We still have no appreciation for the fact that 5-10% of the population has a significant personality disorder, whether APD, BPD, or NPD, and the implications for that any time groups of people gather, and the way that magnifies when we gather online, both because of scale and because most of the cues are masked, and it can be difficult to spot int he first place. Our default assumption is that those we're interacting with are running on a typical operating system, but in any group of 10-20 people, odds are that someone is not.
Most social media outrages are instigated by people with APD or BPD, stirring up drama for the fun of it. And most plagiarists have NPD, which is really the manifestation of a complete and irreparable absence of self-esteem. Unfortunately, there's nothing to really do about it -- no treatments work, and they'll never realize that they have an illness driving them to exploit others. All we can do is notice, call it out, and force them to move on to some other set of hosts to parasitize, which is almost certainly what Jennifer did. She's probably sharing stories weekly in another group right now.
In the early aughts there was a writer I knew on Zoetrope whose prize-winning story was stolen by a student at famous University studying under one of the most famous writers in the world. Famous U closed ranks despite the obvious evidence. The victim was treated like and painted as a crank. Cancel culture has taken a sharp turn since then, and perhaps has gone too far, and I'd rather see someone steal from the Dali Lama than a struggling writer. But the disposition shouldn't depend on with whom the thief is connected! Schools and the literary community need to instill and enforce a better attitude toward creativity, collaboration, fellowship, and ethics.
I'm dealing with an issue now with a writer who wanted to break into my genre of YA novels in verse. We were collaborating on a book project but I found her overbearing and a bully. I told her this week that this wasn't working out and I wished her the best. She then informed me she was taking my story structure and the main idea of the book into her genre of picture books. The concept for the book project is concretized out in my 40-page proposal. We share an editor and I had to inform the editor. My agent is on alert. Legally, there's nothing I can do. But it confounds me that someone has the pure temerity to do something so ethically and morally reprehensible.
You did the right and courageous thing by addressing "Jenny" directly rather than shaming her in front of the whole group. I am reminded of Dorothy in the movie version of The Wizard of Oz when she looks behind the curtain and says, "Why, you're nothing but a man!" There are many fearful and abusive people in this world who only need to be *named* to disappear. Good for you for doing it.
There's also stealing words versus taking other people's ideas. I had a writing professor who told our class that he stole ideas from student stories all the time. He talked about one student story about a Vietnam vet and gave us details about how he made it better. After that, I didn't submit any stories where I felt my idea was unique or original. I still wonder what he thought was going to happen after he shared that with the class.
I refused to read "Life of Pi " or see the movie after seeing an interview with the author where he said he got the idea of a person in a boat with a tiger after a shipwreck from another published novel ("Max and the Cats," which uses a jaguar) and that he couldn't stand to think of such a great idea in the hands of a lesser writer.
When I was chair of the English department at a small uncompetitive university in New Jersey, one of my colleagues consulted me about one of my advisees, who had suggested in a workshop in her class that his fellow student, with whom he was paired, cut a large part of her essay and turn in the essay without it. He cut and pasted the part he’d suggested she cut and submitted it as a big part of his essay. The teacher found the same passage in both essays and accused both students of cheating. The original writer burst out in tears; the plagiarist admitted to pasting her words, thinking she would cut them from her own essay and not turn them in.
I came to find out it was not the first time he’d plagiarized an assignment. His excuse: he was so busy making a banner for his fraternity that he didn’t have time to do his assignments himself. We suspended him for a year. He kept telling me he was a good person. He’d just run out of time and didn’t want to get a late grade on his assignments.
I wonder where he is now. I hope he’s working in a job for which stealing other people’s work is not possible, like skilled or unskilled labor, though I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. I also hope he’s not writing. I haven’t thought that about any of my other students.
Wow...what a great article. I belong to a writer's group and I've shared this concern with them, which they seem somewhat insensitive to...your experience is sadly not all that uncommon. Thanks so much for sharing.
What a beautiful article. You in fact, wrote a story, with drama, tension and a resolution. You handled it quite well. Like you, I belong to several writers groups, and have never experienced such situation. If anything the opposite has been true. When making suggestions to someone's story and you edit their sentence, later on you find out that they would not use that sentence because it's now not theirs. So I am careful of what I say. Instead of saying that the story would work better if Bill would scream at Maggie and rush out of the room. I may say, that the story needs something, more tension, Bill and Maggie were too agreeable at the end after all that had transpired.
The place where I have found rampant plagiarism is in business. Quite ofter a company would raid their competitors pages, copy and paste, maybe add a couple of key words to ramp up their Google ranking, and post. Today they even use the ultimate plagiarist AI. And all this without blinking an eye.
It is a poignant reminder of the importance of integrity in the writing community. Your decision to address the issue privately and offer support demonstrates empathy and a commitment to upholding the values of honesty and authenticity in writing. Proud of you!
Plagiarism is more common than most people think, which is why most universities use software such as Turnitin to detect it. I don't know if major publishers use it but I doubt that your average litmag ever bothers to check. The case of the serial plagiarist John Kucera and the difficulties people like him create for litmags is highlighted here. https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2024/01/31/the-bizarre-case-of-the-serial-lit-mag-plagiarist/ The worrying next development is that current software is struggling to detect AI-generated material accurately. Finally, I'm sure all of us at some point have unconsciously 'borrowed' something from their previous reading, as occurs in the world of music. There is no silver bullet to deal with those situations.
We still have no appreciation for the fact that 5-10% of the population has a significant personality disorder, whether APD, BPD, or NPD, and the implications for that any time groups of people gather, and the way that magnifies when we gather online, both because of scale and because most of the cues are masked, and it can be difficult to spot int he first place. Our default assumption is that those we're interacting with are running on a typical operating system, but in any group of 10-20 people, odds are that someone is not.
Most social media outrages are instigated by people with APD or BPD, stirring up drama for the fun of it. And most plagiarists have NPD, which is really the manifestation of a complete and irreparable absence of self-esteem. Unfortunately, there's nothing to really do about it -- no treatments work, and they'll never realize that they have an illness driving them to exploit others. All we can do is notice, call it out, and force them to move on to some other set of hosts to parasitize, which is almost certainly what Jennifer did. She's probably sharing stories weekly in another group right now.
In the early aughts there was a writer I knew on Zoetrope whose prize-winning story was stolen by a student at famous University studying under one of the most famous writers in the world. Famous U closed ranks despite the obvious evidence. The victim was treated like and painted as a crank. Cancel culture has taken a sharp turn since then, and perhaps has gone too far, and I'd rather see someone steal from the Dali Lama than a struggling writer. But the disposition shouldn't depend on with whom the thief is connected! Schools and the literary community need to instill and enforce a better attitude toward creativity, collaboration, fellowship, and ethics.
I'm dealing with an issue now with a writer who wanted to break into my genre of YA novels in verse. We were collaborating on a book project but I found her overbearing and a bully. I told her this week that this wasn't working out and I wished her the best. She then informed me she was taking my story structure and the main idea of the book into her genre of picture books. The concept for the book project is concretized out in my 40-page proposal. We share an editor and I had to inform the editor. My agent is on alert. Legally, there's nothing I can do. But it confounds me that someone has the pure temerity to do something so ethically and morally reprehensible.
You did the right and courageous thing by addressing "Jenny" directly rather than shaming her in front of the whole group. I am reminded of Dorothy in the movie version of The Wizard of Oz when she looks behind the curtain and says, "Why, you're nothing but a man!" There are many fearful and abusive people in this world who only need to be *named* to disappear. Good for you for doing it.
I have to say....I'm glad I grew up when peeking at someone else's paper or "copying" another's work was punishable by failing. No questions asked.
There's also stealing words versus taking other people's ideas. I had a writing professor who told our class that he stole ideas from student stories all the time. He talked about one student story about a Vietnam vet and gave us details about how he made it better. After that, I didn't submit any stories where I felt my idea was unique or original. I still wonder what he thought was going to happen after he shared that with the class.
I refused to read "Life of Pi " or see the movie after seeing an interview with the author where he said he got the idea of a person in a boat with a tiger after a shipwreck from another published novel ("Max and the Cats," which uses a jaguar) and that he couldn't stand to think of such a great idea in the hands of a lesser writer.
When I was chair of the English department at a small uncompetitive university in New Jersey, one of my colleagues consulted me about one of my advisees, who had suggested in a workshop in her class that his fellow student, with whom he was paired, cut a large part of her essay and turn in the essay without it. He cut and pasted the part he’d suggested she cut and submitted it as a big part of his essay. The teacher found the same passage in both essays and accused both students of cheating. The original writer burst out in tears; the plagiarist admitted to pasting her words, thinking she would cut them from her own essay and not turn them in.
I came to find out it was not the first time he’d plagiarized an assignment. His excuse: he was so busy making a banner for his fraternity that he didn’t have time to do his assignments himself. We suspended him for a year. He kept telling me he was a good person. He’d just run out of time and didn’t want to get a late grade on his assignments.
I wonder where he is now. I hope he’s working in a job for which stealing other people’s work is not possible, like skilled or unskilled labor, though I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. I also hope he’s not writing. I haven’t thought that about any of my other students.
Wow...what a great article. I belong to a writer's group and I've shared this concern with them, which they seem somewhat insensitive to...your experience is sadly not all that uncommon. Thanks so much for sharing.
What a beautiful article. You in fact, wrote a story, with drama, tension and a resolution. You handled it quite well. Like you, I belong to several writers groups, and have never experienced such situation. If anything the opposite has been true. When making suggestions to someone's story and you edit their sentence, later on you find out that they would not use that sentence because it's now not theirs. So I am careful of what I say. Instead of saying that the story would work better if Bill would scream at Maggie and rush out of the room. I may say, that the story needs something, more tension, Bill and Maggie were too agreeable at the end after all that had transpired.
The place where I have found rampant plagiarism is in business. Quite ofter a company would raid their competitors pages, copy and paste, maybe add a couple of key words to ramp up their Google ranking, and post. Today they even use the ultimate plagiarist AI. And all this without blinking an eye.
It is a poignant reminder of the importance of integrity in the writing community. Your decision to address the issue privately and offer support demonstrates empathy and a commitment to upholding the values of honesty and authenticity in writing. Proud of you!
Excellent article. Thank you.
Plagiarism is more common than most people think, which is why most universities use software such as Turnitin to detect it. I don't know if major publishers use it but I doubt that your average litmag ever bothers to check. The case of the serial plagiarist John Kucera and the difficulties people like him create for litmags is highlighted here. https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2024/01/31/the-bizarre-case-of-the-serial-lit-mag-plagiarist/ The worrying next development is that current software is struggling to detect AI-generated material accurately. Finally, I'm sure all of us at some point have unconsciously 'borrowed' something from their previous reading, as occurs in the world of music. There is no silver bullet to deal with those situations.
Hey Kevin, don't let that stop you. If you have a story worth telling, tell it. People want to hear.
Wow, I got chills reading this. You definitely did the right thing by confronting her privately. I'm so sorry this happened.
Fear of plagiarism has kept me from submitting my work for publication and writing in the past.
Brian, just want to say I'm impressed with how thoughtfully and compassionately you handled this really unpleasant and uncomfortable situation.