Kim Geon-hee, Allegations of Plagiarism in 1999 Sookmyung Women's University Master's Thesis

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] Kim Gun-hee, CEO of Kobana Contents and wife of People Power Party presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol, has been embroiled in plagiarism controversy over her master's thesis as well.

According to academia on the 27th, Kim's master's thesis submitted in 1999 to the Graduate School of Education at Sookmyung Women's University, majoring in Art Education, titled "A Study on the Characteristics of Paul Klee's Paintings," contains numerous identical parts to previously published books and papers.

The thesis was submitted in June 1999, when Kim used the name "Kim Myung-shin" before changing her name.

JTBC reported that the plagiarism rate reached 42% after verifying Kim's thesis with the plagiarism detection program "Copy Killer." "Copy Killer" calculates the plagiarism rate by comparing the target thesis with its own database (DB).

JTBC reported that considering Kim's thesis was produced before the widespread use of computers and the internet, they added prior research not included in the "Copy Killer" DB themselves to obtain this result.

In academia, a plagiarism rate exceeding 20% is considered serious research misconduct.

Yonhap News also reviewed Kim's master's thesis using the plagiarism detection program "Copy Killer" and found a plagiarism rate of 22%.

A sentence explaining the characteristics of Klee's paintings from a 1997 master's thesis at Kyung Hee University Graduate School of Education, which predates Kim's thesis, stating "Klee focused on the drawings of children, mentally ill patients, and primitives as pure works without higher-order thinking, and also extracted their playful spontaneity as the most fundamental motive of good," was almost directly transferred to Kim's thesis without citation.

In the section discussing Klee's lines in relation to music, three characteristics including Klee's introverted temperament were mentioned, and this composition was also found to be excerpted from another thesis without citation.

In the part dealing with the historical background of Paul Klee's works, many similarities were found with Rosemary Lambert's "Art History of the 20th Century," first published by Yeolhadang in 1986.