Quasi-Plagiarism

We all recognize plagiarism when we see it. 

In teaching an undergraduate course, a student copies a paragraph directly from another source, without acknowledging that source, without even putting it in quotes. Maybe the paragraph has been lightly altered, a few words changed here or there, the sentences rearranged. The student tries to pass it off as their own. Discovering this kind of illicit copying gives rise to all kinds of complications. You need to talk with the student. You need to tell them that what they have done is unacceptable. There may be a penalty as well. They might get a zero for the assignment. They might fail. It is a major headache for everybody.

Of course there are more subtle cases as well. A professor may try to pass off an interesting and original idea, previously published by somebody else as their own. Once again in this case, the source of the idea is not acknowledged. This case is a bit trickier, since it is possible the author just reinvented the wheel, without knowing it was a reinvention. 

In this blog post, I propose yet another class of cases, which I dub quasi-plagiarism. I call them that, because according to the letter of the law, they are not plagiarism. The source is acknowledged. But they still feel like plagiarism in that one author is trying to pass off another’s ideas as their own. Without citing concrete examples, I will outline a few different kinds of relevant cases. In a nutshell:

plagiarism = intentional lack of attribution

quasi-plagiarism = intentional minimizing of attribution

I am not writing this post as sour grapes. I have probably been as much the perpetrator as the victim in some of the scenarios described below. I am writing this merely to help junior scholars on the road ahead. Proper attribution does not hurt anybody. In fact, a well-written paper with rich and useful citations only increases your reputation as a scholar. 

Relabeling

The cleverest kind of quasi-plagiarism tactic that I have witnessed so far is what I will call relabeling. In this case, author 1 comes up with an interesting and original new concept or operation or principle and gives it a name. Then author 2 uses the same concept, cites author 1, but gives it a shiny new label. The consequence of this is that future work by other people may only attribute the concept to author 2, skipping over author 1 completely. 

In this case, author 2 cites author 1, so it is not a classical example of plagiarism. But author 2 is highlighting their own work, which draws attention away from the original author. 

This form of quasi-plagiarism is highly inventive and nearly blameless. Author 2 can always come up with some weak motivation for the change in name, so that nobody can accuse them of anything. But it still seems like academic sleight of hand.

Buried Reference

In this scenario, author 1 comes up with a well worked out original analysis of some phenomenon. Then author 2 uses almost exactly the same analysis, making minor variations, applying it to a different but related phenomenon. Author 2 does cite author 1, but the citation is deeply buried in the text. It is not included in the abstract, or the introduction or conclusion. And the citation is oblique, not giving the reader the sense of how the analysis really originated almost completely from author 1. Rather, the citation is focused on some small aspect of the analysis. 

A variant of this strategy is to bury the citation of author 1 in a long string of citations, as in “(for similar approaches, see Jones 2015, author 1 2024,  Smith 2011,…)”. Or perhaps the citation is buried deep in footnote 27, on page 33 near the end of the paper. A reader who glosses over footnotes will not even see it.

Since author 2 cites author 1, the charge of plagiarism has been avoided. But it still seems very much like brand management, and does not reflect the reality of the situation.

Language Switch

Author 1 gives a beautiful and ingenious analysis of some phenomenon in language 1, which is not English. Then author 2 repeats the analysis for the same phenomenon in language 2. So far so good, no problem. Science as usual. But then author 2 fails to give appropriate attribution to author 1, relegating citations to footnotes or long chains of references. 

Because the language has switched, author 2 feels justified in presenting the analysis in a way that is partially detached from author 1’s seminal work. Once again, there is no plagiarism, since author 1 is cited. But there is under attribution.

Minor Variant

In this scenario, author 1 comes up with some interesting and original analysis of some phenomenon. Then author 2 proposes almost exactly the same analysis, but with a small variant at some point. Of course, this is just science as usual. People modify proposals and test them all the time. There is absolutely nothing wrong about that. 

But the issue is in the presentation. Does author 2 acknowledge clearly that the original proposal is from author 1? Or is author 1 just backgrounded?

This strategy is often strengthened by elaborating on the one area where the two analyses diverge, and then highlighting the small fix as “a major innovation”. In this way, author 1 comes across as a confused and flawed precursor, instead of the true architect of the approach.

No Need

In this scenario, author 1 and author 2 are acquainted. Author 1 outlines their analysis of some phenomenon to author 2 over coffee. Nothing is recorded on paper. Author 2 then goes ahead and writes a paper using exactly that analysis, acknowledging some “helpful discussions” with author 1 in the acknowledgments. But in fact, the source of the analysis is author 1, which is not accurately conveyed in author 2’s paper. Author 2 could reply, “but there was no publication, so there is no need to cite a publication”. 

While according to the letter of the law, this may be true, in a scientific field like linguistics that is based on the formulation of ideas and the testing of them, it is important to acknowledge the source even if it is informal, such as discussion over coffee or an e-mail or an informal post on social media.

Intent

Looming in the background is the issue of intent versus negligence. Some instances of plagiarism could be the result of lazy synthesis or poor editorial oversight. And in fact, lack of intent can be used as an excuse: sorry, I did not cite this, because I did not know about it. 

This in fact has happened to me in the past. I published a paper, only to realize that somebody proposed a very similar analysis years earlier. When I found out, I immediately contacted the author and apologized. Then my future publication on the topic corrected the citation error.

But quasi-plagiarism cannot be blamed on bad memory. In the case of quasi-plagiarism, author 2 definitely does know about author 1, because author 1 is explicitly cited or acknowledged.