Mayoral Musings from Middlesbrough (01)

Andy Preston has been quick to cry foul this week following what seems to be very well founded complaints regarding him claiming a false home address, in fact he's even been bleating on about it on the Fly Me To The Moon Message Board.

Although you have to go a fair way down before you find Mr. Preston's input.

Andy Preston, and some of his supporters, have been quick to shout "smear campaign" when Andy isn't above a bit of smearing himself.

Twice on April 6th and once again on April 7th he tweeted:

"A Good Mayor Will expose bad politicians, bad practice and corruption I'll do that without hesitation" (sic)

Now if that doesn't imply that there is already corruption to be exposed then what was the point of saying it?

Andy Preston knows fine well that there is no evidence of corruption and he has absolutely no reason to imply it other than to blow a dog whistle to appeal to the baser prejudices of his supporters. However if you indulge in such tactics then you shouldn't complain when it's turned on you - politics is a tough old game.

The next post will address Preston's tweet of 5th April:

"Why do political activists Put their party first before Middlesbrough Remember they kept backing Stuart Bell"

Which reminded me of certain parallels between Bell & Preston.

Postscript to Plagiarism

Putting the Record Straight

At last Alison Huggan has expanded on, if not entirely explained, her copying of the words of others for inclusion in her letter to The Gazette.

Whilst she was busy making false and baseless allegations in the comments section of a local parliamentary candidate's Facebook page a certain Al Mitchel took her to task:

"Al Mitchell: Alison, your letter was copied word for word from other people's work, that's a fact! It was your work only in the sense that you posted the letter, and it's dishonest of you to claim otherwise. Ask questions by all means, and I congratulate you on your bedroom tax work, but you've been used to attack the wrong target here."

Alison wasn't slow in responding:

"Alison Huggan: I beg to differ, Mr Mitchell, that work was all my own, given the fact my field is Criminology. You really must not listen, to others, Snowdon in fact. Since when did knowledge have to be referenced in a letter, feel free to ask me any time if my letters I write, their us (sic) more to come."

My reading of 'Since when did knowledge have to be referenced in a letter' is that she now accepts that those were not her words but she claims there was no need to cite her sources. The answer to 'since when did knowledge have to be referenced' is that the words always have to be referenced if they are not your own. It is rather basic, especially in journalism and academia.

It's still plagiarism however, although a plea of culpable ignorance seems to have been entered.

Surreptitious Photography 3

I've finally remembered Bullet Point 11 from:

- Or how to take a clandestine photograph.

Here it is:

11. Try not to get caught inspecting your handiwork.

Unfortunately somebody followed the points exactly.

Oh Dear!

Best not be a hypocrite by falsely accusing others of your own misdemeanors is the lesson to be learned.

Ah Well!

The Denouement?

"It was not until the feminist movement of the 1960s/70s that public interest in "domestic violence" piqued"

wrote Alison Huggan in her letter to The Gazette which was published on Saturday, July 5th 2014. Where did she get her inspiration from?

Well back in 1982 the South End Press in Boston published 'Women and male violence: The visions and struggles of the battered women's movement' by S. Schechter.

This work was cited by Fran S. Danis, in 'The criminalization of domestic violence: What social workers need to know' published by Social Work on April 1, 2003.

Then an unknown author wrote an essay which contained the following sentence:

"Not until the feminist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s was public interest in domestic violence piqued (Danis, 2003, citing Schechter, 1982)."

Note that evidence is given for the statement by way of correctly attributing the original sources and also that 'piqued' is used in the correct tense within the context of the sentence. Minor points maybe but important nevertheless.

Anyway, our old friend 'piqued' makes a welcome return and the only differences between the sentences are that Alison omits 'late' and substitutes 'that' with 'was'.

But where is the new essay from?

Let's go back to ukessays.com and there, amongst the free Social Work Essays is one about Domestic Violence and the second paragraph of the third section (Historical Evolution ...) contains the very sentence:

"Not until the feminist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s was public interest in domestic violence piqued (Danis, 2003, citing Schechter, 1982)."

So in Alison's letter there are now two instances of her making statements which are, clearly, the words of others. There are no attempts to reference or cite the original sources.

In stark terms a third of Alison's letter constitutes the words and opinions of others. Can we rely on the remaining two thirds?

Time for someone to put the record straight?

Why Write Your Own Essay?

... when you can go to an interesting web site called:

http://www.ukessays.com/

They claim to be:

"The original provider of custom written academic work"

and their proud boast is that:

"Every year we deliver over 10,000 custom written pieces of work to students just like yourself who are looking for a little extra help to boost their grade. With the cost of university study increasing in the UK we know how important it is to make the most of your studies and get the grade you need to kick-start your career.Our passionate team is dedicated to improving your university learning experience by helping you achieve more with your essays, dissertations and coursework. We offer a wide range of services including our premier custom essay and dissertation writing services, a comprehensive marking service and a wide variety of other services to help you succeed in your studies."

Is using an Essay Writing Service cheating? - that's a question you may well ask yourself and, fortunately ukessays.com provide us with their answers, indeed they devote a page to addressing the matter.

However their assurances as to the legality of their service comes with the following caveat:

"(Is using custom essay writing ever cheating?) Yes, if you try to pretend that the work is your own, but that is also true if (without a correct reference) you copy from, or paraphrase, a textbook or get a friend to write for you (which often happens)."

Their prices start at £100 but I would imagine the average price to be well in excess of that and beyond the reach of most students. Fortunately they also have a free repository of "over 3000,000 free essays" but they remind anyone who may use any of the free essays to reference them correctly to www.ukessays.com.

It might be useful to state that I do not know of anyone who has used any of these services and also that I have no intention of accusing anyone of using these services.

Surreptitious Photography 2

- Or how to take a clandestine photograph.

1. Attend a public council meeting, say in the Mandela Room of the Town Hall.
2. Sit three rows from the back.
3. Notice that there is a female sitting behind you.
4. Switch your iPad on.
5. Activate the web camera function.
6. Slouch down in your seat and point the iPad camera over your shoulder.
7. Don't turn around but act as if you are checking an app out.
8. Take a photograph of just the female without her realising.
9. Check the photo you have just taken.
10. Returning to the home page and pretend to fiddle about with it again.
11. I forget what point 11 is but I'll come back to it when I remember.

By the way recently Dennis Lane has had the cheek to refer to me, on twitter, as:

"... the person who has been warned about photographing women ..."

Blimey.

Surreptitious Photography 1

I have been known to take photographs, generally of crowd scenes, in public places. Some people have accused me of taking surreptitious photos of people when they don't have a shred of evidence.

I fail to see how standing up in a public place taking photos, sometimes using the flash, can be surreptitious. Everyone can see me for goodness sake.

Here are just a few of the tweets about it:

Cllr John McPartland @McPartlandJohn Follow @JohnFromBoro @ChrisSnowdonTS John King certainly wasn't being sneaky, unlike Chris Snowdon was caught secretly photographing people.

John King @JohnFromBoro @ChrisSnowdonTS Covertly taking photos of women in public is just plain creepy. I was recording a whole meeting, not individuals. - 03 Jun Cllr John McPartland @McPartlandJohn Follow @JohnFromBoro @ChrisSnowdonTS It was creepy, John. Snowdon was taking photos of me talking to a woman friend. Evidence for deselections. 09:08 PM - 03 Jun 14

Cllr John McPartland @McPartlandJohn Follow @IanDBlades @JohnFromBoro @ChrisSnowdonTS Snowdon certainly likes using camera as a means of intimidation, at least until Solicitor's letter 11:15 AM - 20 Jun 14

Audi Alteram Partem

Now I'm no legal expert, criminal or otherwise, but it strikes me that there must be an explanation to the coincidental sentences in the previous post.

I won't speculate but there must be an explanation.

So I offer to Alison Huggan the right of reply and the opportunity to explain.

If she wants to take advantage of this opportunity then all she has to do is post a comment below and I will publish her explanation in its entirety on this blog. I have already informed her, by way of twitter, of this offer.

For now I shall desist from alluding to her until she responds or it becomes obvious that she is not going to respond.

Review of Domestic Violence Policies in England and Wales

In 2011 The School of Social Work, Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences 
Kingston University and St George’s, University of London issued a Review of Domestic Violence Policies in England & Wales produced by Anna Matczak, Eleni Hatzidimitriadou & Jane Lindsay.

It is quite a considered, comprehensive document and well worth reading.

It comes with the proviso, clearly stated on the first page:

"To be cited as follows: Matczak, A., Hatzidimitriadou, E., and Lindsay, J. (2011). Review of Domestic Violence policies in England and Wales. London: Kingston University and St George‘s, University of London. ISBN: 978-0-9558329-7-0"

 as they, collectively, presumably own the copyright.

A perusal of the review discovers the following sentence on page 21:

"Since the 1970s women‘s organisations have called for criminalisation of domestic violence. This campaign became a strategy, a successful one in many respects (Hester, 2005) in that it led the seriousness of problem of domestic violence being recognised and promoted policy development (Radford & Gill, 2006)."

It is noticeable that the sources for this statement are correctly attributed as 'Hester, 2005' and 'Radford & Gill, 2006'. This is no more than one would expect from an academic review. Superfluous quotation marks are, however, absent but the correct usage of 'women's organisations' is also noted.

Just a minute. This rings a bell surely. Let's go back to the letter in The Gazette. There we find the following sentence:

"Since the 1970s woman's organisations have called for the criminalisation of "domestic violence". This campaign became a strategy, a successful one in many respects: in that it led to the seriousness of the problem of "domestic violence" being recognised, and that it also promoted policy development."

Hang on. I'm finding it hard to spot the differences here. Aside from the lack of citations there is only the error of using the singular 'woman's' instead of the plural 'women's' and if it was 'woman's organisations' which woman was it that had all of those organisations?

It would take an awful lot of monkeys, on an equivalent number of typewriters, an inordinate length of time to come up with that duplication. But it is just possible - isn't it?

Then there is the matter of the extra colon and the missing 'to' & 'the' ...

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as:

"An act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorisation, and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author."

Some synonyms for plagiarism, from the same source, are:

• appropriation
• infringement
• piracy
• counterfeiting
• theft
• borrowing
• cribbing, and,
• passing off

Wikipedia, insofar as it can be relied on or otherwise, has an interesting page on plagiarism. It comments:

"Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty and a breach of journalistic ethics. It is subject to sanctions like penalties, suspension, and even expulsion. Plagiarism is not a crime per se but in academia and industry, it is a serious ethical offense, and cases of plagiarism can constitute copyright infringement."

To avoid any doubt whatsoever I have not accused anybody of plagiarism - either on this blog or on Twitter. To do so one would need some sort of evidence.