Jiang Fangzhou responded to the fraud in his master's thesis, saying that the Tsinghua professor's report material contained ChatGPT screenshots

In response to Professor Xiao Ying’s accusation of “paper fraud” against me

Professor Xiao Ying listed 23 "false" accusations against my master's thesis. Many of the accusations are seriously untrue. Here are just a few examples.

Treating common sense explanations as "plagiarism"

Professor Xiao Ying’s accusation: The beginning of the abstract of the paper "highly overlaps the text" of another paper, which constitutes plagiarism without annotation.

fact: The first sentence of my abstract is - "Mary Shelley (1797-1851) is a famous Gothic novel and the author of the world's first science fiction novel "Frankenstein"."

These are names of people, books and genres. Anyone in the world who introduces this book must use this kind of summary.

Treating real quotes as “made up”

Professor Xiao Ying’s accusation: The inscription of Milton's "Paradise Lost" quoted in the paper is "false fabrication", and the degree of fraud is extremely high.

fact: This inscription has been printed on the title page of "Frankenstein" since it was first published in 1818. It has been more than two hundred years since it was published. It has been said that it is "false and fabricated" without any basis.

Use AI chat screenshots as evidence

Professor Xiao Ying’s accusation: The paper's summary of the plot of "The Last Man" constitutes "many mistranslations", and the degree of falsification is medium.

fact: This paragraph is my general description of the content of "The Last Man Standing". This novel is set in the United Kingdom at the end of the 21st century. The monarchy giving way to the republic is the core setting at the beginning of the novel. The author makes a summary based on the text of the novel, and there is neither "mistranslation" nor "fabrication."

What needs to be pointed out particularly seriously is that in this article, the accuser used screenshots of ChatGPT’s responses as “evidence”—using the output of the chatbot to accuse a dissertation written in 2018-2019 of being “false.” Such material does not have any academic evidence effect, and its appearance itself reflects the randomness of the evidence collection in this accusation.

treating plot summaries as falsehoods

Professor Xiao Ying’s accusation: The paper's plot summary of Mary Shelley's novel "Mathilda" is "tampering", and the degree of falsification is high. Contents he labeled "fabricated" included: the father's incestuous love for his daughter, the appearance of a young suitor, the daughter's questioning, and the father's suicide by drowning into the sea.

fact: Each of the above plots is written in the novel. There is still no Chinese translation of this novel - there is only one possibility for accusing the plot of a book as "fabrication": the person making the accusation has not read the book.

He accused the plot summary of "Never Let Me Go" of being "incorrectly fabricated". Similarly, Professor Xiao Ying had not read the original work and only judged the plot through the "back cover" as "false".

Treat normal quotes as fabrications

Professor Xiao Ying's accusation: The passages cited in Godwin's "A Theory of Political Justice" in the paper constitute "fabrication/tampering."

Facts: The evidence he presented himself showed that my quotation was consistent with the translation on pages 85 to 86 of the 1980 edition of the Commercial Press - his evidence chart did not indicate any content that I had "made up".

Treat personal opinions as academic standards

Professor Xiao Ying's accusation: When the paper discussed the three books read by Monster ("Paradise Lost", "Celebrities" and "The Sorrows of Young Werther"), the order of writing was different from the order in which the titles of the books were listed in the original text of the novel, which constituted "falsehood".

Fact: This is the author's summary and explanation of the plot in "Frankenstein" in which the monster finds and reads three books. The three books - "Paradise Lost", "Biographies" and "The Sorrows of Young Werther" - all truly appear in the original works, and the titles, plots and readings are all consistent with the original works. The thesis arranges the explanatory order of the three books according to the needs of the argument. This is a method of writing and argumentation, and does not involve the authenticity of any citations, annotations or documentary information, and has nothing to do with "falsification".

As for how the monster's spiritual development should be interpreted, Professor Xiao Ying can have his own understanding, but the differences in academic interpretation are a dispute of opinions, not "academic misconduct."

Calling interpretations that are different from one's own understanding "false" blurs the boundaries between academic criticism and academic review.

On this basis, I respond positively to Professor Xiao Ying’s four core accusations as follows:

1. Accusations of "plagiarism" and "paper washing" - unfounded

The articles involved are either public common sense statements, or they are bibliographic problems caused by mislabeling of editions or lack of annotation in quotations with clear sources.

The author has not appropriated the original expressions of others as his own; all citations accused of "plagiarism" have been clearly stated in the paper as citations, and all actual sources can be traced.

2. Allegations of "complete falsification", "making things up out of thin air", and "fictitious English quotations" - unfounded

From the preface and epigraph of "Frankenstein" to the passages of "The Last Man" and "Maltida", to Shelley's poems, Mary Shelley's letters and diaries, and Woolf's speeches - every English word is truly found in the original work. Except for one place where diary and letter materials were combined and reproduced, there is no fabrication.

3. Accusation of “using AI to write” – unfounded

The paper was written in 2018-2019. At that time, there were no generative artificial intelligence tools that could be used for paper writing (ChatGPT was only released in November 2022).

I did not use any artificial intelligence or other technical means to assist in the writing. On the contrary, Professor Xiao Ying repeatedly used artificial intelligence in our process, resulting in a large number of illusions and fallacies.

4. Accusations of "ghostwriting" and "purchasing articles" - unfounded

Professor Xiao Ying did not provide any evidence for this most serious accusation.

The author has continued to study Mary Shelley since 2018, and has written relevant monographs (a total of 66,000 words of publicly available text), researching Mary Shelley from different angles; the problem awareness and material context of the paper are in line with the author's public research and writing. Allegations without evidence should not be made, let alone accepted.

5. The accusation of “emergency delisting from CNKI” – is not true.

My paper has never been published on CNKI, it is only published on the campus website and can be viewed by those with a campus account. Therefore, there is no so-called "emergency removal from CNKI" and other behaviors.

To sum up

There are irregular citations in the writing process of the paper, and I am willing to accept the corresponding criticism and normative determination; however, the paper does not contain any academic misconduct including plagiarism, manuscript cleaning, plagiarism, embezzlement, fabricated citations, AI writing, ghostwriting, or buying papers.

Professor Xiao Ying’s accusations are systematically exaggerated and inaccurate: the mislabeled version is called “forgery,” the translation discussion is called “fabrication and tampering,” the summary of the plot is called “fictitious document,” and the different understandings of the text are slandered as the author’s “lack of knowledge as a literary graduate student.”

Professor Xiao Ying may not have carefully read any of the novels or research monographs mentioned in the author's paper, but relied solely on artificial intelligence to make accusations of academic misconduct by quoting the paper out of context. In the long process of accusations, there have been a large number of errors, inaccuracies and exaggerated accusations due to artificial intelligence hallucinations.

The author clearly and resolutely denies these accusations that are seriously untrue and can damage the author's reputation, and reserves the right to protect his reputation and legitimate rights and interests through legal means.

Please Professor Xiao Ying stop his online violence, pornographic rumors, rumors and slander against me!

Since July 2025, Xiao Ying has used the WeChat public account "Xiao Ying Aesthetics" certified by his real name as the main position to carry out systematic online violence against me for a year and is still continuing to this day.

Its behaviors include but are not limited to:

Creating pornographic rumors, fabricating, and spreading sexual rumors against oneself;

Publicly humiliating a member of my family;

Illegally obtain and publicly disseminate personal information such as student ID numbers of myself and other current students;

In the name of "academic fraud" that is seriously untrue, they continue to infringe on my reputation.

I am a graduate of Tsinghua University. An in-service professor used his academic status and platform influence to conduct a year-long public humiliation and rumor attack on graduating students of his school. This went far beyond the scope of academic criticism.

I never took any courses taught by Professor Xiao Ying during my time at school, had no contact with him, and had no personal grudges.

It was only after his cyberbullying that I searched for some public news surrounding Professor Xiao Ying.

Some results are as follows:

He defended the "Tsinghua Poison Textbook" and insulted Chinese people as coelenterates, praised the female reporter who cried because of the assassination of Shinzo Abe and insulted Chinese people as inhumane Internet barking dogs, etc., published ""Genius Han" is the biggest scandal in the contemporary literary world", insinuated Ma Dong as "brain-dead", published an article saying "Zhao Benshan represents a narrow peasant consciousness", etc.

(Part of the sample pictures)

Professor Xiao Ying has been known for his fierce "cultural criticism" for many years, and has publicly attacked many writers and public figures for a long time.

The reason for his attack on me was simply that he believed that he had "defended Han Han" - but in fact, I had no interaction with Han Han other than attending a movie premiere event.

Even if I have expressed any public views, the normal speech and social interactions of citizens can never be the reason for a university professor to commit long-term online violence against me.

(Screenshot is Professor Xiao Ying’s earliest article about online violence against me)

Professor Xiao Ying’s attacks include but are not limited to:

He has made pornographic rumors many times.

Including but not limited to:

It hinted in an extremely obscene way that there was an inappropriate relationship between me and other work colleagues and literary seniors.

The content can be found in the "Xiao Ying Aesthetics" public account

This kind of content has no factual basis and is simply the most vicious sexual humiliation of a female author.

Using "sex" as a weapon to attack women is the most egregious form of online violence. It should not be done by a university professor to students from the school where he graduated.

Publicly humiliating my family

The content was published on the "Xiao Ying Aesthetics" public account

Expanding the scope of the attack to my mother further proves that Professor Xiao Ying's behavior is not "criticism" in any sense, but a personal attack with the purpose of humiliating and hurting.

Seeing that long-term attacks and slanders had no effect, since April this year, affected by incidents such as the Wuhan University Library, Professor Xiao Ying, instigated by netizens, began to "crack down on fake" my master's thesis.

Professor Xiao Ying has repeatedly emphasized that he is "extremely selective in cracking down on fraud," which shows that his purpose is not to defend academic purity, but just to vent his personal anger.

The content can be found in the "Xiao Ying Aesthetics" public account

After Professor Xiao Ying obtained my papers on the campus website through other people's accounts, he publicly disseminated my and other students' student IDs and other private information.

Student ID is personal information protected by the "Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China".

Professor Xiao Ying obtained and disseminated the personal information of current students to the public without any authorization, which is suspected of breaking the law and directly put innocent third-party students at risk of cyber violence.

The content can be found in the "Xiao Ying Aesthetics" public account

On the difference between venting personal anger and “academic crackdown”

Regarding Professor Xiao Ying's "academic crackdown" that is full of loopholes, I want to say that academic criticism is something I respect.

However, making pornographic rumors, insulting other people’s mothers, spreading students’ student ID numbers, and using chatbot screenshots instead of real readings are not true “academic crackdowns.”

“Academic crackdown” should not be an excuse to vent personal anger.

"Academic anti-fraud" should not become a tool to waste academic resources and taxpayers' money.

A person can be criticized, but he should not be humiliated for a long time;

A paper can be censored, but it should not become a tool for spreading rumors and online violence;

A university teacher should not use his identity and right to speak to carry out continuous public siege on a student with whom he has no real intersection.

In response to Professor Xiao Ying's series of online violence, pornographic rumors, and privacy leaks, I will submit materials to relevant Tsinghua University institutions through formal channels, and I will also reserve the right to safeguard reputation rights, privacy rights, and personal dignity in accordance with the law.