6 Plagiarism Gaffes That Will Make You Gasp

With the revelation of Melania Trump’s alleged plagiarism of a 2008 Michelle Obama speech, plagiarism is suddenly front-page news. Although this may be the most talked-about instance of plagiarism at the moment, it’s far from the first. Plagiarism has existed as long as intellectual property has, and there have been numerous public figures accused of this academic transgression, including the United States’ current president and vice president.

Although some instances of plagiarism involve more text than others, many result in some sort of legal action, or at least an in-depth apology to the plagiarized party. Plagiarism is, after all, an error that many find not only incorrect, but dishonest. Here are some of the worst instances of plagiarism in music, political, and media history.

1. The First Recorded Instance of Plagiarism

We don’t know the name of the first plagiarist, but we do know the first poet to be plagiarized. According to PlagiarismToday, his name was Martial, and he became one of the best-known poets of the first century AD. He accused several other poets of copying and distributing his work without his permission, which was a common practice in the era. Instead of sitting idly by and allowing these plagiarists to steal his work, Martial wrote several scathing verses about their practices and characters, beating them down with his words. He effectively coined the word “plagiarism” in one of these verses, using the Latin word for kidnapping (“plagiarus”) to describe the act of stealing another poet’s work.

2. Political Plagiarism Hops the Pond

Of course, any discussion of famous plagiarism cases would be incomplete without mentioning Vice President Joe Biden’s famous slip up in 1987. The then-senator alleged that the plagiarized words “came to him” on the way to his Iowa State Fair speech. But after Maureen Dowd compared his speech line-for-line with a speech by UK Labour Party Leader Neil Kinnock in The New York Times, it was widely accepted that his remarks were lifted from Kinnock’s work.

Biden’s response to the situation showed significant remorse for emulating the popular UK politician. He reportedly responded with a simple “All I had to say was ‘Like Kinnock.’” Biden also reportedly visited Kinnock in 1988, presenting him with a bound copy of his speeches and encouraging him to “use them whenever he liked.”

3. Turn A-Dowd Is Fair Play

Although Maureen Dowd was instrumental in discovering the similarities between Biden and Kinnock’s speeches, she also became the subject of a plagiarism scandal of her own. According to The Guardian, Dowd was accused of borrowing a paragraph in a 2009 column from Talking Points Memo blogger Josh Marshall. Dowd responded to the accusation by saying that she got the paragraph from a friend and recognized later that her friend was probably quoting Talking Points Memo. Unfortunately, friendly fire did not save Dowd from considerable professional anguish over the thought of plagiarizing another prominent political columnist.

4. Viva la Sampling

Literature and music both have a long history of borrowing and stealing that isn’t, strictly speaking, plagiarism. For example, the ethics of sampling in hip hop have long been debated, with some deeming samples polite nods to prior artists and others declaring them instances of blatant melodic thefts. However, when an artist “writes” a song that borrows a major melody from another artist’s song, accusations of plagiarism will fly. Coldplay was recently the recipient of these accusations, when Joe Satriani alleged that their song “Viva La Vida” borrowed significantly from the guitar parts on his “If I Could Fly.” The two groups settled the resulting lawsuit out of court, and Coldplay never admitted wrongdoing, but Satriani fans insisted that the group had plagiarized.

5. Less Journalism, More Fiction

Although Maureen Dowd’s brush with plagiarism is notorious, one name has become synonymous with questionable ethics in the journalism world—Jayson Blair. The then 27-year-old New York Times reporter committed multiple instances of what the paper called “journalistic fraud,” including fabricating quotes, scenes, and entire stories from the field. His plagiarized facts and passages mostly came from other publications and wire services, but Blair pretended they were his own reporting and writing. As “one of the most brazen fabulists in the history of journalism,” according to one Washington Post reporter, Blair’s legacy lives on in a chilling documentary about the numerous failings that led to his fabricated reports.

6. Putin on a Show

Even world leaders aren’t immune to the allure of plagiarism. According to a study by the Brookings Institute, Russian President Vladimir Putin plagiarized large portions of the thesis that resulted in a degree described on his website as a “PhD in economics.” Although the degree title itself has been debated, the content of his thesis, “Strategic Planning of the Reproduction of the Mineral Resource Base of a Region under Conditions of the Formation of Market Relations,” has been shown to borrow liberally from a 1978 textbook on the same topic. Brookings researchers found “evidence of extensive plagiarism” in the thesis, which they further alleged that Putin did not write himself.

How to Clean Up Your Resume After a Work Break

Honesty is the best policy. This old adage proves true in many situations. According to Monster.com, truthful job seekers project confidence and a sense of integrity, qualities that employers highly value. However, have you ever met someone who is too candid? TMI is an acronym for too much information. For certain, you do not want potential employers to be reminded of these three letters when they read your resume. So, how do you present work breaks in a positive way without oversharing unnecessary details? Examine the following three possible TMI reasons for work gaps. After identifying why the reasons are TMI, consider less blunt delivery methods for each one.

The TMI reason: My children were turning into brats so I had to do an intervention.

Parenthood is one of the most common reasons for employees to voluntarily leave the workforce. Some parents return to work after a short period of time, but others do not work again until their children are adults. List the dates you cared for your children on your resume. Use a dignified title, such as full-time parent, to communicate how you spent your time. If you take care of an elderly parent or another family member, you may choose to describe your role as caregiver or estate manager.

It is common for job seekers to describe the duties of each job that they list on a resume. Describe your responsibilities as a homemaker in the same way. Did you raise funds or organize committees at your child’s school? Did you attend classes or manage household finances? Recruiters will get a sense of your complete skill set if you share your talents and accomplishments.

The TMI reason: My boss was a super jerk. No one likes him. I am not the only one who quit!

Loyalty is important to employers. Recruiting, training, and managing employees requires time and money. If they suspect that you leave at the first sight of a problem, they may conclude that you do not merit the investment. How can you demonstrate that you are worthy of trust? Do you have a history of holding job positions for several years? In that case, there is little reason to worry that you will seem flighty. Let your work history speak for itself. There is no need to volunteer any negative opinions about your former employer. If you are asked directly on a job application or in an interview, briefly explain that you wanted to explore other career options or are seeking new challenges.

You can also minimize the perceived work gap by eliminating specific dates from your resume. For example, imagine that you worked at Company X from December 1, 2013, to January 1, 2014. Then, you quit because of your annoying manager. You did not find another job until December 2014. On your resume, use only the years 2013-2014 to indicate the time you worked at Company X. When you list your next job as 2014-present, there is no obvious work gap. You can also fill gaps with volunteer work, education, or personal travel. If asked, refer to these noble pursuits rather than the toxic personality of your superior as the reason you took time off work.

The TMI reason: I was caught stealing paper clips. I can’t resist those shiny little beauties.

You got fired. Don’t worry. It is not the end of the world. How you should handle this issue depends on why you got fired.

For the sake argument, let’s say you were fired because a health issue affected your performance at work. In this example, you stole the paper clips because you suffer from kleptomania. After your dismissal, you sought treatment. You are now managing your health issue well. You might include a note on your resume that there was a health issue which is now resolved or which will not affect the job for which you are applying.

If the theft of the paperclips was only a huge lapse in judgment, it might be more difficult to explain it on a resume. Remember, you do not need to include every single place you worked on your resume. You might limit the work history to relevant experience or your most recent occupations. If you do decide to mention the terminated position on the resume, prepare before the interview how to explain it. You will want to talk about how you have corrected the problems that resulted in your dismissal. Under the references section, provide contact information of colleagues who will speak positively about you. Written recommendations from clients or co-workers are especially useful.

Honesty is certainly a virtue, but you can have too much of a good thing. If you have gaps in your work experience, do not despair. By crafting your resume thoughtfully, you can present your work breaks in the best possible light. Share what skills you gained, what responsibilities you fulfilled, and what experiences broadened your horizons during the time that you were not employed. Be selective about what information you volunteer, and what references you choose to include on your resume. Whatever you do, avoid sabotaging your resume with TMI!

“Beck and Call” or “Beckon Call”—Which Is Right?

• Beck and call is the correct way to spell this phrase.
• To be at someone’s beck and call means you are ready to obey their orders or commands.
• Beckon call is not the correct way to spell the phrase.

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Even though it’s not a phrase you’ll hear every day, it’s good to know whether beck and call is the correct way to say it, or if it should be beckon call.

Beck and Call vs. Beckon Call—Which Is Correct?

The correct way to write the phrase is beck and call. This phrase is a part of the idiom “to be at someone’s beck and call.” Beckon call is an example of an eggcorn—a slightly misheard (yet still kind of sensical) version of a common phrase.

What Does Beck and Call Mean?

To be at someone’s beck and call means to be ready to react to their commands without a delay. Sometimes the phrase carries a whiff of disapproval. People often use it when the commands seem overly entitled or unreasonable. Beck is a shortening of beckon, which means to signal or issue a command by a gesture. Call is a call, a word we use every day.

Grandma insists that we should be at her beck and call whenever she visits.

The restaurant’s staff must have thought I’m a restaurant critic—they were at my beck and call for three whole hours.

The chef likes his staff to be at his beck and call.

Beck and Call in a Sentence

Celebrities have long championed their up-do—of course, it’s easier when you have a glam team at your beck and call.

Vogue

The sum total of my lifestyle for one month costs about $800, living luxuriously, with Uber at my beck and call, and as much tacos and tequila as I want.

New York Post

Amazon’s Alexa, the brain that powers the Amazon Echo, lets you take a step towards being able to place a computer at your verbal beck and call.

Stuff

Beck and call is not the only phrase in English that’s commonly spelled wrong because people hear it wrong. Foolproof is another one, as is Saint Paddy’s Day, to name just a couple.

Not-So-Sweet 16: Early-Morning Chatters vs. Giant Group Chat

The Not-So-Sweet 16 round of March MADness has begun! So far, we’ve started the voting for work chat pet peeves, and these two contenders are both pretty atrocious. Which habit annoys you more? Vote below!

Early-Morning Chatters

These folks are up in the wee small hours of the morning, sending out updates to group chats—either pinging you awake as you catch your last few hours of sleep or inundating your mornings with messages to attend to.

Giant Group Chat

These monstrosities include so many members that the rule book basically gets thrown out the window. With everyone chiming in, navigating the chat for information relevant to you and your work is almost futile.

Top International Productivity Books

As a company striving to make people more productive and successful, we know a thing or two about the importance of having the right tools when there’s a job to be done. But even though Grammarly will help speed up your proofreading, you also need to know how to manage your time if you want to be more productive. That means prioritizing and fighting the urge to procrastinate. Our product can’t teach you those skills, but we can recommend some books that might help.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

How good does a productivity book have to be to catch the eye of a US president and prompt him to ask the writer to help implement its principles at the White House? Pretty darn good! During his presidency, Bill Clinton once invited Stephen R. Covey to help him and his staff learn to implement the principles in the book. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People has become one of the best-known personal effectiveness books for good reason. You don’t need to have a developed set of skills to adopt the seven habits mentioned in the title. You need to have certain principles, such as fairness and honesty, and use them to build the habits that will help you transition from being dependent to being independent, and from being independent into being interdependent. According to Covey, that’s where real effectiveness lies.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Do you know that feeling when you’re extremely focused on a task and everything around you sort of fades away, and you’re doing great work and feeling good about it? That feeling we like to call “being in the zone?” Well, that’s something Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a major figure in positive psychology, calls optimal experience or flow. In the book Flow, Csikszentmihalyi sets out to explain what flow is, how it works, and what the requirements of getting into it are. While it’s relatively easy to see how mastering the state of flow can make you more productive because it has an emotional component to it, being in the flow can also make you feel happier while your productivity is up. Can you think of a better reason for reading a book?

Eat that Frog! by Brian Tracy

If you’re not very keen on the idea of eating frogs, don’t worry—Brian Tracy’s book Eat that Frog! won’t make you do it. But there is a saying about how eating a frog early in the morning makes everything bad that might happen to you during the day not as bad. The point here is to tackle the biggest, baddest and most off-putting tasks first. That’s one of strategies Tracy offers to help procrastinators get things done. There are twenty more of these methods described in the book, and all of them are very practical and just waiting for you to implement.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

David Allen is a person you should listen to when it comes to productivity. His book Getting Things Done was first published in 2001. In 2015, he revised it to incorporate modern tech advancements. It has become more than just a book of advice—it’s a productivity method, known by the acronym GTD. Allen’s bestseller is a mix of guidance and principles based on the central premise that the more relaxed you are, the more productive you will be. So, if you want to tie your productivity to being relaxed, GTD will teach you to do it. It will give you all the tools necessary. But bear in mind, GTD has a reputation for being complicated to understand and implement, so dive in only if you think you can handle it.

Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better by Adam Pash and Gina Trapani

So far, the books on this list have offered universal principles—getting into the flow, tackling procrastination, and developing a productivity mindset. It only makes sense to end the list with a book that will help you be more productive in the digital environment : Adam Pash and Gina Trapani’s “Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better.” The book is a compilation of blog posts featured on Lifehacker.com, a website dedicated to software and personal productivity. If you’re not tech-savvy and you want to know what’s out there to help you with your productivity issues, this book will show you. But it will also help you rein in all that tech when it starts taking up too much of your time.

Vaccum, Vacuum, or Vacume—Which Is Right?

• Vacuum (spelled like so), means a complete lack of matter, or a device used for sucking up dirt or particles, or to use that device for cleaning.
• Vaccum and vacume are misspellings of vacuum.

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Physicists often talk about vacuums, but the rest of us also use this word when talking about cleaning devices. Spelling the word can be a bit tricky because of the two consecutive u’s, which aren’t often seen in English.

Vaccum, Vacuum, or Vacume—Which Is Correct?

Vacuum is a word of Latin origin that denotes a space containing very little or no matter. A vacuum cleaner (or simply, a vacuum) is a device that uses a partial vacuum to suck up particles of dirt or dust. Cleaning something with a vacuum cleaner is often referred to as vacuuming, so vacuum can also be used a verb—at least in the U.S. Brits often refer to this device as a “hoover” and to the activity as “hoovering.”

Vacuum is always spelled with one c, two u’s, and no e. Spellings such as vaccum, vacume, or vacum are incorrect:

There’s no such thing as a perfect vacume.

Light travels at its top speed only in a vacuum.

We bought a new vaccum cleaner today.

The apartment is dirty because the vacuum cleaner broke down.

Vacuming is my least favorite chore.

Vigorous vacuuming counts as cardio workout, right?

Examples

Studio Roosegaarde’s smog-sucking vacuum tower is actually cleaning up the air in China.

Inhabitat

If you want your vacuum cleaner to keep working as well as it did the day you bought it, you have to keep it clean.

Lifehacker

They said he vacuumed for two to five hours at a time, often leaving the machine running on the balcony, while playing very loud music.

The Local (Sweden)

The road to learning good English is paved with common misspellings. Words like fourty, jist, and carmel are right there with vaccum and vacume, waiting for you to slip up.

Are Dictionaries Still Important?

This poll is part of a series that Grammarly is running aimed at better understanding how the public feels about writing, language learning, and grammar.

Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!

If you are interested in more, check out last week’s poll.