Plagiarism run amok 'round here...
I haven't done a gripe session for a while (been too busy reading everyone else's), but here's one that I think has to be said . . .
It's become very common, especially on the anabolics forum, for people to reprint articles that they've found in publications or on other web sites, but not to attribute them. (This problem is not unique to A.R., but takes place on most AS boards.)
Guess what, campers . . . When you post something without attribution, the natural assumption is that you wrote what you are posting. And if you didn't write it but do not include a citation, that's called plagiarism. Now, since a lot of your bro's (and it's generally guys who are guilty of this, although Doris Kearns Goodwin has taken a lot of heat in the news recently for the same thing) are college students, you should know better. Because if you plagiarize here, you're probably doing it elsewhere - and sooner or later, you are gonna get caught and pay some dues for it.*
This morning, in another member's post, I found a fascinating statement in his sig file: "Sometimes called bigarexia, muscle dysmorphia is the opposite of anorexia nervosa. People with this disorder obsess about being small and undeveloped. They worry that they are too little and too frail. Even if they have good muscle mass, they believe their muscles are inadequate."
Hmmmmmm, I thought, great statement. This is one of my areas of interest, one I've often referred to as the "bulked-up GI Joe" syndrome. I haven't seen it addressed comprehensively in the DSM-IV (the diagnostic manual for mental health disorders), so I decided to do an engine search on "muscle+dysmorphia." Three references and, sure enough, the very first reference I click on has the following statement: "Sometimes called bigarexia, muscle dysmorphia is the opposite of anorexia nervosa. People with this disorder obsess about being small and undeveloped. They worry that they are too little and too frail. Even if they have good muscle mass, they believe their muscles are inadequate."
So, the member's signature quote was not original, it was lifted from the web site of Anred, a resource center for anorexics.
But this trend is widespread on the AS boards - members (usually not vets or mods) posting (make that plagiaruizing) articles that they didn't write and not attributing those articles. The posts are usually followed by shorter posts from other members who write, "Yeah, great piece, man!" And it's clear that the responders don't have a clue that the original article was not written by the person who posted it (nor is there any reason that they should assume anything other than that the piece was original).
The absurdity of it is that in a recent thread started by DOOfy, who posted some of his own outline notes, someone wrote, "i not know if you wrote that out or not . . . but if you didn't you should give cerit to who did write it...." In this particular case, the original post actually was written by the member. (He did an outline, but stole no quotes.)
For those of us who actually do research - and I'm not talking about merely learning about AS, but who do actual professional, statistical, clinical, or academic research - the citation of a source validates the material. It allows us to go to the original and look it in its whole context, to verify the data as it appears on the board and, if appropriate, to expand on the research done thus far.
For readers on the whole, the citation of an article written by someone else exposes any presuppositions, vested interests, or conflicts of interest on the part of the writer. (For example, an article on fat burners written by an independent research clinician will have a different perspective than, say, the same article written by the manufacturers of Xenedrine. An article from a medical school web site will not have the same bias as an article from a site that sells supplements, herbs, vitamins, etc. An article on electronic muscle stimulation will be different if written by a physical therapy professor than one written by a company that manufactures TENS units. And so it goes . . .)
We are not merely talking about using someone else's picture in an avatar here, folks. (Did you ever notice how many of our members look like that Arnold dude? :D) We are talking about information that people will read and that will influence them in everything from their choice of cycle to their workout and diet routines.
So if you print an article in one of your posts, kindly cite the source. It only takes a few seconds, usually a quick cut-and-paste. It will lessen questions about your credibility (in fact, it will enhance your credibility - at least in my mind, because I respect people that can do good research).
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* I give you a modest example, and I kid you not - this actually happened. When I was in grad school, I was asked to participate in a fellow student's academic committee (our school included peers on academic committees). He submitted his program planning document to us, and as I read it I began to have this strange feeling of deja vu. By the time I got to the second page of a 50-some page document, I was on the floor laughing my ass off. The student had plagiarized his program plan . . . from mine. Seriously - the guy had gotten a copy of my program plan, typed the entire thing into a word processing program, then changed all instances where I referred to my major to his major. He adapted the bibliography to reflect books in the subjects he wanted to study, changed the names of his faculty advisors, but the basic text was from my earlier document, word-for-word.
I know it reads like one of those "Dumbest Criminals of All Times" stories, but it's true. You can bet that I covered my own ass very quickly by discussing it with my own academic committee - I even did a side-by-side printout to show how directly he plagiarized me. (I had nothing to worry about, since my documented obviously pre-dated his. Besides, the faculty chair of my committee had been asked by the other student to be on his committee. Talk about someone screwing up twice. :D)
Anyway, we confronted the student, and the faculty (all too graciously) gave him one shot at producing an original plan. And since he was caught dead to rights, he had no choice but to learn how to do original writing.
So like I said, students and fellow A.R. members, you never know when someone out there is actually going to recognize, or find through their own research, something you have lifted from someone else. And you know the riff about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery? When it comes to research and writing, bullshit.
