In a few days I’ll be gearing up to teach my freshman writing students about plagiarism. Not the “terrify them and make them fear punishment from the authorities” speech, but the “why people who work in a community of minds take plagiarism so seriousy” speech.
How interesting, then, that I found a textbook published in 2009 that includes whole passages from a handout that a student originally submitted as a technical writing project almost 15 years ago, which I have maintained and expanded, and from which I continue to teach, and which turns up as the very first hit in a Google search for the topic.
The textbook did some editing, but reused many exampes and even re-wrote an anecdote from first person to third person. Yet I find no credit in the book (or at least, none in the portions of that textbook I was able to find online).
Of course, what galls me most of all is that words from my instructional website are appearing, without permission, attribution, or compensation, in a communications textbook.
On my to-do list is writing to the publisher and to the authors. I’ll keep the details quiet for now, to give the other parties a chance to respond with an appropriate level of professioalism.
Ugh. RT @UD_IHRC: When a Textbook Plagiarizes Your Student’s Work https://t.co/MYfnvxiAkn | https://t.co/pYKr64KepA
When a Textbook Plagiarizes Your Student’s Work https://t.co/fNWYYxBwm9 | https://t.co/jz189tu7lZ
That’s…I’m literally gaping at the gall of whomever put that in the textbook.
I had a story plagiarized once, and the person tried to argue that her saying my story was her own was actually a compliment being given with regards towards my writing.
I gaped at that a lot, too.
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Wow. Plagiarism stinks. I once had a story picked up by the AP that went national and a reporter from MSNBC did “his own” story on the piece. He took almost my entire story verbatim including quotes from those interviewed and put his name on it. While I hated that he stole my work I have to admit it was kind of cool to have someone from MSNBC think my work was good enough to take and put their own name on it.
@DennisJerz Eating your own dog food FAIL. I’m interested to see what happens here.
RT @ncarbone: This should never happen: RT @DennisJerz: When a Textbook Plagiarizes Your Student’s Work http://t.co/vAbafivORa
Interesting. Seems to me there was a Facebook conversation about this recently and the person whose work was “borrowed” by the publisher contacted them and got paid. Hopefully it works out like that.
This should never happen: RT @DennisJerz: When a Textbook Plagiarizes Your Student’s Work http://t.co/vAbafivORa