Is detecting plagiarism like “catching smoke in a butterfly net”

Benjamin A. Neil is a legal affairs professor in the College of Business and Economics at Towson University in Baltimore.

A Baltimore Sun article published on March 28, 2013, reported that Neil was under investigation by Towson after allegations of plagiarism within his work.  The Baltimore Sun article notes that "[a] review of five papers published by Neil shows passages with identical language and others with close similarities to scholarly journals, news publications, congressional testimony, blogs and websites. In many cases, there was no attribution.As well as being a professor at Towson,"  

The Baltimore Sun also showed a detailed analysis of one of Neil's papers, illustrating wording that was in common with other authors.  In introducing that analysis, the Baltimore Sun states that "Notice in many cases that Neil lists the original source in the paper's footnotes, but fails to use quotation marks to indicate verbatim passages. In some cases, Neil fails to source the original author."

Neil says that the issue is one of "style and formatting" and claims that "I don't think I've done anything wrong" and "The issue seems to be that I didn't put things in quotes. But I've given attribution to people."  Neil's attorney, Michael P. May claims that there is "no universally accepted definition of plagiarism" and that “attempting to pin this down is like catching smoke in a butterfly net.”

Many of Benjamin Neil’s publications appeared in journals published by the Academic and Business Research Institute (AABRI).  The following articles have been withdrawn from publication by AABRI:

Neil, Benjamin A., and Neil, Brian A. (2012). “Juvenile offenders and the death penalty in the United States”, Journal of International Business and Cultural Studies, 6: 1-10.

Neil, Benjamin A., and Neil, Brian A. (2012). “Social networking and civil discovery”, Journal of Business Cases & Applications, 6: 1-6. 

Benjamin A. Neil (2012) "Presidential executive orders - laws without legislation" Journal of Criminal Justice Research.

Benjamin Neil and W Michael Seganish (2012) “An ethical dilemma and corporate Game Changer”, Journal of Academic and Business Ethics, Volume 6, September 2012, 

Neil, Benjamin A. (2012). “Eminent domain: in theory, it makes good cents”, Journal of Academic and Business Ethics, 5: 1-9. 

Neil, Benjamin, and Seganish, W. Michael. (2011). “Life without parole sentence for juvenile offenders: Loggins v. Thomas in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit No. 09-13267”, Journal of Business Cases and Applications, 5: 1-6. 

Benjamin A. Neil (2010), “VAT: The elixir for America’s economic ills?”, Journal of Finance and Accountancy, volume 3: 1-9. 

The initial postings on this blog demonstrate similarities in the wording of Benjamin Neil's writing to the works of other, earlier published authors.