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?

"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."

That is really an unpleasant situation, and I'm not sure whether it's better or worse that you're not being paid to do the proof-reading.

If you are afraid to confront, would a jokey, "Well, if your DH's name isn't on it, then you can't put mine on it, either!" work?

If you hate the lie worse than the confrontation, tell her more directly that you don't want anything to do with it. If that's in an e-mail, you will be able to produce it if required to cover your arse.

Do you trust that the style and content and crime will be picked up?

Lying She has never once acknowledged my editing work on her papers, except once when it was actually in the journal I publish (and because I take the unusual policy of editing everything, everyone would have known anyway).

I have always known she was taking advantage and that I should be down as a second author because what I was contributing was substantive. But I've always thought 'Hey, that's what friends DO'. It was never close to the point that I wrote a whole damn paper for her, though, start to finish.

With her DH it's different - that was just proper editing work. He can look after himself.

I am going to have to say something, if only because I don't want my own name anywhere near it.

If her husband is well known and it reads in his style there will be other people who put two and two together. You don't need to be accusatory just tell her it reads like her husbands work and although you understand they will invariably "rub off on each other" you want to flag it as you think it may cause her some issues.

I agree with this, and what purple has said. Awkward situation, though.

I know exactly what you mean by there are PhDs and PhDs. I know someone who has made noises about their PhD in peace/conflict studies. I have read their work and been shocked by the language and quality of the essays. 'War affects women and children etc....' No shit Sherlock.

I wrote better arguments at A level!!

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

So where's my PM?! C'mon, I'll never hit you up for unpaid proof-reading,or put you in awkward moral positions! Pleeeease!

I think that's a reasonable position to take, op. You need to protect your own professional reputation here.

pluchachange - I think that's some good advice you've given me, thanks.

I don't know if anyone else will pick it up. Friends will know. I think everyone will have suspicions, but it will be hard for them to prove definitively. People will probably just shut up about it.

She is the kind of person who comes over as very, very vulnerable. She's very open with people, very open in asking directly for help. Then everyone feels a responsibility to help and look after her, not least of all me! For example, she was recently doing a grant application and (as always) it was about four hours it was due. She rings me, stressed out on the phone, crying. Would I please, please, please look at it and edit it into proper sentences? I immediately feel sorry for her and agree to do it. It's ten pages of dense text! I call her with a question an hour and a half later, because I can't make out the meaning of a sentence. She is in a restaurant with her DH, having a nice lunch while I work on it!!

Oh and you wouldn't want to work in this field. Deathly boring! Pretty sure you could be an academic wherever you wanted!

She has never once acknowledged my editing work on her papers, except once when it was actually in the journal I publish (and because I take the unusual policy of editing everything, everyone would have known anyway).

I have always known she was taking advantage and that I should be down as a second author because what I was contributing was substantive.

Oh, dear, that's a terrible history. A demonstrable link to you doesn't look good, either.

Is there any evidence of increasing rigour in the field, which might lead to trouble over this (or previous) article?

*it was about four hours before it was due, and the crisis happened.

I don't know what happened to that sentence, but I blame my cat walking on the keyboard!

You edited 10 pages of dense text to a last-minute deadline for free while she went out for lunch?

Do you think taking advantage of people is "what friends do"?

Maybe she should give this up and go and manage volunteers instead. Being able to get people to help and work and do all sorts of things for her would be a real asset!

disapointed....... Is this a leg pull? She went out for lunch and you filled out her form for her?

Is she Derren brown?

she is a user!

I am an academic editor too and I would flat out refuse to work on this document.

It isn't primarily a case of gently pointing something out to her for her own professional good. It is a matter of stating what your professional position is as an editor.

So even though I am in most respects a total wuss when it comes to saying anything upsetting or conflicty I wouldn't feel any need to be tentative for fear of intruding or offending (though of course I would be as polite as possible about it).

Working for friends can be awful. It is hard not to charge very much less than even the ungenerous rates that a commercial client would pay, and boundaries can so easily get blurred.

I also wouldn't make substantive rewrites under the name (and rates!) of editorial work. Life's too short and bills are too unpaid.

Ahem. OK, I see how ridiculous that sounds now.

In my head it goes 'She's crying! She's sad! You can help! If you don't help you're a bad friend! Bad friends are bad people! Hitler was a bad person. If you don't help, you're like Hitler'.

Also, I didn't know she was going to lunch. I assumed she'd be beavering away on it, as I was.

She is generous in other ways, though. So it isn't by any means all one way. She lets me stay at her superamazing house at times and she sometimes pays for dinner as a thank you.

It's just that I feel a bit compromised this time because I feel like she's crossed a line between 'slight cheating'/a little bit of help and 'big style obvious cheating'/passing off.

Why can they not just co-author this paper? I didn't understand the point about the REF - as far as I'm aware as long as the two authors are not in the same department at the same institution, it can count for both of them for the REF. If the DH is such a hotshot, he is unlikely to need this piece for the REF anyway. If I were you, I would be strenuously suggesting presenting this as a co-authored paper.

Yes. 'She didn't get where she is today...' By not knowing how to manipulate people, eh.

Super amazing house, brilliant husband, helpful friends.. It all sounds great.

Just as well to be open eyed about her tactics and your reward system!

Justforblog - you speak truth! I don't charge her anything for the work, either. Not a thing!

I am going to sleep on this. Then I will

• raise my suspicions in a way that hopefully isn't too devastasting, i.e. say that it sounds very much like her DH, pretend that I think that this is because his style has probably just rubbed off by virtue of the time they are now spending together, and that I think she should probably rewrite it before sending it to the journal she has in mind
• suggest that I don't work on the paper and am not acknowledged on it at all (to be honest, her DH is good so it's damn near perfect anyway, and doesn't need my assistance)

OP, you need to call this woman out. You really do.

When I was doing my PhD, I made friends with someone in a related field who was not a particularly strong candidate and also happened to have a mild invisible disability.

For YEARS I ran around after her, helping with stuff when her "health was playing up". I edited the entirety of her PhD for her, got books from the library, typed notes etc etc. (Her disability was real, but played up conveniently close to deadlines!)

When asked to read stuff for me, she was unhelpful or dismissive. Eventually after she told me an article of mine had put her to sleep (!! I'd read her ENTIRE FUCKING PhD, remember!) I woke up and told her to find someone else as a mug reader.

Your time is valuable and this woman is no friend of yours. What's she doing for you? Ditch. Seriously!

Actually the hitler 'thought' process is a very ....'weak field' ..... Type 'thought' process.