The Chronicle runs the following Q&A with Randy Cohen on the editorial page today:
Q: I have been translating some articles from Hungarian into English for publication in a historical encyclopedia by a major American research institution. I accidentally learned that one article was copied in large part from a lexicon published in 1929. I am guessing that copyright issues arise here. Should I report my discovery to my employer?
VERA SZABO Ann Arbor, Mich.
A: You should report this. If you do not, who will? Who can? Few English speakers will have read the original Hungarian article; few Hungarian speakers will read the English version.
When it comes to ordinary civilians, both law and ethics impose only a limited duty to report wrongdoing. You need not dial 911 every time you see someone going 45 in a 35 mph zone. But you are not an ordinary civilian; you are part of a scholarly community, and different contexts entail different obligations. Intellectual integrity can be maintained only if members of your community report transgressions. Without this self-policing, the field cannot sustain its own values.
You also have a duty to your employer. Everyone in the publishing process should report a solecism that would otherwise go undetected — a misspelling, a grammatical error. Similarly, all should report a serious ethical transgression. To keep silent would undermine the project on which you are employed.
We agree that such ethical transgressions should be reported.
