Recently a Chinese blogger discovered two academic theses that had been published online with the same research structure, the same wording, and almost the same title, inciting thousands of Internet users to join in condemning plagiarism.

Of course, there were differences between the two papers. One was published in July 2007, the other not until March 2008. They were written by graduate students in economics at two different universities and cited figures from two different provinces, one in the northeast and the other in the Yangtze River valley.

Before the university in Northeast China announced its decision to strip the author of the second paper of his master's degree on Monday, China Youth Daily revealed another case of plagiarism, in which a student from Central China copied the thesis of another student. He changed only the dedication of the thesis, prompting critics to label his work "the rankest sort of plagiarism".