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 am a bit weidred out by this thread. On the strength of it being a stronger paper than her previous work and some phraseology that echoes her husband, it's assumed that the work is plagiarised. Sorry, but that is just not enough to prove anything.

One thing I've noticed in a field I'm familiar with is how many trendy scholars are aping the writing style of Slavoj Zizek (which is quite distinctive and actually does get under your skin somehow) when they write theory type interpretations. It doesn't mean that Zizek wrote their papers or that they are plagiarising, just that they've been influenced by him. IMO if they're not directly referring to anything Zizekian but have a more general pervasive Zizekian flavour, there's no need to cite Zizek (and most journals delete refs to authors not directly referred to or used anyway).

Sorry to go against the grain of the thread, but I'm getting the feeling that the OP doesn't like her "friend" very much (which might well be justified) and doesn't think much of her general output (which may also be justified). But this and a "gut feeling" doesn't ground an accusation of plagiarism, sorry.

Ah, cross-posted.

There are rumours already? Then shit yes, you made the right call!!

Be prepared for her to not talk to you again and to blow up at her DH for talking to you in future though. In fact it might be kinder to him to send a similar email (or just forward this one on to him) now, before she can go ballistic and forbid all contact. It sounds like he is the more level-headed one and like he might accept the constructive criticism better.

I wish there WERE software for detecting fraud! It would make my life much easier, as I currently seem to be plagued with students who have bought their essays from online essay mills. Sadly, it doesn't work like that! Turnitin just compares the words the student has submitted with the contents of everything published on the internet or previously submitted to Turnitin. There is no check on style, syntax etc as suggested above - I'm not sure how this would even work, as everything (in my institution at least) is submitted anonymously. It takes hours of hard graft to detect plagiarism from books which are not online, or from unpublished sources, or from purchased essays.

Ragged is right - this is fraud, not really plagiarism as we normally define it.

X-posts. Well done OP!

there are already rumours in the field about the way that she has put her name as first author on papers that were 95% written by second authors, some of whom feel aggrieved by this

She's in deep trouble, then. Academic fields tend to be very small, are always very gossipy, and people have long memories. If she's already got that reputation, she's got it for the rest of her career. If she gets her promotion she should make a move into academic management where lack of orginality, inability to string together a coherent sentence, and complete lack of ethics will be no barrier to success.

OP - I take that the 1st and 2nd author complaints aren't because she has a surname beginning with A and therefore could claim alphabetical reasoning?

DH has anti plagiarism software. It covers quite a vast range of specialities within his area and those related so it could quite easily be picked up with the right software. Also, if it is a niche subject, the audience isn't that wide so would probably be picked up by eye.

I agree with MellowJello. I also think the drip feeding about the 'rumours' is an interesting addition. Why not mention that at the start? It doesn't feel like something that one would forget about.

Having said that, I think the OP is entirely justified to withdrawn her support in the interests of safeguarding her professional reputation. But in terms of tackling it with her friend, I don't think she's justified in doing anything more than mentioning she's noticed some stylistic similarities between this and her husband's work.

OP, I know it's not at all what you meant, but if you raise this issue face to face with either of them, I wouldn't phrase it as telling them to 'take care'. That sounds like you're telling them (her) to hide their tracks better, rather than suggesting they need to stop the collusion.

Perhaps that's just me being over-suspicious, but if she/they are already dishonest enough to commit this fraud then they might just read your concern as indication that you are condoning it and simply warning them to be more careful about how they go about it...

OP, I'm also an editor and know exactly what you mean about voice.

For those saying that a slight flavour of someone else's style proves nothing, I agree that writers can acquire a recognisable group-style. And also that very skilful writers can successfully produce ventriloquism on purpose.

But neither of those seems to pertain here.

This woman has been turning out 8000-word streams of consciousness, and has been dependent on the OP's rewriting to turn them into something fit to submit to her department.

So it's fair to assume she isn't capable of producing the coherently written version in the first place. Or she'd have been doing it already for years.

Now suddenly she rocks up with a coherently written piece. And it's not just any old coherent style - it's the precise voice of her DH.

I don't know if that would reach the threshold of beyond reasonable doubt (it might), but it's waaaaay over the threshold of balance of probability that this is her DH's writing.

Getting first authorship when you did a tiny minority of the work is also probably a type of fraud, but relatively small beer compared to passing off someone else's work as entirely your own, even if it's not strictly speaking plagiarism or another kind of intellectual theft (was freely supplied to her).

I don't know what the exact academic rules are on all this, glad it's not a set of problems I've ever had to deal with.

OP, good for you for having sent the email. And good luck with the conversation with her DH (I think your thoughts are good).

GeorgeYeatsAutomaticWriter back to students and plagiarism, Turnitin, does check against previous students work as well as published materials, and the students own submitted work. This is done because most unis have rules against recycling work, i.e. submitting substantially the same piece of work for different assignments. It bit one of our students recently who had based their fourth year project on their third year project but taking it further (as agreed by the supervisors). Unfortunately they didn't advise them to reword their description of the various mechanisms involved and the student, understandably, reused her previous description. This was enough to trigger Turnitin and they ended up facing a level 3 (i.e. most serious) plagiarism case.

You need to tell the "author" that she may well hate what you are about to say, but that you would be utterly failing her if you did not point out where this is going to go if she goes ahead with it.

Couch it with "I'm sure you didn't, but..." if you feel you must, but in any case tell her what people are going to say, the sorts of things (idiosyncratic verb usage, spellings etc) that will be very clear to his peers and other editors, perhaps cite some scare stories and suggest she credits him or something before she faces straight public ridicule, or worse sets tongues wagging and gets a reputation that blackens her name in academic circles, regarding an oft-cited paper.

Oh, I missed some of the thread. Bad me, sorry.

I hope she responds in a mature manner.

Tough one, but it sounds like she's been taking advantage of your good nature for such a long time. I agree you have to say something

"I'm sorry but if you work in a field where papers stand or fall on the strength of the writing and ideas, and she can't write and has shit ideas, then she needs to reconsider her career choice, not whine and impose on people too kind or weedy to tell her to shove off. Why doesn't she just go and do something else for a living, something she can actually do?"

Totally agree with OTheHugeManatee.
It sounds like she's only where she is because she's managed to get a huge amount of help from people. That's just not fair to those who don't play the "help me" card and just struggle on through their own sweat and tears to produce good pieces of work. Cheats People like her make me sick. The way she behaved regarding the grant application was such an obvious piss take. Time to get tough on her IMO.

"there are already rumours in the field about the way that she has put her name as first author on papers that were 95% written by second authors, some of whom feel aggrieved by this."

Just read this. She's a piss taker!

Encourage them to join author? Her ideas, his presentation?

I found this thread fascinating. Hope she responds well to your email, disappointed.

Relieved I'm not an academic!

"there are already rumours in the field about the way that she has put her name as first author on papers that were 95% written by second authors, some of whom feel aggrieved by this."

Meant to say, we've had similar with some academics at my uni but to a person they've been North American - it seems to be reasonably standard 'tenure track' behaviour.

Did you receive any response to your email, OP?