Friday afternoon inertia, and plagiarism stories

So I'm back at the local coffeeshop, and the coffee was better today (I think they may have cleaned the machine? or perhaps it was just because I forgot to specify skim milk, so I got the full-fat kind? mmmmmmm). And I ordered my usual peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich (yes, I have such sophisticated tastes), and got three slices instead of two (I think the girl making it screwed up). Not like I really need the extra calories, but hey, extra food. I love the way the honey melts on the toasted bread and dribbles and drools all over the plate, and down my arm.

I am here, in theory, to work on the eternal paper that won't get finished, although I've been here about an hour and all I've done yet is read blogs (hey, you can't actually work when your fingers are covered in honey). But I'm going to start as soon as I finish this post, really I am. I'm still slogging my way through the penultimate revision - this is where I go through and add the bits I've determined that I need to add, re-consult the scholarship so I can fill in all those footnotes that say "CITATION??", and try to make it as complete as possible. Then it's time to print out the whole thing and polish, polish, polish - that will be the ultimate revision. And then it will go in a big envelope with a nice polite groveling letter, and fly away to the journal editor. Who, thankfully, is not the same person to whom I once wrote about the plagiarism I detected in an article from said journal, who did not agree that it was plagiarism. Well, okay, but let me just say that if one of my students had handed in a paper that paraphrased as sloppily as did this article, I would have handed them their ass. But who am I to say?

Since there seems to be a plagiarism theme in my recent posts, let me leave you with my favorite plagiarism story. In my last year at Rural Utopia, I had a student who decided to do her senior project on Robin Hood. She'd taken a class with me in which we'd read Maurice Keen's The Outlaws of Medieval Legend (originally published ca. 1960), which got her interested. Well, I should point out that she was an EXCELLENT student, and being thorough and dedicated as well as smart, she went searching through WorldCat, where she found someone's early-1970s dissertation on outlaws, and inter-library-loaned it.

When it arrived, she brought it to a meeting with me to show me that it was a word-for-word copy of Keen's book.

Anyway, I e-mailed the DGS of the university that had granted the degree, who was HORRIFIED. Given the dates, the DGS hadn't been there when this person had submitted the dissertation, nor were any of the committee members still there (hell, some of them are probably dead). But he promised that he would look into the matter and that they would begin the process of revoking his degree. I didn't think much of it for the next few months, until I finally got another e-mail saying that they had managed to track down the offender, and forwarding me the e-mail that the offender had written.

It was one of the saddest things I'd ever read. Apparently the man's father had died while he was supposed to be writing the dissertation, and he talked about being panicked because his only opportunity for a job (the early 70s not being the best time to be on the market) depended on his being done. He didn't try to justify this, mind you, he was just explaining what his thought processs had been. (And I don't think that job even did work out, as there was no evidence that this guy had stayed in academia - there were no traces of academic affiliation, nor did he have any publications [unsurprisingly, I guess!]).

But that's not really the sad part - the sad part was him talking about how he was actually kind of relieved, that he had felt guilty about this since he'd done the deed, and how he had now had to explain to his wife of thirty years what he had done. (Can you imagine?? "Hi, honey, how was your day? oh, and by the way, you know that Ph.D. I'm supposed to have...?")

Of course, the immediate question this raised for me was: what the HELL was his committee doing?? Now, I suppose I can't really blame them for being unaware of Keen's book (though, of course, really I do), as I'm sure we all supervise stuff outside our own narrow specialty, and have to be able to trust that the student is well-trained enough to be able to cover the central works in his/her area. But clearly they weren't interested in seeing, you know, DRAFTS, or process, or anything like that - because otherwise, how would they explain the going from nothing to fully-formed-and-polished-something inherent in copying a book word for word?

Anyway, that's my "my student caught a plagiarist" story. Hmmm, maybe it's worth using as cautionary tale in my classes in future...

Okay, the post is finished, the sandwich is eaten, and I've washed all the honey off my fingers. To work!

Comments

[Rana]

Wow. That's an amazing (and sad and pitiful) story!

I'd certainly consider telling it to your students; perhaps the way to dissuade them from plagiarizing is to get them more interested in catching plagiarists? ;)

[Ancrene Wiseass]

Holy hell!

I agree with Rana: along with the Doris Goodwin example, that's one of the better "don't plagiarize" stories I've ever heard. And this one's a lot sadder.

[Jane Dark]

Wow. It reminds me of Sayers' Gaudy Night.

So sad.

[Limon de campo]

Wow! I'm teaching a class on scholarly writing right now, and we've been discussing some recent cases of academic plagiarism; I plan to tell my grad students this story. Amazing.

P.S. Mmmmm, on the sandwich.

[La Lecturess]

WOW. That's all. Just: wow.

[ianqui]

What a crazy story! I'm surprised no one had caught him before.

I'm also kind of surprised that the guy's dept sent you his email, but I'm glad they did..

[Sherman Dorn]

Wow. Ow. You and your student deserve a reward for your efforts. Maybe bittersweet chocolate?

[Pilgrim/Heretic]

I LOVE this story (and it's funny, I was thinking about this just the other day). I'm not sure if I would use this as a good anti-plagiarism speech, though - the students may well take it to mean "if you commit the most extreme, unquestionable, unforgivable kind of plagiarism, you may get away with it and have no one notice for thirty years!" :)

[Another Damned Medievalist]

I think it may be one of the saddest plagiarism stories I've heard. shoot.

[random reader]

wow, that's an amazing story... and I think also reminds us (or me) that plagiarism is often a last-ditch, scared, panicked fix-it to the paper that is due. Not that that makes it any better, but they're not all sneakily trying to pull a fast one on us.

also, I know this isn't a huge deal for academics writing, but let me congratulate you on the correct use of 'penultimate'-- seems like I keep hearing it used as 'ultimate' lately.

[What Now?]

How sad to think of carrying a secret like that around for thirty years, and having it all mixed up with grief over your father's death. What a sad, sad story.

[Jane]

Wow, what an amazing story!

[Ms. Pipestem]

Joining the chorus. What a story.

[Michelle P]

I just now had a chance to read this entire entry. (You may have had honey on your fingers while typing it but I'd neglected to read it during my sandwich time.) That's very sad; fraught with remorse from the plagiarist and a horrid commentary on the state of his committee.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

It is terribly sad. I kind of want to tell students about it so they can see the kind of grief something like this can result in, where they're haunted by guilt over something they know they didn't earn... Well, we'll see!

[steph]

Perhaps you can offer me some guidance ... I just posted the other day on a couple professional plagiarisms that I've caught, because I'm not sure what the best path is for reporting them.

The first one I caught thoroughly astounded me -- I was bouncing off the walls for having busted major plagiarism. This second one, though, was more sobering. If I can spot two different cases without even trying, how much of this is going on out there? Doesn't help that they're in scripture studies ....

[terminaldegree]

Wow. That is sad, and worth sharing, and yes, it does remind me of Gaudy Night.

Imagine living for 30 years with that guilt. Awful.