Correction Appended

With the malodorous whiff of intellectual dishonesty in the air, thanks to writers James Frey and JT Leroy and stem-cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk, it seems a ripe time for the debut of Plagiary, an academic journal subtitled Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication and Falsification.

"There's a lot going on across the disciplines, both legitimate means of derivation and also, shall we say, the transgressive types," says John P. Lesko, the journal's founding editor and a professor of applied linguistics at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan. Mr. Lesko has spent the last decade examining how and why students appropriate other people's work. "There's the old formula for crime -- a combination of motivation and opportunity," he said, citing the ease of pointing and clicking on Web sites. "We've put youngsters into such a rip and burn frenzy, downloading music, it's as if everything is free."

Last summer, Mr. Lesko conceived the idea for the peer-reviewed journal. He assembled an international editorial board, which includes Denis Dutton, a philosophy professor who edits the popular Web site Arts and Letters Daily (www.aldaily.org), and put out a call for papers. Mr. Lesko said he welcomed an essay on the Frey scandal, as well as work on the shades of plagiaristic gray inherent in mimicry, parody and copyright infringement in the arts, journalism and other fields.

The journal's first two articles, covering misconduct in public health research and the Google library project, were posted on Plagiary.org this January. As new articles come in, they will be available free online, along with responses, book reviews and a guest editorial, all of which will be published in a single volume at the end of 2006.

Timothy Dodd, the executive director of the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University, said such a journal could serve as a check against all forms of dishonesty in the university world and beyond. For years, he has heard students offer deadline pressure or a need to succeed as excuses for ethical violations. Now, he says, professionals invoke the same excuses.

"We are creating this kind of winning culture that is causing a lot of people to take shortcuts, to overinvest in the chase for stardom," Mr. Dodd said. "It's a corruption of the kind of marketing culture of 'if I can get it to sell, then I have done well.' And, if you have to sell something that is a bit fraudulent, that is deceptive, that's still in service to the greater good, which is 'I've marketed something.' "

Mr. Lesko said he "could see someone try to flip something past us as a prank or to make a statement of some sort." To avoid the embarrassment of publishing plagiarized material, Mr. Lesko does background checks on authors before he sends their submissions for review and checks random phrases via the Internet to ensure the work is not lifted. Eventually, he said, the journal may also use plagiarism detection software.

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SARA IVRY

MEDIA TALK Correction: February 7, 2006, Tuesday A Media Talk entry in Business Day yesterday about Plagiary, a journal that examines plagiarism, misstated the Web address for Arts and Letters Daily, whose editor is a member of the editorial board for Plagiary. It is www.aldaily.com -- not .org.

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