Word of the Day: academe

academe \ ˈækəˌdim \ noun

: the community or environment of colleges and universities; academia

The word academe has appeared in eight articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 4 in the guest essay “The Problems Only Start With Plagiarism” by Charles Seife:

… Whether it’s universities explicitly recognizing good peer reviews as a necessary service or journals rewarding academics who do solid review work, or even professors making a conscious effort to learn and teach how to do a deep and systematic review of a colleague’s research paper, academics have to recognize that only they can figure out how to keep their credibility intact.

That credibility rests on the ability to produce research — original research. Any would-be initiate to academe has to write a thesis compelling and novel enough to prove herself capable of original thought in her field. That’s what makes an accusation of plagiarism so serious in academia, and why academics have got to do a much better job of keeping it out of the ivory tower.

Daily Word Challenge

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