Not a Good Practice for Students (II)

First of all, read my blog six years ago https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-218436.html . Apparently a new generation of students were not taught this accepted academic practice. Instead, because of the chaos and suffering in China from 1850-1950 due to war, economic poverty, foreign occupation and other misfortunes, a survival mentality has developed among a significant portion of the population of “grab anything free for you never know if you may need it for tomorrow – i.e. You are stupid if you don’t grab things offered free (paraphrase a well known Chinese saying)“.

New students are not taught as to what is accepted academic behavior with respect to asking for free copies of publications from an author. Because authors are encouraged to give out free copies of journal publications, students think this extends to any publication by the author such as entire textbook or chapter of it. My question to the student: have you ever thought about asking an author for a free copy of his best selling novel or fictions? - Of course not. Then what makes you think you can ask an author of his scientific/academic book or chapters for free? Do you realized that during the 1950s there were no word processing or electronic copies of publications?.

After the publication of my blog mentioned at the beginning of this article. I did not receive any more such requests for about seven years. But recently another generation of students who apparently never been taught about acceptable behavior nor read the above blog have started asking me for free copies of my best selling textbook again. I am now forced to post for the second time this advice. PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD. China nowadays has the second largest GDP in the world, why should I only receive such uninformed requests from China and nowhere else in the world. Help China live up to her deserved position in this globalized world.