Importing commentator feedback into a paper?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I am wondering what the proper thing to do is in the following situation. A person was assigned as a commentator on my paper at a conference, and in their comments they summarized the main argument of my paper in premise form. The form was implicit in my argument, but now that I am revising the paper, I would like to include the argument in premise form. What is the right thing to do around using either their summary, or maybe a slightly altered version. Should I state in a footnote something like 'thanks to x for suggesting the following formulation'? Should I do that even if I change it somewhat? Or should I just thank them at the end in the acknowledgements and in the places where they suggested a given objection to a part of my argument (I will do both of these either way, of course)? The main thing that is confusing me is that the argument was there already in the original, and so a thing of my making, but not explicitly in premise form, and so a thing of their making. But then if I had gone through the trouble of making it more explicit, then I would have likely arrived at something very similar to their end product. So, what to do?

This is an excellent question. One reader submitted the following reply:

I think it would be nice to thank x for specifically that. Maybe at the argument, add a footnote like "this argument was explicitly formulated first in x's helpful comments." This does not imply that you wouldn't be able to formulate yourself.

I think things are a bit more complicated than this. Even though the argument the commentator placed into premise-conclusion is of your making, the particular formulation of it in premise-conclusion form is (as the OP notes) of their making. So, I think simply taking it and importing it into the paper, even with minor alterations and an acknowledgment, may be a bit dicey. Personally, I think the safe thing to do here would be to simply email the commentator to ask them whether they are okay with you using it, noting that you would of course acknowledge them in the paper for suggesting it. This not only seems to me to be called for as a matter of professional courtesy. You also never know: perhaps if you don't ask, the person could get upset and lodge some kind of research misconduct (e.g. plagiarism) allegation. This may seem unlikely (and unreasonable), but why chance it when you can just ask them instead before going forward?

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

 

Comments

[Michel]

What would you want an UG student to do if they were presenting it in the context of an essay?

You would have them cite it, else it would be plagiarized. More generally, any paraphrase is going to take something someone else said and re-state it _in terms they themselves could have used, but didn't. So we cite our paraphrases.

The same is true here, I think: you use their gloss, and then have a footnote saying something like "I'd like to thank ____ for offering/suggesting this particular formulation". Being overgeneral about it would be a mistake, IMO.

[how to thank ABC]

Here is a way to address the concern:
"When I presented the paper at the XYZ conference, ABC suggested a helpful formal presentation of my argument. I thank ABC. Though the argument, as I present it here differs from ABC's suggested formalization, I benefited greatly from their suggestion."

[TT]

Like Marcus, I would email the commentator and ask them what they are comfortable with.

[Laurence Bernard McCullough]

Marcus has it right: Ask for permission to use the material and state that you will state "used with permission by N, personal communication" in a footnote. If no permission is forthcoming, do not use this material. Rationale: It is impossible to be too assiduous in preventing plagiarism (presenting the use of another's ideas of words as one's own).

[Anon]

Just want to add another vote that the correct option is to email the commentator seeking their permission.

[Juan S Piñeros Glasscock]

Contrary to many suggestions above, I think: do acknowledge the person's help but you can do it in the general acknowledgements note (you can, but this is optional, specify the reason briefly). You don't need to ask since it is understood that when you give comments the aim is to help the author (so the permission can be assumed to be implicit: and really, can you forbid someone from using the standard form to their own argument?). I should say, this sounds like an issue I personally would be puzzled about being specifically acknowledged about: unless it was a very complex argument structure with different ways to understand the argument, etc., It is what I expect my intro students to be able to do by end of the class, and (c) I think the worries about plagiarism are overblown here: I take plagiarism super seriously, but this doesn't strike me as coming near to stealing someone else's ideas, and the idea that someone could launch a misconduct allegation for this seems perverse and farfetched (they would loose, in any case: how could they prove that you didn't come up with the rendering by yourself, given that again an putting the argument in standard form is well, standard, and most often different people would obtain similar if not exact renderings?)