The Dangers of Plagiarism
As we all learned in elementary school, plagiarism is just flat-out wrong. If a teacher caught you doing it, you received an F on the assignment, at the very least; possibly suspended; or at the opposite end of the spectrum, expelled. In the professional world, it gets you fired, and makes it extremely difficult to be hired in the future in a similar capacity. As PR professionals, given that the lion’s share of our daily actiivities is writing-related, I believe we are particularly acute to the dangers and consequences of plagiarism.
So what’s the deal with the recent plagiarism cases which have become public? Case in point, and Exhibit #1: The main cover story of the May 8, 2006, issue of PRWeek, discusses the plight of Raytheon CEO William Swanson, who may be directly ousted, or forced to resign, by the company’s board of directors for admittedly copying material for a leadership pamphlet from an obscure 1944 engineering textbook. In the piece, Paul Argenti, a professor of communications at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business Administration, aptly summed up the situation by stating, “His [Swanson’s] credibility is shot; there’s no way he can go on as CEO at this company and have any kind of credibility with key constituents, including employees, investors and regulators.” Ouch. To add insult to injury, the board immediately took action by reducing Swanson’s 2006 restricted stock allocation by 20%, and holding his salary at its 2005 level. The unkindest cut of all, which seems likely according to sources quoted in PRWeek, will be his termination.