Monica Crowley is one of those right-wing pundits who seems to have a permanent sneer on her face, especially when she is attacking the already marginalized. So naturally she was tapped for a position in the Trump administration as “senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council”. But it turns out that she is a serial plagiarizer who has lifted verbatim, without citation, entire passages from other sources not only for her articles but even for her doctoral thesis for Columbia University. This seems to have been a little too much for even an administration that disdains ethics as much as the incoming one does and despite some earlier statements of support from them, she has withdrawn from the position, presumably to ‘spend more time with her family’.
Why do people plagiarize? As a teacher I have of course encountered examples of this and the reasons are varied. The most benign reason is just sloppiness as can occur when one is taking notes for a research project and copies passages to be inserted into your text with the intention of including proper citations later. But after some considerable time, one forgets that the notes are not of your own words and, if the writing style is similar to your own, you may think that the words and ideas were your own. This is why when I write and copy text from another source, I immediately put it in quotes and add the citation below to remind me later where the passage came from. I also tell students that as far as possible, they should use direct quotes rather than paraphrases because that minimizes the risk of accidentally plagiarizing.
But Crowley’s examples of plagiarism are pretty glaring and cannot be put down to occasional sloppiness. This was too systematic and extensive to be an accident. While it has cost her the Trump administration job, she will likely continue to be a pestilential presence in the media.
Columbia University has not said what they will do about her thesis, saying that such investigations are always kept confidential. But plagiarism in a doctoral thesis is taken very seriously, far more so than articles written in the popular media, and I can imagine that there is a serious analysis going on by academic committees to see if her actions merit withdrawing of the degree. A lot will depend on the power and influence of her thesis advisor and committee members and their attitude towards her because that is the nature of university politics.
one forgets that the notes are not of your own words and, if the writing style is similar to your own, you may think that the words and ideas were your own
That was Chris Hedges’ excuse for plagiarizing Hemingway. Because, “yeah I sound so much like Hemingway I confuse myself!”
We’ve both done enough writing to know that it’s not plausible that someone’s going to copypaste a chunk of text and forgot they copypasted it, and forgot to reference it. Someone that forgetful wouldn’t be able to maintain a narrative at all.
I can imagine that there is a serious analysis going on by academic committees to see if her actions merit withdrawing of the degree
It’s academic fraud; that’s something Columbia ought to take seriously if they value their “brand” Of course, the plagiarism probably happened before there were websites that specialize in finding lifted chunks of text. So maybe her thesis advisor and committee members were unfamiliar with the source material. I know my dad used to absorb a lot of the sources from a student’s thesis (usually just because he was interested) in order to do justice to their defense.
@Marcus Ranum
It actually happened to a friend of mine back in college. She was a grade-A and had never plagiarized in her life, seeing it morally abhorrent (she would get so angry at the thought). Then we had an essay we had to turn in as a midterm. Our professor allowed students to turn in first drafts for edits and suggestions. The professor noticed an entire paragraph lifted from a journalistic paper in her first draft.
She was devastated, and actually suggested that the professor fail her from the course. The professor basically said “this is exactly why I allow students to turn in first drafts for edits and suggestions. Here’s where you got this paragraph from. Cite it.” My friend did just that, finished the final draft, and got an A.
She was already very careful before this, but became even more careful afterwards.
So yeah, that kind of forgetfulness can happen…
Once.
If you’re careless a second time, then you lose use of that excuse.
Marcus,
The reason I know it can happen is because there were times early on before I became extremely careful about note taking when I would look at some old notes and wonder whether it was my own own words or someone else’s and would have to carefully check. Part of the reason may be that I write in the deadly academic style which has a way of eliminating easily identifiable idiosyncrasies in favor of conforming to a certain format.
It would be different for fiction, I think, where the writer’s voice can be quite distinctive.
“to ‘spend more time with her family’.”
Or possibly to spend more time with someone else’s family, and just claim it is hers.