking them as such is sure out of the question. To insist that the plagiarism on so many pages are all mistakes and have not been the result of deliberatly act is a statement which is hard to believe.
But I can understand his decision, if you hear 2 weeks long from everyone you should retire, that they do not believe you and that you are a shame and have damaged the reputation of so many others (university, own political party, and so on).

Well, I would have wanted to keep him as minister. He is still young and maybe he will have a comeback; and maybe even a new doctoral degree, granted for a self- and correctly written thesis. I am curious who will be the new one .

[kölscheklüngel]

Hi eeboot,

du könntest mal meinen Text verbessern. Darum geht es mir hauptsächlich. Danke.

kölscheklüngel

[franzi]

Hi Kölsche Klüngel.
Ich verbesser dir mal den ersten Satz.
Der ist nämlich so krottenfalsch wie er falscher nicht sein kann. (no offense )

Mr. zu Guttenberg has retired.

Helau und Alaaf, Manfred

[Keswick]

Hello,

Mr Guttenberg has retired. I have read on the internet that Mr Guttenberg resigned from his position. My opinion is that it was the right decision. He didn't get his doctor's degree legally and he didn't write his own thesis. A normal employee who is working in a company and who got his job using a false doctor's degree would be dismissed. Mr Guttenberg has tricked the puplic and for me he was a role model for young people, students and pupils. I have heard on TV that he used to work at a newspaper but that the job was only an internship and not a proper job. Maybe he is not as intelligent as he wanted to make us think and I think he felt a lot of pressure from his father.

kölscheklüngel

There you do, pet, here's your correction.

So what's the craic with Mr Guttenberg? Did he copy his disseration or did he fail to provide correct references? I have read a bit about the whole issue but never really went into detail. All I have noticed was that some demonise him while others sympathise with him.

[kölscheklüngel]

Thanks for correction.

I wouldn't write retirement I want to write "zurückgetreten" but I didn't know the right word. I have read the correction from Keswick and I need the word "resigned".

kölscheklüngel

[Keswick]

Yes, you're looking for the verb "to resign" resp. for the noun "resignation".

Oh and I meant to write "There you GO", not "There you DO". Sorry about that. And it's dissertation not disseration or whatever I wrote there. Blimey, my mind's faster than my fingers.

[tiorthan]

There you do, pet, here's your correction.

So what's the craic with Mr Guttenberg? Did he copy his disseration or did he fail to provide correct references? I have read a bit about the whole issue but never really went into detail. All I have noticed was that some demonise him while others sympathise with him.

The craic
He did not fail to provide correct references he obviously failed at providing a work of his own. As far as I know his dissertation is not publicly available as a whole but in the publicized parts the number of "similarities" to other papers is beyond astonishing. Some parts are literal copies of other poeoples publications others are only slightly changed. And while one could argue that the literal parts are just unmarked quotes those with changes obviously aren't.

[Keswick]

So he basically copied parts of his dissertation from others?

To be honest I don't know much about Guttenberg or whether he's a good politican (I know.. shame on me). So I would neither demonise nor defend him. What is shocking though is that he seemed to think he'd get away with it.

[Delfino]

...What is shocking though is that he seemed to think he'd get away with it.

He did for about 5 years.

Maybe he knew that the university didn't use software to check for these similarities. He probably had to provide some bound copies only.
Some parts he copies without reference were from the Wissenschaftliche Dienst of the Bundestag and only availabe to a limited audience.
So when at some point a new system was introduced to digitise documents an opportunity arose to check for plagiarism and the end is history.

[Delfino]

...What is shocking though is that he seemed to think he'd get away with it.

He did for about 5 years.

Maybe he knew that the university didn't use software to check for these similarities. He probably had to provide some bound copies only.
Some parts he copied without reference were from the Wissenschaftliche Dienst of the Bundestag and only availabe to a limited audience.
So when at some point a new system was introduced to digitise documents an opportunity arose to check for plagiarism and the end is history.

This is 'pure speculation'.

[eeboot]

Digging up such a matter did not origin in a (strong) interest in the topic of a doctoral thesis. Someone searched for something reproachful and most likely found more than he asked for... It is not usual to check each cited source or to check a thesis in depth for copied passages; a matter that sure experience some changes in the past time by help of the Internet and various software products which compare text with sources that are available in the Internet. However that is not a standard (yet) and Guttenbergs thesis did not had to pass such a check (obviously). To be honest, I expect a disgraceful result if you would re-check the thesis of the past 10 years (let it be a bachelor, master or phd thesis) regarding copied passages.

What surley do not answer the question of a resignment being the right decision or not. On the one hand people had a minister whom they liked and who became more sympathic by such a manlike failure. However, the call for fairness stricly demands for a suspension by the superior, since everyone else would surely loose his/her job.

[Delfino]

Digging up such a matter did not origin in a (strong) interest in the topic of a doctoral thesis. ...

True, but you can use proper methods to create your thesis in the first place. The ethics form is there for a reason.

... It is not usual to check ... a thesis in depth for copied passages;...
However that is not a standard (yet) and Guttenbergs thesis did not had to pass such a check (obviously).

Well, that is exactly what I mean. He got away with it for about 5 years.
Software tools who check exactly that are more often used these days. (e.g. http://turnitin.com/static/index.php )

... To be honest, I expect a disgraceful result if you would re-check the thesis of the past 10 years
(let it be a bachelor, master or phd thesis) regarding copied passages.

He forgot to provide the sources obviously more often as acceptible to be called a human error. Nothing can justify that.
Unfortunately his thesis is not available on the Internet. So we cannot see for ourself.

The amount of people who also do this kind of cheating is irrelevant. You know the rules when you start and being able
to manage your work accordingly is part of the research process.

Although I would agree that the time given for writing up a thesis or dissertation is (depending on the subject matter) rather short
compared to the depth expected these days. This strict time limit combined with the availability of many electronic sources
is probably the main reason for plagiarism.

[kölscheklüngel]

My opinion is that it was a right decision that he retired. Mr Guttenberg got a lot of pressure from his familiy, more from his father. He didn't make his second state examination and wrote his doctoral thesis. He is only a famous politician, when you see all the things he did in the past. He made a lot of mistakes during his work as a defence minister. It seemed for me that he only like the cameras and the shows in TV and his goal was to get Federal Chancellor in the next ten years or so fast he could. His advantage was that the government hadn't a lot of young politician we all know the old guys and girls and two years ago Mr Guttenberg comes and the people were happy that we have a young and nice guy.
I have never been imagine that somebody from the CSU looked up the thesis from Mr Guttenberg found the mistakes and make it in public. They are person from the same camp they have actually the same goals and didn't like each other. They must support each other and don't fight or damaged each other.
Thomas de Maiziere is a good succeeded by Mr Guttenberg. He is a tough guy. His goal is, what is the best decision in Federal Armed Forces and the best decision for Germany and the person Thomas de Maiziere is not so important. I'll do my best.