The frequency of plagiarism scandals in the news is worrying to editors.
American journalists Fareed Zakaria and Jonah Lehrer and Romanian and Hungarian politicians have been recently accused of recycling their own work or claiming that of others. An editor’s role is not to police the writer, but a good editor may notice red flags.
Hungarian president Pal Schmitt resigned after being striped of his doctorate from Semmelweis University when content of his thesis was found to be copied from uncited sources. The prevalence of information online makes one test quite simple. A concerned editor can enter a key sentence into a search engine and quickly see if the exact text “the famed feral apple trees of the Ohio River Valley were lost in the flood of 1937” has been posted to the internet. Of course, rephrasing another’s ideas without citation is also plagiarism, and this is much harder to detect.
Abrupt or sloppy shifts in voice or style can also indicate a change in author. An editor, particularly if representing a publisher, has a responsibility to investigate such concerns. Many editing contracts now include language informing the writer of the legal definitions and consequences of plagiarism. Some writers might be ignorant of the severity of legal and professional ramifications of intentionally or inadvertently using another’s words or ideas without acknowledgment. Writer, editor, and reader are all served by a clear understanding of the issue.