About a week later, the young man came into the store. “Excuse me, sir,” Jose said as he greeted the man. “We were reviewing some of our security footage and saw you stuff a ribeye into your backpack and leave without paying for it. We thought that, rather than get the authorities involved, we’d ask you about it. So if you’ll just pay for it, we’ll be good.”

The young man, unfazed, replied, “Well, I ate the ribeye and it’s gone, so why should I pay for it?” He abruptly left the store. Jose just stood there, at a loss for words at the twisted logic.

*** *** ***

You may be looking at this scenario wondering how the young man could possibly feel that he shouldn’t pay for the ribeye just because it no longer exists. He brought it home, prepared it, and enjoyed it. Jose and Linda lost money because of the young man’s actions. And to add insult to injury, the young man felt absolutely no remorse for stealing the ribeye. Sounds crazy, huh?

Yet, it’s precisely this logic, the ribeye alibi, people have used when I’ve caught them plagiarizing my articles.
Dictionary.com defines plagiarism as “an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author.” According to Grammarly.com, there are seven common types of plagiarism:

1. Complete plagiarism – when a writer uses a complete work written by someone else.
2. Direct plagiarism – when a writer uses portions of a work written by someone else.
3. Paraphrasing plagiarism – when a writer uses a work written by someone else and changes a few words or phrases.
4. Self-plagiarism – when a writer reuses work written by himself inappropriately, as in creating work for a client that the client owns, then reusing the work for subsequent clients.
5. Patchwork (or Mosaic) plagiarism – when a writer interweaves plagiarized work with his own work.
6. Source-based plagiarism – when a writer incorrectly cites or fabricates sources.
7. Accidental plagiarism – when a writer doesn’t realize they are plagiarizing another’s work, which includes forgetting to cite sources, not citing them correctly, or failing to put quotes around cited material.

I wrote my first book, The Project Management Advisor, in 2004. Since then, I have written more than 50 books and more than 400 articles. Periodically, I run my articles through a plagiarism checker to see where else they show up and if I have been given proper attribution. Many times, someone will repost one of my articles and give me proper attribution. Provided proper attribution is given, I am completely cool with my article being reposted. But there are times when someone will either completely plagiarize my content or paraphrase it with no attribution whatsoever. Finding plagiarized content is one thing; getting action is a horse of a different color. I’ve experienced everything from having the content removed by the platform, to being reimbursed by the plagiarist, to having the plagiarist make a donation to my favorite charity, to being ignored, to hearing the ribeye alibi. Two instances of the ribeye alibi went as follows:

1. The plagiarist admitted that the content was plagiarized and passed off as their own.
2. The plagiarist failed to recognize that he or she enjoyed the use of and profited from my content that they passed off as their own.
3. The plagiarist told me that their only legal responsibility was that the plagiarized content be taken down.
4. The plagiarist told me there was nothing else they needed to do; they complied with the law.

From a legal perspective, they worked, at least in their own interpretation, within the boundaries of the law. From an ethical perspective, they abandoned any sense of doing the right thing by claiming the ribeye alibi. They posted my content under their name (the shoplifter stole the ribeye), enjoyed the use of my content (the shoplifter ate the ribeye), then when they were caught (the shoplifter was recorded stealing the ribeye on camera), they claimed that because they took it down they weren’t required to do anything else (the shoplifter said he wasn’t in the wrong because the ribeye no longer existed).

In this analogy, most rational-thinking people would say the owners of the grocery store deserve to be compensated for the stolen ribeye. So why shouldn’t I as the victim of plagiarism deserve to be compensated for the unauthorized and improperly cited use of my content?

My intent is to dig deeper into the ribeye alibi and give you some practical nuggets on how to discover if you’ve been plagiarized and how to address plagiarism matters. I will also tell you five real-life stories about my being a victim of plagiarism. I will not be divulging entity names; they will only be known as RibCo, RightThingCo, Coward, RibGuy, and SorryDude. My experience and focus are on articles, blog posts, and other written content available on the Internet; I am not focused on other digital assets like music and pictures. Also, please keep in mind that I am presenting this from a business and ethical perspective and giving you some ideas to consider. You should consult with an intellectual property attorney before taking action on your own.

See more about RibCo, RightThingCo, Coward, RibGuy, and SorryDude, and how you can fight plagiarism in The Ribeye Alibi: What I Learned as a Victim of Plagiarism.

A college professor and I were talking about artificial intelligence and what she’s seeing from her students. She confirmed that AI-generated content is a regular occurrence in papers students write. Some tools (such as Turnitin.com) are getting smarter about detecting AI-generated content to help professors determine when work is authentic versus AI-generated. One situation, though, was sadly amusing to me.

One of the papers turned in by a student included a statement to the effect of, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know the answer to that question.” It was clear that the student had submitted a query to an AI chatbot—which didn’t know how to respond—and the student blindly copied the content into the paper without actually reading it. I probably don’t need to tell you the grade the student got.

In my article Critical Thinking Isn’t Enough: 8 Ways to Be a Critical Persuader, I talk about a fellow named Vick, who was very well-versed on a topic but couldn’t present coherent thoughts in a way that would convince someone of his way of thinking. Vick was a critical thinker, but couldn’t make the leap to being a critical persuader. The situation the professor mentioned underscored a new “critical” category I hadn’t considered.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com