On August 27, 2014, China Daily posted a report named A Bold Move against plagiarism¹, providing information on the Yu Yanru case. With the Doctor’s Degree in history from Peking University, Yu was accused by the Chinese Journal of Journalism² and Communication of plagiarism in her thesis. Peking University announced that the accusation³ was true and it decided⁴ to revoke⁵ Yu’s doctorate⁶ and graduation degrees on January 10, 2015.

2014年8月27日，中国日报刊登了一篇题为《反抄袭的大胆一步》的文章，介绍了于艳茹抄袭事件。于艳茹是北京大学历史学博士，由于抄袭遭到《国际新闻界》杂志控告。今年1月15日，北京大学宣布称，于艳茹确有严重抄袭行为，决定撤销其博士学位。

In fact, plagiarism was, is and will still be a shared problem in the world, academically and non-academically. Believe it or not, even famous politicians have done it.

事实上，抄袭一直以来、也将长期作为一个世界性的问题，学术上、非学术上皆是如此。信不信由你，一些著名的政治人物也干过抄袭这事儿。

Putin and his doctoral thesis

普京和博士论文

In 2000, Washington Post reporter David Hoffman asked the St. Petersburg State Mining Institute for a copy of Putin’s 218-page doctoral thesis but was refused. In 2005, two researchers at the Brookings Institution in Washington got a copy of the thesis and presented their findings in the year next. What they found was appalling⁷ – Putin’s thesis heavily “borrowed” the content from a textbook written by Professors David I. Cleland and William R. King from the University of Pittsburgh.

2000年，华盛顿邮报记者大卫·霍夫曼向圣彼得堡国立矿业学院申请获取一份普京长达218页的博士论文的复印件，但是被拒绝了。2005年，华盛顿布鲁金斯学会的两名研究人员拿到了普京论文的复印件，并于2006年发布了他们的惊人发现——普京的论文大量“借用”了一本教科书中内容，该教科书是匹兹堡大学的大卫·克莱兰教授和威廉·金教授撰写的。

Although Putin did include the textbook in the bibliography⁸, but, in his thesis, non of the quotations⁹ were indicated.

虽然普京在文献里确实提到了这本书，但他在文中完全没有任何有关引用的标明。

According to a 2014 report by the Science, the least “borrowing” problems can be found in German, America and Japan; while in Iran, Bulgaria and some other countries, such problems are severe.

根据美国《科学》杂志一份2014年的报告，所谓的“借用”问题在德国、美国和日本等国最为少见，而在伊朗、保加利亚等国则最为严重。

As the Chinese common saying goes, “writing is borrowing, the only difference is whether you are skillful in doing that”. By coincidence, the great essayist, publisher, playwright¹⁰, literary and social critic T. S. Eliot once also said that “good writers borrow, great writers steal”.

中国有句俗语，“天下文章一大抄，看你会抄不会抄”。无独有偶，伟大的作家、出版人、剧作家、文学家和社会评论家T.S.艾略特也曾说过，“优秀的作家借，伟大的作家偷”。

I think Lee Ellis is correct about T. S. Eliot’s words -- I interpret “steal” to mean, in this context, the act of taking from other texts themes, ideas, rhythms, structures, but not the sentences themselves.

我想，李·埃利斯对于T.S.艾略特的话的理解是正确的——我认为，所谓“偷”，指的是从其他文章的主旨、想法、节奏、结构中获得灵感，而不是直接用别人写的句子。