How many unique words in a row must I write before I have created a de facto attribution right? For every twist I take, a source or example will be cited, due to the intrinsic attribution right granted to every author and for the reader’s benefit. But, if I forgot to cite, my journalistic career and I are screwed, regardless of my intentions. This is true in classes at the University of Michigan as well, except it’s my academic career on the line, something admittedly (and drastically) more important to me.
To provide an apt example, Philosophy lecturer Daniel Lowe warns (in bold) throughout his PHIL 361 Ethics syllabus that, “If you plagiarize a Writing Assignment, you will fail the course.” A warning so strict and high-stakes from an ethics professor (of all people!) shoved me down a rabbit hole of plagiarism norm questioning. And now that I’m out, I’m thoroughly concerned — not only because of the consequences of even accidental plagiarism but also because the anti-plagiarism norm rests on surprisingly shaky logic.
Having an anti-plagiarism statement like Lowe’s is expected. In fact, a syllabus writing guide written at Kansas State University and distributed by the University, implores a syllabus writer to include statements about plagiarism. This system creates a norm, one that is decidedly yet tacitly anti-plagiarism. And punishments for plagiarism are brutal. At the University punishments include, but “are not limited to” (did shivers go up your spine?): “a defined period of disciplinary probation … noted (on your transcript),” “permanent expulsion” or “withholding of a degree.” What else could they even do, egg my house? And what could possibly justify these penalties?
Furthermore, how do we define plagiarism in the first place? Splitting the hairs of what actually defines plagiarism is tedious, maybe even fruitless. While dissecting “The Melancholy Anatomy of Plagiarism,” author, K. R. St. Onge, remarked that plagiarism shares certain features with pornography, noting that “even though we cannot agree on specifics, ‘(w)e know it when we see it.’ ” However, most plagiarism statements can agree the essence of plagiarism is misattributing others’ expressions or ideas to oneself, either implicitly or explicitly. The University LSA plagiarism statement sections off plagiarism sharply, and shockingly well: “Plagiarism is representing someone else’s ideas, words, statements, or other work as one’s own without proper acknowledgement or citation.” But, even sharp definitions like LSA’s beg questions like: how many borrowed words necessitate attribution?
And even if we were to get a perfect definition of plagiarism, a new problem arises: The dissemination of that definition without infringing and becoming plagiarism itself seems impossible. Both illustrative and amusing is the case of University of Oregon misattributing parts of Stanford University’s plagiarism statement as their own. This sheds light on anti-plagiarism as an academic norm that is fully constructed and systemic, operating under the guise of natural, moral conventions. These rules were created at some point and they can be evaluated by those they govern, especially when hypocrisy is apparent in higher education.
It might be helpful now to explore the limitations and justifications for a related, but distinct, concept: copyright infringement. Because copyright and plagiarism norms often overlap, they are easily, but mistakenly, conflated. Copyright, regardless of attribution, does not allow certain uses of original authorship without permission. Moreover, straight from the United States Code on Fair Use: “In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.” Subsequently, facts cannot be protected by copyright because they are discovered, not created.
The winning rationale behind the U.S. copyright system is that it is justified because it increases social welfare through requiring novel copyrightable material. (The weakest part of this reasoning is the implicit consequentialist — actions are deemed right or wrong based solely on outcomes — assumption it makes). Brian L. Frye, University of Kentucky Professor of Law, observes: “Copyright is justified because it solves market failures in works of authorship caused by free riding by giving authors an incentive to (create new works).” Frye implies that copyright is justified when it increases social welfare, but not justified when it decreases social welfare.
On the other hand, there are arguments that claim copyright is justified because people have the fundamental right to own the product of their labor, even if that labor equates to less than a few minutes of, perhaps, a ChatGPT input. These black-and-white rule-focused arguments transfer to the subject matter of plagiarism much easier than the economic arguments, but are not widely accepted as the true justification behind copyright.
But, if the U.S. already has a copyright system that protects our economy from the stagnation of new inventions or material due to copying, what could possibly motivate a plagiarism norm? Well, in my view, it’s a selfish rule imposed by the rulers of academia. In academia, students and professionals alike work within a fragile system of indirect compensation through citations — the primary currency of the trade. Such accreditations can range from idea-based concepts like citation of facts or theories to vaguer instances (where lack of attribution can still violate plagiarism rules) like language and sentence phrasing. Thus, the gap created by copyright limitations proves especially harmful for academics. Since copyright law inherently does not protect the product of academics, extralegal plagiarism norms are adopted continuously by academics to seek rent for their work. The ruling social class of academia — professors — have, as American sociologist Howard S. Becker posited, sparked deviant behavior by creating a rule that labels infractors as outsiders. Since no one wants to be an outsider on their own, this contrived rule has done an excellent job of keeping the power on the side of the ruling class and preventing anyone from even questioning anti-plagiarism norms.
While copyright laws may be justified, plagiarism is not so easily addressed. How are plagiarism norms reckoned with? Simply put, they aren’t, or at least not compellingly. American jurist and legal scholar Richard A. Posner advanced a purely economic justification for plagiarism norms in his 2007 work “The Little Book of Plagiarism.” Posner argues that plagiarism is a form of academic fraud, which plagiarism norms work against, inspiring new works of authorship, thereby benefiting the economy. Posner further claims that plagiarism defrauds consumers because the consumer has an implicit assumption that the work is original and not plagiarized. Frye finds this argument a bit circular in reasoning, noting, “Consumers assume that an unattributed work is original and not copied only because academic plagiarism norms prohibit unattributed copying.” With this circularity in mind, I reject Posner’s claim.
In contrast, the rule-focused arguments are clear and compelling, though harsh in nature. The dictionary of negatively-charged language (e.g., larceny, word kidnapping, piracy, pilfering) is almost always hurled at the alleged plagiarism offender. Usually, offenders are likened to thieves (thievery being a widely accepted legal and moral wrong), the idea being that authors have an inherent right to their work beyond its creation. As if scholarly work creates attribution rights simply by existing. And then, almost every professor becomes a warden, protecting their colleagues, implicitly assuming their colleagues will police in return. Yet, without economic theories to support the offense, can something like plagiarism be justified by moral reasoning alone? I don’t think so, especially because morals are often so personal anyway.
To me, what makes the most logical sense when detailing plagiarism and its effects is a cartel model (e.g., oil barons operate under such a cartel model because they have colluded in order to illicitly inflate prices), odd as it may initially feel. The academic world seems to have banded together to ensure everyone is paid with their most valued currency: citations. And true to the cartel model, anyone who goes against the norm is brutally ousted. Arguably, students are more hurt by these standards than their professional counterparts. Before students have a chance to leave the classroom and enter the real world, plagiarism offenders face severe consequences from which their academic careers will likely never recover.
Of course, I’m not advocating for fraud, or even plagiarism. Fraud has the potential to hurt people, and usually termination or resignation is warranted to correct the offense. In my opinion, the relevant difference between fraud and plagiarism is that plagiarism is still true information, just unattributed. Fraud is deception, and often hurts the economy (and thus academia) because it advances claims that the public expects to be true, a much heftier consequence than that of a lack of attribution.
In fact, I would argue one should feel compelled to cite every source for the pedagogical benefits. Readers want to be able to investigate the cursory points authors often make. (How else would I have climbed so far down the plagiarism rabbit hole?) But, even if all sources are cited, do people even look at them? (To this point — and I say this with love — I sincerely doubt you have looked through all of my cumbersomely cited sources.) Furthermore, plagiarism norms seem to inhibit some forms of learning such as patchwriting. Again, Fyre writes, “And to the extent that academic plagiarism norms prohibit and punish patch writing by students, they impose substantial social costs, by preventing students from engaging in pedagogically productive activities.”
Norms with such severe punishments should be examined incredibly carefully. When norms begin to interfere with our pedagogical goals, rights and duties, they need to be questioned. We need more people to question the arcane, often frustrating norms that plague our lives.
Statement Columnist Sammy Fonte can be reached at sfonte@umich.edu.