On Plagiarism

Due to the nature of my work and personal life I often come across plagiarism, usually because I am the one responsible for documenting and responding to it.  Yesterday it came to my attention in two ways.  I found the substance of a pastor’s Sunday sermon point-for-point in a commentary, and Melania Trump is accused of copying parts of her speech from Michelle Obama.  One article about the Trump situation lists all the accusations of plagiarism against the current crop of politicians, and I found a news article about a college professor who committed massive amounts of plagiarism.  He had a very lucrative contract teaching police officers how to do their jobs.

Academics will tell you that the main reason students plagiarize is to save time, so they encourage students to start their work well in advance of due dates.  I estimate that about half of the students in my classes who plagiarize are not rushed, they are intellectually lazy and, of course, dishonest.

Just to get a definition out of the way, I’m not referring to a botched citation format.  I am using the term plagiarism to mean deliberately representing the ideas or work of another as your own, or at the very least knowing they are not your own and failing to give credit where it is due.

The first thing that comes to my mind when realizing our politicians are comfortable stealing the work of others is what that tells us about the taxes we can expect.  The next is that these people do not have a lot to offer us.  They are either not smart enough, not ambitious enough, or not visionary enough to craft their own messages.  They are not secure enough to let others get some of the credit for their speech.   And they certainly are not highly scrupulous or careful of details.

Now we come to the case of the pastor.  Following the practice of forensic lexicology, I determined that his sermon material was not original.  A quick search on the Internet took me to his source, where I found that with the exception of adding one example from a movie and one from his personal life (or was that really someone else’s story, too?) he was paraphrasing every point, examples included, from a commentary on Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi.  There are three problems with this.

First, the work in question is copyright protected.  Yes, I checked.  It would have been bad enough if this was a book of sermons for sale but it was not.

Second, this is a symptom of a spiritual problem.  I have suspected for some time that most of his sermons were not original.  Since the preaching duties rotate at our church, he only has to preach about twenty sermons per year.  As lead pastor, I expect him to be a man close to God.  He should be learning and growing every day, and have things that he wants to convey to his congregation.  If he cannot do this a handful of times per year I wonder about his faith.

Third, there is deception involved.  Because the actual authors referred to the original language texts, cultural situations, and related quotes from church history, this message created the appearance of great scholarship where there was none.  To get ready for the sermon series, the pastor also had some members of the congregation produce a study guide to the book of Philippians.  This is a great aid, to be sure, but it implies that there has been some massive study underway, when in reality this man only needed to recite a few pages from someone else’s book.

So much for “Provide things honest in the sight of all men”. (Romans 12:17)

That's What Mr. Lincoln Said

 Since this post is being published on President's Day I wanted to reflect on one particular speech. I had to memorize it in elementary school and deliver in front of a crowd. It was considered a required part of curriculum, at least back then.

I am referring the Lincoln's Gettysburg address. It was delivered at the dedication of the cemetary at the site of the battle at Gettysburg. He was preceded by another speaker, former President of Harvard and United States Senator Edward Everett. Everett spoke for around two hours, which was not as unusual as it might sound today. Think of the friend you know who tunes in to their favorite talk show for three hours a day. 

But Lincoln only spoke for about two minutes. He summed up the point of the conflict, but he also pointed out that the Declaration of Independence was written with the premise that "all men are created equal", at at time when the Constitution but not the Declaration was referred to in arguments over slavery. 

What Lincoln thought would be a set of forgettable remarks became an immortal message.

For more on the Gettysburg Address see the article on History.com .

A Speech in Three Words?

In this post and the next I will provide you with one method for starting a speech from scratch.  This method is designed to do two things for you.  First, it will require a fraction of the effort required to start writing out a speech word for word and stop when you’ve got everything recorded.  Second, it will take you a long way toward memorizing your speech without the grueling hours of rote memorization.  So what do you have to give up in exchange for these advantages?  You must let go of the idea that your delivery must be word-perfect.  You are not planning to write out and repeat every idea to your audience verbatim.  What you will do to get started is answer two questions.  

The first is “What is my point?”  You should be able to state in a single sentence the thesis of your speech.  It will probably read something like “I want to persuade my listeners to vote for me” or “I need to explain the company’s new vacation policy”.

The second question is “What information do my listeners need?”  Create several short sentences that will answer a question like “How do you do that?” or “How can you prove that?” and arrange them in the order you will present them.  Read all the notes over several times, and pick out one or two keywords from each point.  You might find that you can actually sum up the points of your speech with one sentence for your main point and a pair of words for each of your subpoints.  

When you have broken your work down into these bare-bones elements you will see how easy it is to memorize the form of your speech compared to memorizing a five-minute speech word for word.  Even if you weren’t able to shorten your subpoints to keywords you won’t have much trouble remembering the thrust of four or five sentences.  Once you are able to rattle these off in order without a lot of fumbling you are ready for the next steps, which will be described in my next post.

For now, get started on this stage, and you will lose a lot of your fear of speaking.

Dr. King as an Example

 Since this entry is being released on the day we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, I thought it would be appropriate to recommend some time listening to speeches he delivered. You can find a great playlist here.

Wrap It Up

In my last post I walked you through a process that starts a speech with just key ideas, and helps you memorize those ideas rather than trying to write out and remember a full text.  Now let's round it out with more material and a clear beginning and ending.

You have obviously only memorized about a minute worth of material so far, and you probably need more.  Most of it will come from expanding your points with explanation.  The rest will come in the form of an introduction and conclusion.

We will start with the body of your speech.  You are able to recall each of your points.  Speak each one out loud as you might way it to an audience, and then follow it with some explanation.  For instance, let's imagine that your main point is that the smokers in your audience should give up cigarettes, and the first keyword you memorized was money.  You might say out loud "I want to persuade you to quit smoking, and the first reason I think you should is money.  It costs a lot to keep that habit going.  Think about what you could be buying if you didn't spend money on cigarettes."  Most of this explanation was already on your mind when you wrote out your points in our last step, so it shouldn't be too hard to speak this much without a script.  Go through all your points in order this way several times and you will find you have almost created an entire speech ready in your memory.

Now for the introduction.  Find a way to catch the attention of your audience.  Ask them a question or give them startling information.  You might start by asking "Do you know how much you spend in a year if you smoke a pack of cigarettes every day?"  Once they are listening, tell them who you are and why they should believe you.  Maybe you quit smoking yourself, or you've done research on the topic.  Mention whatever helps your credibility with your audience.  Tell them what they will get for their attention.  "This speech will help you save money and may even save your life!"  When you have covered these bases you are ready to get to your main point.  From there you work your way through your points as you have already practiced.

Finish off by leaving them with one thought that will stick.  Summarize your speech in one sentence, or repeat your best argument, for example.  In this case it might be "What will you do with all that extra spending money?" that makes the impression.

Using this simplified method may take a bit of practice, but once you have the method down you will be able to produce and present speeches in a fraction of the time it would take to create and recall full texts.  Now you can relax and enjoy your audience!

Ethical Leadership Matters

               “Well,” my friend told me, “I told them, you’re adults, work it out for yourselves.”  I was sitting with a former retail manager.  She had started her story by telling me how her sales staff would get in fights on the sales floor to get the commission on a pair of socks.

                I pointed out to her that fighting on the sales floor was their way of working it out.  The problem here was that neither one had the authority or the leverage to settle the situation.  Let’s imagine that one of the sales staff had earned a sale, call her Joan.  While she is distracted by a question her customer walks up to the cash register and pays another associate, Tim, who rings the sale under his own number, intentionally stealing the sale. 

                Tim definitely will not give up his sale, and Joan has no way of getting it back on her own, she can only confront Tim, and perhaps threaten to do the same to him.  The situation is already getting out of hand, but if one of the two does not back down it will also probably get loud and vulgar, forcing my friend the manager to step in.

                Think about how different the situation would be if the manager has stepped in early and made a determination.  It would have been settled and both parties would have to move on.  Yes, someone may come away upset with the decision, but the upset would not be any greater than what occurred on the sales floor anyway.  The intervention would also send a clear message to employees that the boss is willing to fix things.  This assures them that they do not have to resort to fights on the sales floor.

                This type of leadership isn’t easy.  It requires the courage to stand up for principles, the ability to take criticism for your decisions, the judgment to make the right call, and a good ethical foundation to frame these actions.  Consistently ethical leadership may not be popular with all followers, but it will build a foundation of trust with coworkers and subordinates.  It is also the best way to attract and retain employees who are ethical themselves, which is a big payoff in itself.