What to do if you're plagiarized?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Elisa (editor's note: not our own Elisa!) writes:

Hello and thanks for the great work you have been doing so far! I was wondering if you would consider dedicating a post or thread to plagiarism in academia. I would be interested in hearing from people whose work has been plagiarized in some way or another by their advisors, colleagues, or students. Sometimes plagiarism is very difficult to detect (people can steal your working arguments, ideas, and project plans not simply your unpublished drafts) but it hurts deeply. As an early career scholar I have seen my project being taken and used by a more senior colleague I was collaborating with. I presented my project in multiple occasions, so my drafts were very well-known, and I only published a paper that drew on some parts of the project I presented. It's difficult to broach the subject with the colleague who was so interested in my project to the point of appropriating my own ideas and arguments (even the bibliography!). I would appreciate some help and advice by people who have been in a similar situation, if possible. Thank you!

Another reader ('me') responded:

Elisa
I do not think this is the place to resolve such issues. You need to talk to someone on a research ethics board at the institution or institutions where you work. Begin with a consultation. Then they may advise you to raise a complaint formally, but within the institution's framework.

I certainly don't think the Cocoon is the place to make plagiarism accusations, or to 'resolve' them. But I do think the general issue is worth discussing, for several reasons. First, my sense--from things I've heard people say online and in person--is that this sort of problem, while perhaps not common, is not exactly uncommon either. Second, my sense is that for early-career people in particular, things just aren't as simple as 'me' suggests (i.e. talking with a research ethics board at your institution). Why? The problem, of course, has to do with actual and perceived power differentials. As some of the sexual misconduct scandals in philosophy illustrated years ago, institutions and individuals in them can be all too willing to protect eminent figures, even going so far as to retaliate against accusers. Imagine, then, being a grad student faced with an unethical advisor stealing your ideas. What are you going to do: lodge a formal accusation against your advisor? Perhaps. However, I assume that many of us might be so afraid of what that might mean for our career or reputation in our department and beyond that we might be too afraid to say anything to anyone about it, let alone lodge a formal accusation.

To make a long story short, my own sense--again, from what I have heard and seen--is that, for the most part, when early-career people face this kind of situation, they kind of have to "eat it" (that is, do nothing). Am I wrong? It would be good, I think, to hear from others who encountered these kinds of situations. Did you consult with an ethics committee, as 'me' suggested? If so, did you make a complaint? If so, were your allegations investigated in good faith, or not? Were you retaliated against? If you didn't do anything, why not? Were you simply too afraid, for more or less the reasons given above?

To be clear, the Cocoon is not the place to give any details on the above. I cannot, due to the Cocoon's mission as well as for legal reasons, approve any comments containing any details--either explicit or implied--that could potentially be used to identify individuals or institutions. So, I ask readers to err on the side of generalities, such as "No, I don't think my accusation was investigated in good faith", "Yes, I think I was retaliated against", as opposed to "Here's how I was retaliated against..." (please don't do the latter!). I think it is very important to be extremely careful here. I mostly want to get a general picture of the issues that early-career people face here, so that readers (and members of the discipline more generally) can get a clearer picture of things, including whether early-career people simply hide their concerns out of fear (which, again, I suspect may often be the case).

Comments

[Completely Anonymous]

Junior colleague A in my department (ranked R1) submitted a paper for a conference that junior colleague B organized. After the conference, colleague A decides the paper is not worth pursuing and abandons it. Two years later, colleague A notice that this paper has been published in a journal under colleague B's name.

Colleague A notifies our department chair. Over a month passes with no response. Colleague A goes in to talk with the chair and is told that the chair can escalate the matter to the Dean, but that the accusation (although exhaustively documented) might negatively affect colleague A's chances of getting tenure. At this stage, nothing is done to colleague B. They are not even asked to explain themselves.

At this point, colleague A directly contacts the journal with an exhaustively documented claim of plagiarism. over the next six months, the journal investigates the claim, finds it to be substantiated and issues a retraction on the basis of plagiarism.

Colleague A takes this back to the chair of the department, the chair says nothing can be done to colleague B. In the meantime, colleague B has been promoted and given tenure.

Around this time, both colleague A and colleague B receive offers from other universities. Both accept these offers. Colleague A sends the portfolio of documentation collected, along with the journal's letter confirming retraction based on plagiarism to the head of colleague B's new department and their dean. Colleague B's offer is rescinded, and since they had already resigned , they are left without a job.

Justice in the end, but without any support from my colleague's department at all.

[Marcus Arvan]

Completely Anonymous: this is quite a bit more detailed than I would like. I'll allow it (as I think it is pretty well anonymized), but emphasize that I think comments in this thread should involve as *few* details as possible in order to make the relevant point (in this case, justice was eventually achieved, but due in no part to the person's own institution actually doing anything in response to well-documented proof).

[Hmm]

Hmm...I'm fairly dubious about the usefulness of this exercise in general, but particularly if you only want something as such a super general level, but here goes.

Case X: justice was not achieved.

[me again]

Marcus
I feel quite differently about Completely Anonymous' account. I think, given the outcome, it is in the communities interest to know (i) the university, and (ii) the offending colleague. I would hope my department never accidentally hires this person.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hmm: okay, but let me try to clarify. I'm not looking for *that* level of (extreme) generality.

Completely Anonymous's comment was fine, but someone reading could *potentially* infer, "That's my case" or "That's a case I remember in my department." I take it there are ways of describing cases where the general details couldn't be used to license that kind of inference.

Bearing this in mind, could you say a little bit more than "justice was not achieved" that would indicate the general kind of thing that happened, the general step(s) you took, and why justice was never achieved?

All I am asking for is for commenters to be reasonably careful here. That's all!

[Shane Ralston]

My work was plagiarized by a senior figure when I was a Ph.D. student, after I submitted an unpublished paper for a pre-doctoral fellowship. The fellowship committee conducted a phone interview with me and all they did was ask me about how I came up with the ideas for the paper. The senior figure who stole the paper (a version of it was published soon after as her own) was not among the phone interviewers. I assume that they were asking exploratory question on her behalf. To add insult to injury, I was rejected for the pre-doctoral fellowship. Whenever I shared what happened with other senior figures, I was always told that my accusations were mistaken and shameful (they never looked at the evidence, so it was all about power differential). So, as therapy, I wrote about it (without exposing the identity of the senior person): https://www.academia.edu/3039483/Getting_It_Out_on_the_Net_Decentralized_E-learning_through_On-line_Pre-publication

[Michael Cholbi]

A different sort of case, but a published article of mine was once plagiarized, albeit in a relatively innocent way: The author had copied text from my article and not attributed it to me. (I don't think there was any ill intent - I accepted the explanation that the plagiarism was inadvertent.) I contacted the journal editors and the paper was retracted. It later appeared in another journal. A good outcome, but it made me wonder whether the reference checking that journals do includes Turnitin-like technologies that could catch such plagiarism before it makes it into print.

[Filippo Contesi]

So far, I've been "swiped" of an idea once that I know of (not sure if 'plagiarism' applies to non-verbatim copying). At the time, the "swiper" and I were close friends and both PhD students. We were working on a common issue, but he was more of an expert in the relevant area and much better educated at the relevant kind of paper-writing than me. I never did anything substantial about this, except confront them privately and break up our friendship. I had some email and testimonial evidence of the "swipe" but I was advised by senior philosophers not to make a legal/institutional fuss about the issue. One piece of advice was: "You don't want to be known in academia as the guy who raises these sorts of issues". If it helps others, I will add that my fervent regret is not to have confronted my 'friend' before I did: i.e. when I had some uneasy suspicions and he had not had his paper with my idea already accepted for publication. I held him in great esteem and did not want to ruin our friendship by showing him I suspected him. Moreover, I also had a bit of an inferiority complex towards him (and the world generally) and could not really, "deep down", believe I had come up with an idea he would need to pass off as his.

[Q]

A question for Shane and Filippo:
Did the thief end up having a good career, in the case you discuss?
That is, have they gone on to do well in academic philosophy?

[a philosopher]

"I had some email and testimonial evidence of the "swipe" but I was advised by senior philosophers not to make a legal/institutional fuss about the issue. One piece of advice was: "You don't want to be known in academia as the guy who raises these sorts of issues"."

I am mystified by this attitude and advice. I *want* to know and befriend the people who raise these sorts of issues. Why wouldn't someone like those with the integrity and courage to do what's right?

[Anon]

I don't really know if I was plagiarized (or, more realistically, 'swiped'), but I have suspected it. When I applied for grad school my writing sample contained a new idea X. I thought it was a great idea, something potentially publishable once I got better at academic writing. I had also been told as much by my advisors. I have since, through reading the literature fairly extensively, found that the idea genuinely was new at the time. Anyway, when I got to grad school my interests took me in a different direction and I never ended up going back to X. A few years later I found that X (the idea, not the paper itself) had been published (with some development to be fair) by somebody who would have been a research fellow in one of the research centers I applied to (this person is now pretty prominent and successful). I think there is a pretty reasonable chance they will have seen my writing sample. The paper was published a year and a bit after I submitted my paper containing X. I have definitely wondered whether they came across my writing sample and poached the core idea. It may just have been a big coincidence though. Obviously I have never done anything about it, and I never will. It has definitely made me more wary though.

[Filippo Contesi]

Q: Reasonably well, I guess, from what I can tell. Why wouldn’t they?

[Q]

I study misconduct in science, and it often catches up with people.