plagiarism

There are three unique qualities that seem to be shared by plagiarists of all stripes.

First, a plagiarist thinks that the general public is as ignorant as he is, instead of just the limited audience that he’s trying (and usually succeeding) to dupe. This is probably the trait that drives him to plagiarize in the first place. He understands, at some level, that he doesn’t understand – he knows that he doesn’t know – but he misunderstands what knowledge is all about. To the plagiarist, knowledge and/or technique is like some sort of magic dust, and since there’s no such thing as magic, he believes that, by sleight of hand, he’ll be able to pull the rabbit of words out of his word-processing hat. At the same time, because this lack of understanding is very real to the plagiarist, he doesn’t realize when the line has been crossed. He never learns that he could probably have gotten away with fooling the one old teacher who never reads students’ papers carefully, or that young professor fresh out of grad school who probably doesn’t understand the subject’s nuances. Instead, no, the plagiarist is driven by his early successes to plagiarize more. It becomes routine for him, not just as a way of turning in papers. Plagiarism becomes not only the way of thought for the plagiarist, but his way of life.

Second, the plagiarist turns in bad papers with stupid ideas that are written poorly, and never strong papers with lucid ideas that are written well, let alone truly brilliant work. Why is this? It’s understandable that a plagiarist is not going to expose himself by submitting work on the level of an Einstein or a Picasso, but one would suspect that, all things being equal, a plagiarist might be able to recognize a decent idea when he sees it, or to appreciate convincing writing. Instead, plagiarists are like junkies, unable to look lovingly upon outstanding art, or like degenerate gamblers, unable to cherish a fine meal – and inevitably unwilling to strive for “pretty good.” The plagiarist submits, again and again, work that suggests he is just average – not really noticeable in either direction. He has no grasp of style, which is part cause and part effect of the fact that he has no style of his own (and style exists for ideas, too, not just for writing). He is attracted to mediocrity because mediocrity is all he’s trying to achieve with his plagiarism – he yearns to “me too” his way to a B- or C+ in the class, to pick up his degree, to get his article published in a journal, where he hopes beyond hope, probably shivering a cold sweat on hot summer nights, that no one who knows better will read it. He intends to pass himself off not as the expert, or even as an expert, but just one of many who happen to know.

Third, the plagiarist will always bristle at the suggestion that he didn’t work hard, and he will do so both before and after he is caught and exposed for plagiarism. This is because copying is remarkably difficult work, often far harder than creativity, and, in all likelihood, the plagiarist in fact worked quite hard. He wasn’t lazy, you see, he was deceptive – and no one ever said that deception would be easy. The plagiarist has a view of himself as being held down by something. Either he didn’t attend a good preparatory school, or his after-school job saps up all his time, or he experienced very minor cases of discrimination and/or prejudicial treatment (or, worse, was brainwashed into thinking that he had). When he is finally accused of plagiarism, all this resentment will fuel his anger and insistence that he is a painstakingly hard worker, that he put a lot of effort into his copying. And he will often, maybe more often than not, be allowed to slide through, if only to save the teacher, principal, editor, publisher and general public, the shameless fits of righteous indignation that the plagiarist produces at the drop of his hat. But the shame is ours.