On review…
Some of you know that I am in the editorial team of the Journal of English as an International Language. Despite the fancy title of ‘Editor’ (a gross case of ‘title inflation’), all I really do is forward papers to people from a pool of reviewers, or occassionally review them myself if the topic is within my sphere of expertise. It’s pretty uneventful really, but something just happened which I found confusing, and I’d welcome your reactions.
I was just reading a paper reporting on an empirical study. This paper had already gone through a round of review, some changes had been recommended, the author had acted on those changes and resubmitted. All I had to do was go over the document one last time, aided by a very helpful table prepared by the author -a senior scholar in an Arab country- where the reviewers’ suggestions were listed and cross-referenced against changes implemented. The study described was actually quite interesting, the methods were sound, the discussion well-argued, and things were looking good for this submission. Except for one detail: the prose, which was elegant and clear in the introduction and literature review, deteriorated rapidly as one made one’s way down the manuscript. ‘He must have got tired’ I thought…
Or maybe not? Just to make sure, I cautiously copy-pasted a particularly well-crafted phrase into Google… And indeed, there it was, embedded in the article the author had cited. In fact, the entire paragraph had been copied verbatim from the article. This is bad, I thought, but clearly he wasn’t trying to take credit for the idea, or else he wouldn’t have cited the article. We can save this, surely: ‘all I need to do is have him re-phrase this section’. But now I had to check further, and what I found confirmed my worst suspicion: two more paragraphs had been copied from a conference paper penned by a graduate student (no attribution here), and much of what remained in the literature review had been stitched together from ERIC abstracts, some attributed, some not.
So, why am I surprised? After all, as a teacher this is not the first time I come across plagiarism. But what I trully cannot understand is why an academic could have thought that they might get away with something so blatantly obvious. I did google the author’s name, and it turned out that he has a PhD from a Russell Group university, so clearly he must be able to write a 2-page literature review with little or no effort. Why then would he do something as stupid as that? And why would a senior academic, of all people, stake their reputation when they have little to prove?
I guess my primary reason for making this post wast to vent off my fustration that the reviewers and I have wasted so much time and effort on a paper that is unusable. But there are any insights on the questions above, I would very much like to read about them, because it really makes no sense…
Oh, and the author? He’s been blacklisted, and I understand that the Chief Editor will be contacting his institution soon, although I doubt that they will take any action.
Achilleas
There is this professor I know who actually has a section in his CV listing two articles by other researchers who have plagiarised his work. His rationale is that being copied is an indicator of esteem.
Reading through this thread does make me wonder if part of getting published is also accepting the fact that my work could one day be plagiarised. It’s extremely frustrating to think that there are people out there that practice this without any sort of awareness or guilt over passing someone else’s ideas as their own for personal benefit.
One of my students once told me that they plagiarised because they’ve always gotten away with it (until my class). Makes you wonder how people sleep easily.
Another thing – here is the most believable explanation of plagiarism I have ever heard:
Why did you do it? – I asked a student. “To be honest with you, I don’t know”, was his answer.
Magda
Hi Achilleas,
I can understand your frustration! Just a few days ago I had a case of blatant plagiarism in one of my students’ essay. When asked why she had done it, the student mumbled something about not knowing how to cite, making a mistake, emailing me the wrong version of her paper, being under pressure, not having enough time, etc. – all false and unsatisfactory excuses (are there any satisfactory ones??) offered in rapid succession, in panic over the inevitable zero for the assignment and disciplinary action.
When it comes to academics, I guess similarly inadmissible excuses might be offered. But there is so much more at stake here! Why don’t you confront him (via email?), sending his article back to him together with the relevant passages from the texts he plagiariased? I would be very interested to know what he says.
I used to write on a freelance basis for various publications in Poland, mostly articles related to the Arab world, culture, politics and society. You can imagine my reaction when I discovered that a journalist specialising in the Arab issues and writing for one of the main newspapers in the country had literally lifted an entire passage from my piece published a couple of years earlier. I didn’t take action because it was during my holidays, I was travelling and didn’t have time to deal with it. But now I wish I had done something about it. Why did he do it? He could have at least paraphrased it or made a simple attribution in his text. But he didn’t. I can’t imagine his excuse – and I don’t think cultural explanations would apply here, because plagiarism is considered academically or professionally unacceptable in Poland.
Come to think of it, a couple of years ago I was asked to prepare a paper on cultural issues related to academic integrity for a mini-conference at Virginia Commonwealth Univ. in Qatar. We agreed that the problem had not been tackled at primary/secondary school level in the country and there was lack of awareness of its seriousness amongst local students.
But an academic?? A journalist?? They must have thought they wouldn’t be found out.
Incidentally, how can you be sure that his PhD dissertation was his own?
Magda
If it’s any consolation, Achilleas, via one of my brothers, I know a similar tale.
He is something of an expert on the history of glue (well, I guess someone has to be) and his historical research has been painstakingly (some – including his wife and children? – might say ‘obsessively’) undertaken over many years. He has followed up (I think he enjoys it) obscure lead after obscure lead, e.g. to classical texts referring to the ‘glue’ that Icarus used for his wings, etc. Much of this appeared in a chapter in a key book as well as elsewhere. It’s definitely ‘out there’ and clearly what he has made his name in.
A few years back, bored on a Friday night, he wondered how the citations (listed via Google Scholar) were doing for this book. Lo and behold! – his chapter was cited in a new article in a peer-reviewed, prestigious journal in his field. He eagerly tracked this down and was dismayed at what he found.
Why the author has cited him at all was a mystery given the plagiaristic stunt being pulled. This citation simply drew attention to that stunt. What this academic had done was indicate that he had accessed a classical writer via my brother’s work, hence the reference. But, in the same article he had basically lifted – with no acknowledgement of any kind – the structure and very words of my brother’s opening sketch of the history of glue. No-one reading ths version would have known it was my brother’s work, i..e the reference/citation elsewhere did not apply to the lifted scholarship.
The book publishers for the original text contacted the journal editors and they contacted the offending author. His explanation – poor editing etc – was no more credible than that of a plagiarising undergraduate. His apology was minimal and unsatsfactory, so the publishers took it further and, finally, an apology was made in the journal and the ofending piece was pulled from the e-versions of the journal (much harder to pull it from already printed hard copies though). As far as I know, the academic paid no real price for this offence – I think he kept his job which I very much doubt I would in a similar situation of professional misconduct.
My brother, indeed all of us, remain absolutely perplexed about why he plagarised in tnnis way, and them, having done so, why he didn’t cover his tracks better (thereby keeping tot he 11th commandment), and why he was so unapologetic once caught out, etc etc. I am beginning to understand the plagiarist’s way of thinking when I think about the way our UK MPs speak about their dodgy expenses claims in recent years ….
So, no words of wisdom from me on your experience I’m afraid exept to say that some people are just crooks at some points in their lives, usually when they think they can get away with it undetected ….