“Do your own work.”
If I surveyed readers about which statements teachers said most often, this admonition to write your own papers and not to copy homework would certainly be near the top. Maybe somewhere between “be nice” and “raise your hand.”
Outside of education, however, how often does “do your own work” really apply?
I’ve pondered this while the latest high-profile accusation of plagiarism has unfolded, this time over the so-called “sermongate” in the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC’s newest president, Ed Litton, is accused of lifting key ideas and phrases, without attribution, from a sermon by J.D. Greear, the SBC’s former president. Now, Litton’s detractors are calling for his resignation.
Modern technology has made it much easier to catch plagiarism. In Litton’s case, it took only uploaded video of his sermon from 2020 along with his predecessor’s in 2019, according to the New York Times.
Since the dust-up, Greear has written on his website that Litton asked for permission to use certain parts of his work, which he, Greear, granted. Interestingly, Greear revealed that he, too, had been inspired by yet a third person, similarly uncredited, for parts of the same 2019 sermon.
Greear says his reflections are “usually shaped by the input of many godly men and women,” which is fair. Nobody expects a writer or speaker in any forum, on any subject, to create “ex nihilo.” We are all influenced by the thoughts and words of those who come before us.
But when we borrow explicitly from a source, when we share key ideas and concepts unique to another person, or pass along anecdotes that represent somebody else’s lived experience, then we must provide attribution, even when we change that source’s language.
In other words, tell the audience who said it first and where you found it; and if you’re using somebody’s exact words, make it clear when speaking and use quotation marks when writing.
Baptist speakers are hardly the only practitioners of plagiarism. The same Internet that made it a simple matter for Litton’s detractors to expose him is also the place where Facebook users regularly copy and paste other people’s observations and memes without concern over intellectual rights. Often, these swipes are done with the intent to shame another person, to point a finger at some offending element of society, or to engage in a civilian version of stolen valor.
It’s too much work for some people to write their own excoriation of a celebrity, politician, or hot-button issue when hundreds of wiseacres have already done so. Their work is just floating there, ripe for digital picking.
My teaching colleagues and I have been formulating a potential plagiarism policy for the last few months. One of our primary goals is prevention. Teaching students what can and cannot be used fairly and how to credit sources is far better than punishing them after the fact.
We have a sense that we are engaged in an endless battle, especially when so many prominent people continue to flaunt the work of others. Yet the fight is still worth having. In at least one public venue, the stakes are incredibly high.
In 2019, the USA Today Network, working with the Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity, found that over an eight-year period, special-interest groups had written more than 10,000 bills for statehouses across the nation, and that legislators had introduced most of these with little to no changes. While these bills overwhelmingly favored specific industries or conservative causes (4,301 industry, 4,012 conservative, 1,602 liberal, 17 other), both parties engaged in the practice.
Call it “model legislation,” “copy-and-paste bills,” or “corporate ghostwriting.” To many, it smells like old-fashioned plagiarism.
Can we really say that we, as a nation, are better served by legislators who don’t take time to gain expertise on a particular issue by researching and writing about it, but instead use the equivalent of a “buy your research paper here” service? No wonder we end up with laws that reflect the most abject cronyism and show a bias for big business over individuals.
This practice should be at least as objectionable as a Southern Baptist Convention president nicking a speech or Junior leaning on Wikipedia for his book report. Do your own work, indeed.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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