I always assumed plagiarism to be mainly committed by a few lazy students and over-ambitious politicians. But ever since discovering plagiarism of my own work, I’ve come to see it as more pervasive.

Three years ago, I was reading up on recent research in my field, when I stumbled on a sentence that read quite familiar. Re-reading the entire paragraph, I realised these were my words – I’d published them on an academic blog two years before.

It turned out a whopping 285-word chunk in the article was copied verbatim, just minimally changed, but several other sections in the article used my arguments without credit. No footnote or reference acknowledged my work.

I was stunned because I couldn’t believe a full professor of high global standing – a respected leader in their field – would do this. I was also flattered because, of course, imitation is a form of praise. Mostly I was angry because an important article of mine had recently been rejected, but here was another person getting my half-baked blog thoughts published under their name. But I was also worried, because I now had to prove the originality of my work. Even now, I still fear reprisals if I were ever to publicise the incident; I avoided my institution while the plagiarist recently visited.

As a first step, of course I consulted the internet, and, bizarrely, I found numerous sources of advice for plagiarists – but not for those who have been plagiarised. These included tongue-in-cheek advice for academics, such as the “top five law-proof strategies when busted for plagiarism”.

Not once in the process did the author or the editors concede that the issue was, in fact, plagiarism

I decided to take the case up with the high-ranking economics journal in question. The editors handled it very professionally. They chased the author for several months, and finally managed to elicit a limp response: the plagiarist acknowledged that they had “indeed (inadvertently) relied heavily” on my work, and suggested that the publishers revise the online version of the article by rephrasing the paragraphs in question in their own words. I insisted the 285 words be set as a block quote, which the journal did. The editors also printed a corrigendum in the next issue.

But not once in the process did the author or the editors concede that the issue was, in fact, plagiarism. Retraction should have been discussed.

Despite this having happened three years ago, something still rankles: the plagiarist got away scot-free. We try to instil in our students a deep respect for source material and referencing. But if an established academic tries to pass off other people’s work as their own, and gets caught, is a retroactive citation the only consequence?

Of course anyone who reads the article now will find my work cited. The corrigendum will perhaps have alerted a few readers of the next print issue to something fishy, and the board of editors may place a question mark over a certain peer. But I’m left wondering whether such breaches of academic integrity typically have minimal consequences.

I’ve also realised I was very lucky: I actually found the infraction, was able to prove it, and suffered minimal damage since blog entries, rather than an entire book or paper, were used. From other senior academics I’ve heard far worse cases. One told me about how, as a member of an editorial board, they were presented an article by a professor, which they recognised as work stolen from a PhD student. The student’s luck was that the editor had seen them present this work at a conference.

Perhaps the academic pecking order is a contributing factor. Both cases involved senior academics ripping off lesser-known junior scholars. I doubt they would plagiarise another professor’s work so thoughtlessly, for fear of reprisal and reputation loss.

The unattributed use of others’ ideas is something widely​-​ known and strongly resented

Having spoken to colleagues over the years, I’ve gained the impression that the unattributed use of others’ ideas is something widely known and strongly resented, but rarely talked about or openly problematised. In academia, kudos for original analysis should be a key to success, and we need to be forthcoming about acknowledging others’ contributions.

A simple plagiarism check should be mandatory for any respectable journal – as it is for student term papers. A few minutes running software could have prevented this entire mess, because my articles were easy to find on the internet. However, I’m not sure about how to fight the more insidious appropriation of juniors’ intellectual labour, as with the professor who submitted the student’s article, or with those who use assistants to do the heavy lifting without acknowledging their work.

Perhaps the most practical advice I can give would be to always self-publish: even the most rough-edged working paper, discussion paper, or blog thrown onto the internet is proof that the ideas were yours first.

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