Mark Goodacre’s post alleging that John Drane’s New Testament textbook included “unacknowledged use” of Goodacre’s website has produced a few reactions, even from Drane himself. Yet, I am quite disappointed with many of them for several reasons. Most fundamentally, the conversation that resulted shows that we need to have a renewed conversation within the academy on what plagiarism is and how it factors into various genres of writing.
First, it is astonishing to me that many academics don’t even know what plagiarism really is. For instance, in his comment on Goodacre’s post Peter Head states:
A couple of points: a) I wouldn’t see this as plagiarism, since the wording is not directly copied [I would regard it as inadequate attribution, perhaps exacerbated by early problems in using and referencing web pages]…
This is quite a disconcerting statement because it reveals that Head doesn’t understand plagiarism at all. He seems to link plagiarism with “directly cop[ying]” words. However, Head’s own institution contains this statement in a list of examples illustrating what plagiarism constitutes:
paraphrasing another person’s work by changing some of the words, or the order of the words, without due acknowledgement of the source; [emphasis original]
But Head isn’t alone in this kind of thinking. Several other academics indicated this type of misunderstanding in their discussions with me about Goodacre’s post.
Second, Drane’s own comments on Goodacre’s post were even more disappointing. As Drane was trying to explain this situation he said:
In the nature of things, this sort of introductory text is going to be like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up all sorts of stuff in the effort to give a general overview of diverse opinions on things, with the emphasis on the diversity rather than on who says what. Right back to the first edition, this book (and its companions) has never had footnotes because it was never intended to be that sort of book, nor apart from historic trendsetters are any individuals generally mentioned by name in the text. Within the space and budget constraints the best that I could persuade the publishers to include was the booklist at the end – which is also far from comprehensive, even random.
I think this is quite ridiculous. I don’t know of any academic publisher that would go to an author and tell them, “Sorry, but we’re not going to let you properly document your sources.” Almost every publisher will, however, tell an author how many pages they have to work with and then it is up to the author to decide how to fill them. Now, a publisher may control the format of the book which might exclude footnotes but in that case I don’t know of any academic publisher who would refuse to do what every reputable commercial non-fiction publisher does and that is to have a list of notes at the back of the book one of which could have stated something like: “Pages 177-78 were summarized and adapted from …” It is not “in the nature of things” to plagiarize, there are established procedures for avoiding it that every author is expected to abide by and every publisher is willing to go along with.
However, the most troubling thing to me about this whole mess is that Drane, along with many other scholars I’ve read or spoken with, seem to think it is okay to not properly document where ideas came from–and therefore plagiarize (if you disagree with this definition, see Cambridge University’s examples of plagiarism)–when it comes to introductory textbooks because, well, it’s just “in the nature of things” to be sloppy and plagiarize in an intro textbook. Yet, I would imagine that if a student submitted a paper in which they employed practices like this that Drane would fail them. In fact, according to the University of Durham’s own guidelines (Drane has taught there) undocumented “close paraphrasing” is grounds for possible expulsion.
So, why should scholars tolerate a textbook that is intended for introductory students which fails to live up to the standards that we set for the students themselves? Furthermore, why should this be tolerated when the author digs in his heels when confronted with this issue and sloughs it off as no big deal? This situation now models for intro students the fact that properly documenting sources and ideas doesn’t matter. So, how can instructors then reprimand students–and thereby act in accordance with their institutional policies–when they have modeled a completely different set of ethics and standards through adopting a textbook that plays by a different set of rules?
We have recently seen a case in which journalist Jonah Lehrer made up quotes from at least one subject that he wrote about. In response his publisher has recalled the book and is issuing refunds for anyone who bought it. I think Fortress Press might want to get a handle on this issue because for the academic world stealing other scholars’ ideas–even in introductory textbooks–is an equivalent offense as making up quotes within the world of journalism.
And yet, for all his mistakes Lehrer did come clean and, through his publisher, categorically apologized. He didn’t dig in his heels and act like it was no big deal because his quotes sounded like something Bob Dylan would have said and that his book was published by a commercial press and everyone expects some creative license and embellishment for popular books. If only we could hear this kind response from Drane and Fortress.
Thanks for a thoughtful post, Charles. Just what I would expect from you.
On more than one occasion, I have been plagiarized extensively by an online author but I have resolved the issue by confronting the individual who was responsible.
I’m thinking that the best way forward in this instance is for Mark Goodacre to make a formal request to Fortress Press and John Drane to provide correct attribution in forthcoming printings and in case of the contrary, to be clear that the issue will not die and the names of Fortress Press and John Drane will continue to be mentioned in less than ideal circumstances in a variety of venues, print and online.
I mean if Fortress and Drane want to blow it off that’s fine, but the world is watching and there will be consequences.
If I understand the drift of Drane’s comments, he may well have gone about lightly paraphrasing authors other than Goodacre without proper attribution. If so, there is a larger scandal just waiting to hit the fan.
Thanks, John. I agree with the way forward that you outlined. I hope that Mark will do this.
In my experience, it is all too common for faculty to show inadequate awareness of their own institutions’ guidelines about academic integrity…especially its definitions for plagiarism.
I shared your reactions to the thread at Mark’s blog. I sometimes think the academic community is pretty transparent in our desire to avoid clear and shared definitions, and that this has something to do with avoiding accountability and retaining privilege and power.
That certainly could be, Brooke.
Dear Charles,
I am firm believer in “Intellectual Honesty.” Give credit when credit is due and condemn when condemnation is due even if the credit is to the other side of the argument or condemnation is on my side of the argument.
Example: Jesus in Matthew 23 stated the fact that the “scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses’ seat, i.e., the seat of authority. Jesus acknowledged that the scribes and Pharisees had the authority to make judgements, etc., but He then went on to say, “Do as they tell you, but do not do as they do.” That is intellectual, ethical honesty. BTW, Jesus then went on and pronounced the 7 woes against the Jewish leaders.
Now, with regard to the Drane’s use of Mark’s website, “It is intellectually DISHONEST to NOT give credit where credit is due even in paraphrasing, etc.! ALL academic papers, reports, etc. written by students and scholars alike MUST adhere to the proper reporting or attribution of source for ANY idea that is NOT common knowledge. Failure to do so is PLAGIARISM! Period! There is no way around this ethically to justify it. I would question any thing that was written by that person.
The other facet of the Lehrer story is interesting, too — not just his fabricated quotes, but the actual plagiarism angle. The problem is that Lehrer plagiarized his own writing by pasting snippets of stuff from one blog into blog posts for another publication (taking from his writings on Wired and posting them in the New Yorker, if I’m not mistaken.) This would seem to present a more complicated issue than the Drane affair, which is clearly plagiarism. The main problem with Lehrer’s re-use seems to be that he was cheating his former and current employers, because he was re-using materials created (and paid for) by one source and using them as ostensibly new things he was also being paid to create. It would be like writing a symphony on commission and then turning around and “writing” the same one for another patron. The other problem was that he didn’t admit to the readers that this was previously written material. Aside from those contractual issues, what Lehrer did is quite similar to what we do all the time – that is, we re-use parts of journal articles in books, and the like (with proper attribution and checking with the publishers, this is considered acceptable.) I’ve heard people give remarkably similar papers, even with the same staged jokes, at different conferences, too… So, my question is this: is it in any way problematic for scholars to re-use their own works? What are the proper guidelines for this?
‘I don’t know of any academic publisher that would go to an author and tell them, “Sorry, but we’re not going to let you properly document your sources.”’ The key word here is ‘academic’. At the time, the original publisher was Lion, and they were not then considered an academic press. This would tend to bear out some of what John Drane has said. However, I do have reservations about some of his exculpatory comments. Presumably he was not compelled to provide a virtually ‘random’ book list; being allowed to include such a list at all, why would one not provide a well thought-out list? Also, subsequent editions might be expected to provide refinements of the deficiencies and inadequacies of a first edition, not perpetuation of them.
On a personal note, I know other UK publishers around that time who were publishing the work of academics at what they called a ‘semi-popular’ level who were not at all keen on things like footnotes and references, though usually the compromise was made in favour of having something like normal academic apparatus.
On the two occasions that I, as a freelance editor, found clear evidence of plagiarism and drew it to the attention of in-house editors, it was my behaviour that was seen as problematic, not the plagiarizers’.
Brennan, that’s an interesting question – which I happen to be dealing with it a lot because I am writing materials whose arguments depend on arguments I already made in a book I published. The solution is actually pretty simple. Once you have published something (unless you happen to personally own the copyright, which is fairly rare in academic circles), you treat your own work like you would anyone else’s. If you quote what you said, you put it in quotes. If you summarize an argument, you direct readers to the full argument in the footnote. Of course Lehrer’s case is a bit different because he’s a journalist and not an academic and the genres of writing are not the same.
David, I see the issue less as “Why didn’t he cite?” and more as “Why didn’t he summarize the general state of scholarship on the question in his own words?” These are two sides of the same coin, of course. But when you’re working within directives from your publisher that you cannot use footnotes, you simply have to do the latter if you want to avoid exactly what’s happened to Drane. If you write that way, a book list at the back is probably enough to cover your bases. The kind of half-paraphrase/half-copying Mark demonstrates should not have occurred anywhere in Drane’s book, given the kind of restrictions he was apparently working with. I see here an ignorance of how to write for the task at hand, and it got him into trouble. One simply doesn’t write a textbook the same way one writes an academic article. (Full disclosure: I have not written a textbook myself, but I have edited a number of them.)
Charles,
Interested in your interaction with this:
http://awilum.com/?p=1313
Ah, Carl, as cheeky as ever.
The post you link to was a bit tongue-in-cheek on my part in which I was trying to get people thinking about ancient conventions. If I were in the Old Babylonia period I would not have a problem with Drane but since I live in the present I do.