WWYD - friend passing off someone else's work as hers

[disappointedinfriend]

NC for this, but regular.

I am an academic editor. My friend is an academic. She is married to another academic. I have worked writing from both of them quite extensively.

She normally sends me her papers to look through. I have been reading one of them through several iterations and helping her with it.

The first iterations of this paper were worse than useless. However, she has sent me a new version of it and it is brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that I immediately recognise that her DH has taken her paper and rewritten it completely for her. I know his quirks of style and I can hear his voice all the way though it. I love her to bits, but I know that she is incapable of writing something as good as this essay.

She has presented it to me as her own work, and will do so to the public too. She is looking for promotion at the end of the year.

I feel a bit sick that she would stoop to this. I would never expose her publicly, but I don't know how to react to her. Should I appear like I am taken in by it? WWYD?

Sorry it's just so tantalising to know what the weak field is – no idea why!

I'd be inclined to have a quiet conversation about the style. However, I'd also be really wary about jumping to the conclusions you indicate - there is nothing wrong with work being improved through successive iterations and comments by more senior people, if they are wiling to spend that time. That doesn't make the work theirs. In this particular context, it may be that there should be a footnote which says that he commented on an earlier draft of the piece and the author is grateful for his suggestions, or there could be a specific section that he is credited as writing.

Plenty of male greats from history were of course aided by their uncredited female other halves...

Art history - no. Art theory? Largely unmitigated bollix

ragged
How is your 'helping her with revisions' different from him helping her with revisions?

Because in OPs capacity as an academic editor she can offer her friend tips, insights, advice, ideas and the like. Not write the whole thing for her which is what effectively the woman's DH has done. The DH hasn't 'helped with revisions' he's written the whole thing for her.

Why wouldn't they agree for her to be first author as person who did the research & him as 2nd author as someone who helped write?

Because as OP said, the friend is going for a promotion based on the solo-authorship of this work. She'll lose credibility for the promotion if she appears to have had co-authors supporting her.

You need to tell her straight that it's too reminiscent of her husband's style of writing to be accepted as her own work. If you recognise that, so will others. Either she needs to add him as co author, or she needs to rewrite it again in her own voice not his. Intellectual dishonesty annoys me.

I reckon some variant of lit theory. Queer theory, possibly. Uninterrupted intellectual wankery.

I'm also intrigued to know what this weak field is. Can't be art or literary theory as they are strong and competitive. It must be a burgeoning field, something media studies related, yes?

Alanna - I cannot put this any more plainly. I know as far as I can be certain about anything it was written by him. Not that she listened to his ideas and wrote them down - he actually sat down and typed this document from start to finish after she said 'I need to produce a paper on X and Y'.

There are quirks there that are entirely and unmistakeably his - the way that he uses a couple of verbs, the way he uses subclauses, a couple of very idiosyncratic spellings that I know because I have edited well over a half a million words of his.

I am not sure anyone other than another author/editor could understand this, but it is like hearing someone's voice. If you sat and listened to an audiobook, and it was read by one of your friends, you'd recognise the voice straight away, right? This is the same thing, only it's on paper.

On the practical side of things, I think I will raise this very gently and diplomatically with her. It is obviously very sensitive.

She is very lazy about writing because she is very insecure (if you see what I mean). The more I think about it, the more I think she is absolutely terrified and desperate. This isn't the way for her to get over those problems, though.

I have helped her more than I should have as an editor in the past. The help I gave was more that of a second author. But I didn't write it from start to finish.

How come they are underestimating your intelligence to thus degree? Or do they just expect your collusion?

Hmm. Tricky.

I'm a medical writer and my job is to write up other people's research; therefore at first I thought you were making a fuss over nothing. However, in a more qualitative field I can see how having editorial assistance can make the work look quite different. It's hard when you're presenting ideas rather than data. Could she perhaps acknowledge his role in 'useful discussions'? Is a co-author credit feasible?

By the way, husband/wife teams are rife in my old section of academia

The ICMJE says this about authorship:

".....authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
AND
Final approval of the version to be published;
AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved."

Is there any similar list for your friend's field op, or is it routinely flouted?

I get what you mean about recognising a 'voice' btw.

Walnutpie - I suppose that's part of the emotional question I'm asking. Either they think I'm stupid. Or they think that I will collude with it. Either way, it's not good is it?

Plumping - this is not so much editorial assistance, as the whole content being produced by him. There are no 'ideas' in the piece (no data, no empirics) apart from the writing itself. Imagine a paper on TS Eliot that reads The Waste Land as a feminist text (!!?) - the originality is in how it has been interpreted through that lens, and the author is the person who has done that interpretation. (For the record, this is just an example - the couple are not in English or literary theory!!)

Hmm. Are you saying, essentially, that your friends are no longer your friends?

I'd be feeling ripped off and taken for a fool right now, if I were you.

this reminds me of the recent drink driving thread. Your two friends are over the limit and you want to get out of the car!

Well, she will have to accept joint/ second authorship and do without this promotion, then go for another one later, when she's written something else, rather than risking what she's already got, in a field where she HAS got something. This piece probably can't be re-written now that the ideas are there!

Otherwise, it's like asking for another card in blackjack, when you've already got two Kings!

Very tricky, OP.

I would do as Purple suggested and have a friendly coffee with her. I think my approach would be something like, "Look, you and your husband are both published academics. If I can see that this isn't your usual writing style, so will others... and you don't want a) your work not to be credited to you, or b) HIM to take credit for your work, do you?".

I don't know the best approach really, letting her know that other people will also see it and know it to be 'not her work' may bring that realisation home to both of them. It's a foolish thing for them to do, but understandable, I suppose.

Walnut - I am surprised at how very bad I feel about this. It is like finding out that a friend who is an accountant is embezzling, or something. I actually felt sick in my disappointment at her. At the start, I felt like sending off an email that made it very clear that I knew the score.

Maybe that reaction is too extreme and I should look at why I feel so taken aback as a personal issue. I am genuinely not sure what the answer is there.

I do realise that this isn't all about me, though! She is insecure and has issues. I am going to respond in a way that is caring. I wouldn't be able to do that if I were the editor of the journal she's sending it to, but fortunately I'm not in that position.

Pluscachange - I think she'll present it as hers in spite of my hints, and I'll just have to shut up. Which feels kind of like a forced collusion.

This is a classic example of our inability to call bullshit on someone who is clearly taking us for a fool.

Your 'friend' and I use that term loosely, is trying to pass off her husbands hard work as her own.
She is cheating and lying.
It won't help her in the long run and could damage your reputation.
Don't let the fear of her reaction stop you from calling her on it.
She has been brave enough, so to speak, to cheat, she should be able to handle being shown up for what she is.
So often in life we let people get away with obvious wrongs because we are too afraid to speak out.

Is she planning on getting her husband to write everthing for her from now on?!

Walnutpie I think you're being a little extreme in your response there.

OP has already said that her friend suffers from of insecurity in her work and is already in quite a tenuous field.

Considering that the friend has only been using OP to cross-check the work and could have easily just circumvented OP and sent the work off as her own I suspect she might very well be using OP to test the waters.

If OP does respond saying "Well Sarah, this work is not yours" then it might be decisive factor in the friend choosing to not take this risk.

Please PM me! As pluscachange said- I can write well. If I did a bit of background reading I could break into a new field. I'm sure id be better than someone that cannot construct a coherent argument.

Will it impact on your if you're acknowledged?

I think I would just say (or would like to say); "This isn't your work, I'm not going to edit it. Find somebody else please".

I have no experience of editing, or writing papers, but I totally agree with Dreamofthebeach.

Just supposing the deception is found out at a later date & your friend says: "But I passed it by Disappointed* & she said it was OK". How will that impact on you?

I think you have to say something to her - you would if she was not a personal friend, wouldn't you?

I think all of you who say that you think you could write in a new field should DO IT! Seriously, there are several fields out there that desperately need a few stylish vipers with a bit of intelligence, attitude and nous.

Seriously, most of writing is self-confidence. That's probably why I'm only a part-time writer. I only have part-time confidence.

Sorry, that was completely self-centered.
I do think purples plan of action the best idea