Deep Dive on Plagiarism and the Accusations against Neri Oxman (@nerioxman) Plagiarism in General: First off, intent is a relevant issue to consider in the evaluation of plagiarism. Is there a pattern of the intentional copying of other's intellectual work (ideas, thoughts, arguments) or are we dealing with errors of attribution? People need to understand how academic works come together because it's not like writing nonfiction where you sit down and just start writing. Rather, it's a tedious exercise in research where you're reading through multiple sources and copying down the material that is relevant to your (hypo)thesis for later incorporation into your work. As you continue into your analysis of the material, you begin to organize these sources into sections that conform to your argumentation and eventually write them into your paper with appropriate citations. I don't believe there is any academic whose entire body of work can stand up completely to verification against any form of plagiarism because the process involved is subject to human error. Needless to say, the longer the works and the greater the number of works, the more chances there are for errors of citation and attribution. This leads to the second point which is that not all examples of plagiarism are equivalent. There is a difference between the omission of quotations from otherwise cited sources as compared to the use of material with zero attribution. There is a difference between copying the wording of a technical definition as opposed to copying someone's original ideas and thoughts. There's a difference between intellectual piracy and a reasonable level of acceptable human error relative to the breadth of the academic works being evaluated. Third, Wikipedia is a tricky source in terms of attribution It's not that Wikipedia is not viable source of information and that copying it is okay...in a binary sense, copying from Wikipedia without citation can technically be referred to as plagiarism. Rather, I see two problems. First, it's that Wikipedia is usually a source for technical definitions/information. For example, one of the accusations against Oxman is copying the definition of the Second Law of Thermodynamics from Wikipedia. But is that really relevant? Do we need her to cite that or reword it? Does that have any bearing on her academic or intellectual integrity? In my opinion: no. The second issue with Wikipedia is related to the process of putting together academic works. Because Wikipedia is mostly a technical resource, it is most susceptible to errors of citation: as you accumulate thousands of passages from your sources in the research process, it is easiest to make mistakes with Wikipedia on passages that are non-definitional, because there's not a particular book/author to cite. It's the nature of this particular tool that lends itself to such errors. Finally, the relevance of plagiarism is directly proportional to the connection of the said person with academia. Let's not forget that Joe Biden is a long-time serial plagiarist. As a 1987 NYT article headline states: "Biden Admits Plagiarism in School But Says It Was Not 'Malevolent'". Yet plagiarism was neither disqualifying, nor a major issue for Biden's presidential run in 2020. Plagiarism is most relevant in academia because of the importance of intellectual and academic integrity as it relates to the process of education. It is critical that academics lead by example, therefore they are to be held to a higher standard. Accusations against Neri Oxman Is Neri Oxman guilty of plagiarism? By her own admission there are errors in attribution so if you view plagiarism as a binary then there are some issues. Is that a remotely relevant given the alleged transgressions or the current nature of professional activities? Not really. I think the people that choose to apply a binary standard (it either is or isn't) to plagiarism would themselves not survive such a rigorous challenge to their own works. Rather, this binary interpretation is a political attack meant to de-legitimize her husband (@BillAckman) who has been a leading critic of DEI culture in the Ivy Leagues and other top educational institutions. The instances of her alleged plagiarism are neither egregious nor obviously intentional: -she omits quotes where attribution is acknowledged -she makes attributions to the wrong source -she copies technical definitions from Wikipedia or other technical resources. Nor is she still part of academia where these accusations would take on a greater significance because of the symbolic nature of the position. Rather, it's a hit job. And a low blow at that because you're going after the spouse of your intended target. It's intellectually dishonest to say that the accusations against Neri Oxman are equivalent to the type of plagiarism found in the work of Claudine Gay. Nor are the two even remotely comparable in terms of the relevance of these accusations relative to their respective positions. Final thoughts We've opened up the Pandora's Box with regards to plagiarism and we are going to be seeing far more examples of this in the future as it's become weaponized as a political tool. As I mentioned before, very few academics can withstand AI assisted scrutiny of their works because plagiarism also results from human error. As we move forward this will become more evident and people will have to start reassessing their binary conception of the issue. With AI, it's just a matter of time before every academic work available electronically is verified. Still, a wide-scale review of academia and plagiarism needs to be conducted across all universities because there's a lot of academic rot that needs to be outed. There are far too many activists that masquerade as academics on these campuses and I'm fairly certain that their lack of qualification will be exposed by the type of plagiarism they've engaged in.
@gummibear737 @NeriOxman “ (ditto) “ Reference: ————— Bear, Gummi 737, X platform, 05:53 • 1/8/24
I think an important distinction to add to your observations is that using a source to help define a technical word is very different from taking someone’s innovative thoughts or ideas and “inadvertently” representing them as your own. That’s truly stealing from someone else’s work.
@gummibear737 @NeriOxman This is an awesome post. Spot on and thoughtfully said. Hopefully they have someone like minded that is working for them currently. @BillAckman
@gummibear737 @NeriOxman Excellent points. A binary approach to plagiarism is clearly inappropriate. Intent is an important element and clerical errors should not be conflated with intentional acts or consistent sloppiness to the point of negligence.
@gummibear737 @NeriOxman Can we get what you consider the difference to be between the accusations levied against Oxman and those levied against Claudine Gay? This seems like an eloquent defense of using plagiarism as a weapon but one that completely ignore the background and context in this case.
@gummibear737 @NeriOxman As an @MIT student in 2005, I can attest plagiarism policies were in place even then. Mandatory seminars drilled in ethical sourcing rules - no unquoted text from Wikipedia or elsewhere. The "no policy" claim doesn't fit my experience. Academic integrity was taken very seriously.