Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Rappaport book

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 20:00:53 -0500

------- Original Message --------
From: Robert Jordan <[email-masked]>
Subject:Rappaport book

While doing some background reading on coding, I was
surprised to come across a paragraph in the Ted
Rappaport book "Wireless Communications: Principles &
Practice", first edition, 1996, on page 342. The first
paragraph describing cyclic codes is identical to a
passage in the book "Digital Communications" by John
Proakis, second edition, 1989, on page 386, also in
the first paragraph introducing cyclic codes.  Even
the punctuation is the same. Given the length of this
passage (more than 100 words), it's pretty clear this
did not occur by chance.  Rappaport obviously copied
this passage from Proakis.  I invite anyone with
access to these two books to check it out for
themselves.

When using someone else's words directly, standards of
scholarship require those words to be put in quotation
marks and the author of those words identified with a
reference or footnote.  Rappaport did not use
quotation marks, nor did he identify Proakis as the
real author of those words. Instead, he passed them
off as his own.  I don't know the formal or legal
definition, but this looks like plagiarism to me.

It's disappointing to see this kind of thing from a
well-known wireless author.  

Robert Jordan
Wireless Engineer

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