I don’t want to get into the details, so I will rely on vague generalizations:<\/p>\n
Plagiarism sucks.<\/p>\n
I have never been plagiarized before but it recently happened on another website (a non-political, non-science one where my contribution is anonymous). An article I posted several years ago was recently reposted by someone else with modest changes. Fortunately, the webmaster cottoned on and deleted it.<\/p>\n
Words can not describe what I felt. I had never given plagiarism a second thought before now. I knew it was bad and avoided it myself. In my professional life, plagiarism is a career-killer and I am very thorough in sourcing my papers, almost to the point of absurdity (my bibliographies tend to be very long). But I was never that moved when I heard about it, even in prominent cases like Doris Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose or Ward Churchill.<\/p>\n
But being the victim of it has wrenched my perspective entirely. This was just an article on some free website maybe eight people have heard of. I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who get words stolen out of books and papers and see someone else make money off of it.<\/p>\n
Plagiarism is not just stealing someone’s words. It is stealing their mind. It is a cruel violation. The hard work and original thought of one person is stolen by a second. The people who have lost their careers because of plagiarism have deserved everything they’ve gotten and I am now determined, more than ever, to make sure I quote people properly and always give credit where it’s due.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons I started this blog was precisely because of this sort of thing. It wasn’t plagiarism, exactly, but I had e-mailed pundits and writers only to see my ideas turn up in their articles — never with any credit, often with my exact wording. Now I always post my thoughts here first and addend my e-mails with “posted at”.<\/p>\n
Because if I don’t look out for my intellectual property, who will?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don’t want to get into the details, so I will rely on vague generalizations: Plagiarism sucks. I have never been plagiarized before but it recently happened on another website (a non-political, non-science one where my contribution is anonymous). An article I posted several years ago was recently reposted by someone else with modest changes. … Continue reading A Post Without Context<\/span>