October 8, 2007
Where Plagiarism and Ghostwriting Intersect
For those keeping score at home, the tally of plagiarism scandals at Harvard and Yale law schools stands as follows: Harvard 3, Yale 1. That is according to the Columbia law professor Michael Dorf.
The most recent addition to the club is the Yale law professor Ian Ayres, who has acknowledged that several passages in his 2007 book Super Crunchers contain unattributed reproductions or nearly identical paraphrases of other sources. (The Yale Daily News found nine such instances.) In a statement to the Yale Daily News, Ayres says that his citations are proper for a book intended for a popular audience but that he will make changes in future printings of the book.
But Dorf is puzzled by this explanation because it suggests that "we have prominent faculty who think that it's acceptable to change another author's words ever so slightly to avoid having to give attribution." And he finds it very unlikely that Ayres or the other authors would risk their reputations merely to avoid attribution.
What is going on here? Dorf has a theory: These are not plagiarism scandals, they are ghostwriting scandals. "For it's easier to believe that a research assistant whose own reputation is not on the line and who may not be as familiar with the norms of attribution (even if he or she should be) would ever so slightly change the prose of another author as a means of cutting corners on a project that has been delegated to him or her."
Evan Goldstein | Posted on Monday October 8, 2007 | PermalinkComments
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I would comment on this story, but I don’t have a cadre of graduate students who can do so for me.
— Mark Thomas Oct 8, 10:42 AM #
Bull. If you’re a graduate student in a reputable program, you attribute EVERYTHING to the point of the reader’s annoyance. You cite even your name at the top of the paper. Or don’t they teach that anymore? There’s are no excuses for non-attribution.
— marci Oct 8, 03:25 PM #
I think there are two very distrubing issues here. 1. Tenured faculty feel no guilt about claiming the work of the graduate students whose grades and future they hold in their hand. When I was a graduate assistant, a faculty member with a doctorate “required” me to write an independent research paper for which he was contracted to do as a consultant. Not only did he get paid for my work BUT I had to pay college course fees AND he didn’t put my name any where on the submitted research document! Which I might add he required me to reformat to meet the contract’s specifications. 2. It’s always easy to blame the graduate assistant…but let’s not kid ourselves. Many of these faculty members are so arrogant that they don’t believe that they will ever be caught. They believe that the public and academic worlds hold them in such high regard that no one will question their words and ideas (much less the ownership of them).
— Rebecca Oct 8, 03:48 PM #
A former faculty member on our campus “borrowed” the work of two undergraduates and explained that they should have been honored to have worked with him/her. This person was on the cutting-edge and the recipient of major awards. A departure in the middle of a semester was arranged. So, Rebecca, have faith in the process on at least some campuses.
— It happened here! Oct 8, 04:42 PM #
I like how it was a Columbia professor selecting Harvard and Yale.
— Michelle Oct 9, 05:39 PM #