Apparently these days they do research into research. Fair enough. In Australia, we charge tax on taxes, victimise victims, and lots of other amusingly repetitive-sounding fun.

Not only that, but some bastard has been plagiarising! Naughty boy! It’s because of filthy cheats like him that I have to wade through 15 pages of “Plagiarism Policy” at work, uni and home. (“Oh wow, you would not believe the dream I had last night.” “Pat before you tell me, remember the plagiarism policy. You’re not allowed to have dreams that are the same as TV shows.”)

So plagiarism is apparently a huge problem, understated by all accounts. In fact, plagiarism is so prevalent that someone will plagiarise an article about plagiarism! What will we do about it?

Joshua Gans suggests checking papers against each other, like universities do with students’ papers. At uni, all our assignments get printed and loaded into a big washing machine. Papier-mâché ensues. But at other universities, they put them all in a computer database, and every student’s paper gets checked against those of both their peers and previous students.

It might take some effort and expense to systematically compile all the research papers ever written, so that they can be compared against each other. However, great benefits would arise over the long term from being able to check newly-”written” papers against the entire existing body of academic work.

If I understand the academic world correctly, all these papers exist electronically with various institutions, publishers and magazine companies. A reputable university or institution could surely gather quite a significant body of work for checking.

Take that plagiarisers! Plagiarists! False word-smiths! The computer will get you.