Some weeks ago, I received an email from an esteemed professor in Vienna. He said he got a recommendation from a colleague to turn to me to re-write a chapter for a book they are preparing on citizenship policies and related attitudes and identity issues in Eastern Europe. The original draft was written by an ex-classmate of mine from a university in Slovakia, and it pleased me to death that her draft sucked and they asked ME to rewrite it.
Identity, sure. Political culture, sure. But I ain't no lawyer... I knew it would be tough. I knew we'll be moving at the end of the month. It will be hell. I shouldn't accept. I accepted. Gah. I was way too flattered.
Now I'm "re-writing" (writing from scratch, cursing my way through her horrible text), only to discover that other than the quotations of legal acts, most of the rest of the stuff in her draft has been lifted from various Slovak and Czech articles online. Sometimes with skimpy reference to them, othertimes with no reference at all. Thus I cannot trust any of the text in her draft that is not directly quoted from the collection of laws...and I'm pissed off. It's way more work than if I wrote it on my own.
Here's the dilemma: even though I'm beligerent, I am using the legal research she did. Which means she'll be listed as co-author and will be paid half of the honorarium. I was fine with that at the beginning, but the more mind-boggling lapsuses I find in her draft, the more I cringe at the thought of having her as a co-author. I mean, who does that?! My freshmen students would not even dare to dream to plagiarize this way. And she turned it in for publication. What do I do? Do I dump the decision on the editor? I am inclined to - tell him that I used her research, however that I have to let him know the rest of the text was essentially an unattributed free translation of online sources and see what he wants to do.... or should I just let it go and not cause bad blood (I got an extension to finish my revisions because of us moving to a new apartment... and feel guilty as I could have predicted it will be as messy as it is). Besides, I am thankful all the legal quotes are there, I would die if I had to look them all up. Even though a trained monkey could probably look them up just as well.
Grrrr. I will sleep on it. Just needed to vent about how STUPID some people are and they are not ashamed to flaunt it in front of everybody. And they will be my co-authors. And my name will be tainted for ever and ever amen.
Lesson of the day: NEVER do anything just because it's flattering. There probably is a problem lurking right behind that flattery. It's a cover! Run!
My instincts are to turn it back to the prof, however esteemed. It seems clear from here that the piece is nowhere near ready for publication.
But that's me, and I'm crabby today. Seems to me she isn't adding original thought, and would be at best a "contributor" to the final whohah if it was written right. Easy for me to say, huh.
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sozobe
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 04:23 pm
I've run into this problem SO many times with editing. Tons of plagiarizing, and then having to re-write it... it's way easier to start from scratch.
Are you concerned about torpedoing her reputation, ruining her career, that sort of thing? If not (and I don't think you should be, it was her decision to do that in the first place), I think you should just stop, say "this is way too full of plagiarized passages for it to be viable even as a rough draft, sorry" and go from there.
It seems that what you agreed to do and what you got were different things.
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Diane
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 04:46 pm
Sorry for the macabre image, Dag, but your post brought to mind this illusory image of either a lady looking into the mirror or what some might see as a skull.
Now, to go beyond that bit of gruesomeness, you are young, which is a perfect time to make this kind of mistake. We all have been taken in by vanity, usually to our regret.
I have a dear friend who does freelance editing. She tends to get the toughest assignments because she is at the top of the list of experts; but she also gets, usually, top dollar, which is what she is worth. So are you, but you managed to sell yourself short.
It happens, too bad, but it's a valuable lesson.
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dagmaraka
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 04:48 pm
Nah, I'm the author now. Well, she might be co-author, but I am ultimately responsible for what the chapter will look like. I am not an editor, they sent it to me to re-write, because they knew it sucks. Which it does, big time.
My decision now has to be: do I keep her as co-author (research she did), or do I refuse that and just thank her in a footnote for her contribution? Which would also mean cutting her short of half the honorarium, not that it's a terribly large sum of money... but it does make the decision a bit more hard.
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sozobe
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 04:53 pm
I know you're not the editor, but you're doing way more than you expected when you accepted the project, no? Re-writing something that sucks is far less effort than re-writing something that both sucks and is heavily plagiarized.
How close are you to being finished? If less than half (arbitrary), then I suggest doing the thing where you say to (the professor? whomever is in charge) that you'd love to do this but the problems run far deeper than sloppy writing.
If it's already progressed past that point, if you use her research to any significant degree, I think she has to be a co-author.
I guess the question is how significant, and that's probably best answered by people who know the specifics of both the chapter and your field better than we do.
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jespah
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 05:07 pm
Well, it doesn't sound like she deserves half of the loot, but what about a smaller amount in payment for the research?
How about something like a research credit, which would be the footnote plus maybe something a little more, maybe a nice thank-you in the piece, and then 1/4 of the honorarium.
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dagmaraka
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 05:16 pm
Jespah, that sounds good. I will run that by him. Seriously, her writing is a bad joke. It is not even the question of the loot, I didn't do it for the money (vanity, yeah...but not money), I just really don't want her as co-author now. Who knows what else she published where (probably nothing whatsoever) and generally - I don't trust her. Plus I only used her research, none of her writing. So research credit might be the way...
I didn't get too far...well, it's hard to say. I'm whacking at it from twenty different directions. Tomorrow I'll go beginning to end and comb it down. Gah. Just GAH! (I am liking MY text, though. Heh. Narcist.)
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nimh
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 06:21 pm
I'd go with Soz's and Osso's advice, it seems the most sensible/rational, and I dont think there's reason to be shy about it. But it sounds like you've already made up your mind to do it anyway, so.. :wink:
If you do finish the assignment as agreed, it seems a bit awkward to nevertheless change the agreement re credits tho ... it'd have been more straightforward if you'd just turned it back in and said, well, this is worse than i thought, and the only way i could do it when its like this, is if i just rewrite from scratch - and then the credit change would be implied automatically.
("implied" is always "automatically", nimh.. yeah yeah, I know..)
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dagmaraka
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 07:12 pm
there was no prior agreement. he said for me to look at it, and if i end up not using her text we'll just put her in credits.
but i, being i, feel bad. because even though it sucks, she probably did do a lot of research.... decision whether she remains a co-author or not is mine, though. i can't return it now.
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littlek
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 09:21 pm
Gawd..... it's worse than I knew!
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dagmaraka
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Mon 5 Jun, 2006 09:31 pm
Yep, I'm having violent thoughts about my co-author. 'tis a good thing she's so far away.
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Noddy24
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Tue 6 Jun, 2006 10:24 am
You have my sympathy.
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dagmaraka
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Tue 6 Jun, 2006 10:02 pm
Freak out. I won't be able to finish tonight. Or possibly ever. It's a mess and I don't even understand what I'm writing any more. Gah!
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ossobuco
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Tue 6 Jun, 2006 10:05 pm
I say punt. But I know you won't, you genius, you....
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eoe
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Tue 6 Jun, 2006 10:09 pm
And there's no way to wash your hands of this thing? There's got to be because what I'm reading is that your reputation will be tarnished and there's nothing that you can do about it and to me, that's just completely unacceptable. There's got to be something that you can do.
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ossobuco
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Tue 6 Jun, 2006 10:12 pm
You got this assignment on seemingly false premises. I'd ask for a six month extension. Or three month extension.
You don't have to act out ickiness, given the package you got, as far as I can see from here (far away).
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dagmaraka
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Tue 6 Jun, 2006 11:21 pm
nah, no way out. I just have to sit it out until I'm finished. I promised the text today, well yesterday really, not estimating well the amount of work it would take. I will just stay at home incommunicado to the world until i'm done, even if they bug me, then pass it on to them while listing what the problems are. granted, the editor knows the text sucked and it was presented to me as such - so i cannot claim i was given some cat in the hat. now the level of suckiness was indeed a surprise (and they will hear about that) - which also means delays, delays, delays, and feeling guilty for those delays. i should have read the text much sooner, alas. i would have given myself more time. that's all, just feel the need to whine.
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sozobe
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Wed 7 Jun, 2006 08:33 am
Was it presented to you as extensively plagiarized?
Again, that's a much different situation than just sucking. Plagiary takes a LOT more work to rectify, for a lot of reasons. (Like, even if a given sentence is good and you would normally leave it, if you've seen a lot of plagiary in the work you have to check that otherwise good sentence [work, time] and then if it does turn out to be plagiarized you have to do something about it [more work, more time].)
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