Job Hazards

Integrity is on the decline and plagiarism on the rise. Several of my authors across several disciplines have been caught-caught! -by my copyeditors lifting chunks of material from the Web. Now, I don't believe in jealously guarding intellectual property. Sharing ideas is essential to evolution of the intellect, soul, art, human existence. I believe the collage/found objects artist and the DJ and the quilt maker are creating their own art by juxtaposing others' art in fresh new ways. It's a gestalt thang, baby. Once I confessed to my dance professor that I'd taken a section of her choreography for a dance I was making. She was like, “Baby, that's fine, as long as you make it your own.” Which I did.

Which these authors don't. The point of us paying an author to write, it seems to me, is that he should have new ideas or a new take on old ideas, even just a better way of organizing basic instructional material to make it more accessible. Yes, the steps of performing CPR will always remain the same. No, that does not mean you can lift them verbatim from a web site without a citation.

I have one author team who is hyper-vigilant about avoiding plagiarism. They are running every single word of their book through a search engine to make sure they haven't lifted anything unintentionally, subconsciously. I think I love them. The lead author explained to me that plagiarism is rampant among his students these days, and it bothers him a lot. It's been on the rise in recent years, and has recently exploded.

But why? WHY?? A colleague suggests that the Internet is an irresistible content orchard. Pluck a shiny red paragraph off a tree, and then you are free to lounge in the pool or vegetate in front of the TV. It's not entirely fair to place the entire blame on the authors, however. Let's face it: companies are greedy. They push for more and more content, sometimes cramming books into a saturated market. Authors are “sold” on writing a book, sometimes to learn that the deadlines are tighter than they imagined and the pay, less. Still, many authors actually manage to write their books and do it well.

On a related note, I recently hired an indexer with a very good resume and references, even though he is part of a spiritual organization that…. Let's just say, if it looks like a cult and walks like a cult…. Whenever I send him a chapter for indexing, if I don't hear back that he received it, I convince myself that they all jumped off a cliff after a spaceship or something. So I email him, and he replies, “Yes, sorry I forgot to respond, busy with indexes,” and I think, “Whew, safe for another day,” but I'm not sure if I can hire him again, even if he turns in the most beautiful index ever. It's too much worry.