X/Twitter/Whatever could well disappear tomorrow, if Elon Musk wakes up and decides that he can’t be bothered to keep it up any longer (not that he’s up all night keeping it going). The site is still a cesspool but if you know how to navigate it, it remains a significant source of information on, for instance, the latest developments in COVID (that ongoing pandemic), and it’s still one of the funniest places on the internet (at least for the first hour after an event). And like it or not, social media offers venues for many of us to post our links (whether or not that’s particularly effective is perhaps up for debate).
It’s easy, I think, for a lot of people to sneer and sniff about those amongst us who still need to post our work on social media (such sneering and sniffing is always an indication that they’re well off enough to not need any exposure at all). But the fact is that these platforms remain important places for many of us.
Which is why how we engage with other people’s work on places like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok really matters. There’s one disturbing trend of late that needs to end: of simply posting quotes from uncredited and uncited works, with some commentary by the original poster. You see this over and over again: someone posts a quote, offers what they think is some smart (and often snarky point), but without any information at all about where the text appears. This might be understandable when a group is discussing a work that has already been linked at the top of a conversation, sure, but that’s not usually the case.
I suspect this has been going on for a lot longer than I’m aware, or it’s more likely that my ongoing work on plagiarism has made me more aware of it. At any rate, look: stop.
Someone, somewhere, an actual human, went to all the trouble to write something and it was posted somewhere where you could read it. You might hate their perspective but that is in fact all the more reason why you should cite them properly, link to the site in question, or name the work. Whatever they wrote has become grist for your mill, it enables you to create a conversation, to engage in discourse with other humans. If you walked into a room in real life and simply babbled some words at a group and then emited a “Hahaha, can believe how stupid that is?” snort, people would look at you with disdain (I hope, but sometimes I think I’m not quite of this world, so who knows).
If you post the words because you think they make an excellent point, then you are effectively plagiarising someone else’s thoughts by attaching your name to them without proper credit.
Besides, why would you want to have a conversation, virtually or in real life, that’s not grounded in a respect for intellectual work, that assumes thoughts, ideas, and concepts simply appear out of the ether and drop into your pretty little head? Perhaps a better way to phrase this is: How would you feel if someone took your words and threw them around without any reference to their publication history or context?
Citation matters: it’s a way to show that you have an awareness of the conversations you engage in, that you understand their threads of inquiry, and that you respect intellectual engagement even if you can’t stand a writer for any reason. If you’re not citing someone on social media because you worry they might respond to you, then learn how to formulate your thoughts so that no one can accuse you of hurling ad hominem attacks. If they keep coming at you regardless, acting out of bad faith, block them and move on. You might be wrong, they might be wrong, and what is “wrong” anyway? We’re all prone to behaving badly on social media, trust me on this. But not citing someone and using their words as weapons in your petty little arsenal of snark shows a profound disrespect for—and I write this without irony—the life of the mind.
Cite, cite, cite.
For more, see “On Plagiarism.”
Many thanks to elle roberts (@elleiswrite) for our discussion, which helped enormously.
Image: Twittering Machine (Die Zwitscher-Maschine), Paul Klee, 1922.
Don’t plagiarise any of this, in any way. I have used legal resources to punish and prevent plagiarism, and I am ruthless and persistent. I make a point of citing people and publications all the time: it’s not that hard to mention me in your work, and to refuse to do so and simply assimilate my work is plagiarism. You don’t have to agree with me to cite me properly; be an ethical grownup, and don’t make excuses for your plagiarism. Read and memorise “On Plagiarism.” There’s more forthcoming, as I point out in “The Plagiarism Papers.” If you’d like to support me, please donate and/or subscribe, or get me something from my wish list. Thank you.