Some Good News on the Honesty Front

I admit that as an academic, nothing bothers me more than plagiarism.  I don't care where or why it happens, it always riles me up.  (Despite my empowering of them.)  When I found that this post had been plagiarized, I wrote another in which I mocked Onika (MAYOR OF SEXYTOWN!) for accepting praise for my work.  Fair enough.  Checking my mail—as always, I'm about a week behind—I find that the plagiarist herself wrote me.  Here's her response:

I just wanted to let you know that I apologize for using your blog. I got my ring stuck on my finger and came across it while I was looking for "advice." I thought it was funny and I changed some stuff and posted it. I should have made it clearer that I took most of it from you but I really didn't think it was that big of a deal. People have taken things that I wrote and done this too.  People have started to write me and implied that I steal your work all the time. I've never seen your blog before. Anyway, I'm sure you'll post this so everyone can laugh at what a shameful loser I am. So have fun. Hope everyone gets a good laugh.

Despite the momentary wavering—"I really didn't think it was that big of a deal"—this is a refreshing admission of guilt.  I'm constantly having that dread conversation with student plagiarists, in which I have their "original" work in one hand, and a hard-copy one of the first two returns in a Google search for the novel/play/poem I've assigned in the other.  Not only will students refuse to admit what they've done, they'll babble complete nonsense like:

• "What do you mean by exactly the same?  Maybe this Henry James plagiarized me?"
• "'The first share of Charlotte Perkins Stetson's intellectual and professional indebtedness was undoubtedly to the Nationalist movement promulgated by Edward Bellamy and his 1887 novel Looking Backward' sounds like something I would write."
• "Of course I know what it means: 'promulgated' means, like, to attack something a lot."

So, Onika, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but we won't be laughing at you for having the guts to admit what you've done.  The stakes may have been close to nil, but that makes it all the more admirable.  You could've done what all those cowering students with they could've: run and hide.  You didn't.  That says a lot about you. 

Comments

[Cap'n Morgan]

Way to go on a boondoggle, Boy-o.

[SEK]

What? (shakes head, mimes cleaning ears) What?

[slolernr]

Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

[eb]

maybe

[Ahistoricality]

I actually think that the internet might be good for the struggle against plagiarism in the long run.

It's such an open medium that the odds of catching someone are higher; there are simple ways of giving credit and a pretty strong tradition of doing so among enough bloggers to make it a de facto standard to which bloggers who don't practice it can still be held.

It reduces the need for plagiarism, frankly: why not just say "go here and read this" instead of copying something? I've just started thinking about this, so it's incoherent yet, but links and footnotes just aren't that different: for all our attempts to introduce students to the joys of the footnote, millions of people have gone out and learned how to do links on their own, and take it seriously.

[Connor]

I read your blog frequently. Generally I've nothing to say, because I'm neither an academic nor a committed blogger. Just happen to really enjoy your writing and like taking a look at your reading lists and your comments on things you're reading. Also, of course, I steal your material, but never in writing. I just plagiarize you shamelessly to try to impress girls at parties.

Anyway, the way you handled this woman's response to being caught copying your work was impressively decent and civilized. I happened to really love your original post about the ring, and so found myself surprisingly annoyed at the chain of events. It was also, as you say, pretty decent of the woman to have the guts to own up to what had happened. It's that rarest of all things on the internet--an incident in which the situation (apparently) is resolved with everyone looking about as good as they can under the circumstances.

[Tim Lacy]

Bravo! Like SEK, I admire Onika's willingness to simply write him. - TL

[slawkenbergius]

I think the author of the Bellamy quote is herself confusing "promulgate" (to put a law into effect) with "promote." Goes to show that you shouldn't plagiarize, 'cause your source might be shit anyway.

[Alex]

No, "promulgate", aside from the meaning you cited, is also a synonym for "advocate" or "promote".

[Cap'n Morgan]

Boondoggle-
noun
1. work of little or no value done merely to look busy
verb
1. do useless, wasteful, or trivial work

*directly coppied from dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/boondoggle)*

[Anthony Paul Smith]

I have to say I thought this whole thing was pretty petty on your part, but without pettiness how do you get into such hilarious hijinks! Granted, I know it's the principle of the thing and dealing with some random person on myspace is easy practice for when you really want to attack someone, but it just seems you could have taken care of things privately. It really could have been an episode of some sitcom showing how disconnected academics are that they have to get their jollies by brutally going after non-academics who repost a stupid post(and it was kind of funny, but the New Yorker wasn't going to publish it).

Feel free to disagree. Actually, I know you will, and you'll get all principled about how the holy war to end plagiarism must be brought home. That's all fine and good, but it's still petty and only perpetuates the pettiness of others as evidenced in the original comments.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

I have to say I thought this whole thing was pretty petty on your part, but without pettiness how do you get into such hilarious hijinks! Granted, I know it's the principle of the thing and dealing with some random person on myspace is easy practice for when you really want to attack someone, but it just seems you could have taken care of things privately. It really could have been an episode of some sitcom showing how disconnected academics are that they have to get their jollies by brutally going after non-academics who repost a stupid post(and it was kind of funny, but the New Yorker wasn't going to publish it).

Feel free to disagree. Actually, I know you will, and you'll get all principled about how the holy war to end plagiarism must be brought home. That's all fine and good, but it's still petty and only perpetuates the pettiness of others as evidenced in the original comments.

[SEK]

Anthony, posting it twice won't fool anyone. We know you're the lone dissenter in the War on Plagiarism. No need to resort to shenanigans.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Well if you didn't have the ridiculous "type in this squiggly letters or we won't let you post" majigger it wouldn't have happened. So, I can only blame the majigger and my habit of pressing the back button too much. Which is actually my fault, the back button that is. The majigger, well I'm sure that's the bots faults, but it really gets on my nerves. I feel like I'm logging into my bank and that's never fun.