Plagiarism is the New Fake News
Or, why doing the research and citing your work may still not be enough. Ask Claudine Gay.
“Fake news” started as one thing (i.e. a factually incorrect piece of journalism) and morphed into something else (i.e. correct information which frames the subject negatively).
Leveling the accusation that someone had spread “fake news” was a serious charge, which reflected sourcing by a reporter, media bias, and consensus reality.
Then, it became a comedy bit. When a friendly colleague remarks that you’re habitually tardy to meetings, and you respond, “Oh, that’s fake news!”…while walking in 5 minutes late.
No healthy person wants to be the one who persuaded other people to be wrong.
“Perusing User Who Edits Stuff Occasionally”
Wikipedia started in 2001.
In order to help me to graduate from college, I credit:
Google search results for solutions to electrical engineering problems and
Wikipedia articles
Later on, a likely subconscious show of gratitude, I submitted a lot of corrections for grammar, punctuation, or vocabulary.
My Wikipedia user contributions history shows activity mostly from 2006 to 2011, which coincides with the years I was an active blogger, post-social media and pre-iPhone.
Hyperfocusing on and fixing documentation for better readability or accuracy was my self-soothing nerd-hobby.
A few examples:
Linked Eric Westmoreland and Raynoch Thompson to Al Wilson. These individuals happent have played linebacker for the University of Tennessee football team.
Changed the status of Gerardo Torrado Diez de Bonilla’s play in the 2006 World Cup to the past tense. I’ve never met him, he just happens to share his last name with my kids.
Removed graffiti from the listing for Donnie Abraham. Abraham happened to play football at ETSU in Johnson City, Tennessee.
Removed graffiti from the listing of Akkineni Nageswara Rao. This Indian actor starred in movies from my childhood.
Spellcheck for the listing of Consorcio ARA, a Mexican homebuilder. This company paid for a lot of household expenses ‘06 to ‘11.
Spellcheck and removed editorialization for military and minor characters of ancient Rome. I am an unapologetic history nerd.
What does this have to do with plagiarism or “fake news”?
Nothing. Just reinforcing that I appreciate facts and am not prone to make stuff up.
My Wikipedia user description is tagged as “perusing user who edits stuff ocassionally.”
I am certain there is no other Wikipedia user with a documented history editing in Tennessee linebackers, Mexican soccer players, collegiate athletes who played in Johnson City, Telugu film stars, Mexican construction companies, and Roman history.
If you find that person, please introduce us!
I deep-dive into esoteric subjects that are of personal interest to me, for reasons that are not easily explainable nor understandable to anyone else.
Like monitor lizards and Mesoamerican culture.
Dark Times
In the early 90’s, the Denver Museum of Natural History hosted the blockbuster exhibition, “Aztec: the World of Moctezuma”, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the 1492 voyages of Columbus, a bad person with no taste.
Our social studies class was assigned a research paper on the subject of the Aztecs. As a kid without a videogame console at home, I think I loved the history, the drama, and bloodlust of it all.
In the era of Windows 3.1 and WordPerfect and before Wikipedia or Google were things, sourcing research involved paper, encyclopedias, and trips to the local library stacks to make photocopies of books or related news articles.
The research paper called for an unstructured introduction.
I synthesized key bits of pre-Columbian trivia, colonial power dynamics, and palace intrigue to draft an intro.
My recollection of the process was multiple edits, a dot-matrix printer to share drafts for proofreading, and heavy use of a thesaurus.
The thesaurus was for finding alternative words and avoid verbatim sentence structure from the encyclopedia.
The ending of the unstructured introduction was…dark.
To my memory, it read something like:
Before Cortes, the Aztecs were happy.
Before Cortes, the Aztecs were prosperous.
After Cortes, there were no Aztecs.”
I can - literally - only guess how the teacher felt while reading it.
The teacher claimed that I had plagiarized the introduction.
Now is the Time of Monsters
Komodo dragons are not mythical nor magical creatures.
They are monitor lizards.
As a kid, I found them fascinating.
Jurassic Park was released in 1993, so I think that was the instigator for wanting learn more these “living dinosaurs.”
Again, I either assigned or chose, I was tasked with writing a research report.
This time, it was about the Komodo dragon.
The hunting strategy of Komodo dragons relies on stealth, ambush, and raw strength, and it can run almost as fast as a human for short sprints.
Research has now demonstrated it was a myth, but in the early 90’s the belief was that rotting flesh in the mouth of a Komodo dragon produced deadly bacteria. The virulent bacteria was, supposedly, capable of causing a fatal infection.
Now with experience freestyling, I wrote a one-page introduction, which started from the perspective of a deer being ambushed, attempting to run away, and being slashed by the dragon.
In its dying moments, I left it open to interpret whether the cause of death was due to a fast-moving bacterial infection or blood loss.
I can - literally - only guess how the teacher felt while reading it.
Again, the teacher claimed that I had plagiarized the introduction.
Fact Finding
Here is what I know: I was accused of plagiarism - twice! - and did not plagiarize, either time.
As an adult with the benefit of time and perspective, I think the problem was that I presented as a nice kid and was clearly writing about subjects from a dark and foreboding place.
I think that cognitive dissonance is what generated suspicions of inauthenticity.
The truth: I can empathize with and imagine very awful, gross, and evil scenarios.
Along with being a trained dishwasher, it’s one of my hidden superpowers.
Recommendation
Try Perplexity to source answers to queries with citations designed into the search results.
I don’t want to be the one spreading fake news.
(This is not an ad. I no longer Google anything.)
If you want to know answers to questions, such as how old was Henry Kissinger when the Beer Hall Putsch occurred (he was an infant!), Perplexity.ai can tell you.