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Suspecting a reviewer of idea theft?

In most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I submitted a short paper built around a distinction that, as far as I know, hasn't been made, at least in the language I used. It recently got rejected, and the referee report was *very* rude — i.e., the kind of stuff you would never say to someone if it weren't anonymous, even if you thought the paper was really bad. I haven't gotten a rejection that venomous before, so I spent more time than usual obsessing over who might have written it. Given the things they cited and the style they used, I got a hunch it was Philosopher X. Then I looked at Philosopher X's website, and found an abstract for an in-progress paper — about my distinction, using the language I used to make the distinction, but without citing me. (Not that I would expect to be cited, because I have not publicly posted the draft anywhere.) Using the wayback machine, I found that the abstract was recently uploaded — there's no trace that this philosopher said anything about this distinction, using that language, before I submitted my paper.

Also, Philosopher X is super high-profile, and I'm an ABD grad student. We've crossed paths at conferences a couple of times and know some of the same people.

Given that, two questions…
-How likely is it that this is just a coincidence? Maybe the kinds of unconscious processes that led me to have my idea and use the language I did to express it also led Philosopher X to do the same — given that we're talking to some of the same people, reading the same stuff, etc. Plus, there's really no practical pressure for them to take a random grad student's ideas — their career is set. And, you would naively hope, the fact that they're writing a paper about the same idea would show that they're not the same referee who thinks that the idea is so stupid that they have to be 10/10 rude in their rejection of it.

-No judgment (this is all anonymous anyway!): has anyone ever used an idea from a paper they rejected? I assume this is not a very common practice, which is part of what makes this feel uncommonly galling. But I haven't refereed a lot of papers; maybe others think this is more normal. It is, of course, possible to like an idea in a paper that you think shouldn't be published, maybe it gives you a nearby idea, maybe you think you shouldn't be barred from publishing this nearby idea until the original paper comes out. (After all, if you think the paper is extremely bad, maybe you think it will never come out!) Not to excuse the behavior — just trying to think of what might lead someone to do this. Anyway, what are the norms here?

Although it's possible it could be coincidence, this certainly looks suspicious to me. As for what the OP should do, if anything (though they didn't ask), I'm not sure. I know other people who have suspected others in the profession of lifting ideas, and I've even had some suspicious things happen to me–but I never did anything, as trying to do anything seemed to me like it would be more of a headache (and potentially career self-sabotaging thing to do) than to simply go on with my career doing the best work I could. Regardless, it does seem to me to be clearly wrong to use an idea from a paper one reviews for a journal.

What do readers think?

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15 responses to “Suspecting a reviewer of idea theft?”

  1. this is what advisors are for

    Speak to your advisor about it.

    Reply
  2. ttprof

    It sounds like you are right to be suspicious, OP, and as far as I know, this never happens. Certainly it should never happen, because it is dishonest and contrary to scholarly community.
    Even though you didn’t ask for advice about what to do, I would offer the following: do not do anything. Do not tell anyone. Taking any kind of action – even informally through gossip networks and the like – will almost certainly go badly for you, as Marcus suggests. This is one of those painful lessons of life that not everyone is acting in good faith. Professor X should be treated with caution (forever and in every possible domain) and you should endeavor to get that paper published elsewhere ASAP (for your own sake as well as for the practical reason of getting it completed and accepted before you are forced to cite them, assuming they pursue publication of your idea).

    Reply
  3. flummoxed grad student

    OP, I’m so sorry about this situation. Re: ttprof and anyone else who cares to answer, why doesn’t the APA have some kind of ethics board to address problems like this? It seems like a major problem across academia that plagiarism at the highest echelons is nearly impossible to address.

    Reply
  4. Tell your advisor at least

    I disagree with ttprof— I think you should absolutely consult your advisor or someone else you trust in the profession. It will still be likely that there’s nothing to be done, unfortunately. But it’s tough for us to advise on this without the specifics of the idea, who the professor is, etc.

    Reply
  5. Assistant Professor

    Talking with a trusted advisor as others suggest seems right. It may be especially helpful if that person is familiar with the OP’s paper and the literature into which it makes an intervention.
    Also possibly talking with a university office of academic affairs or academic integrity, or whatever office supports questions about academic misconduct.
    Honestly, that an editor passed on a terribly rude referee report is its own concern and is another reason to talk to an advisor for their advice/perspective. There may be multiple reasons to flag to the associate editor who handled your paper that there are concerns with the appropriateness and nature of the peer review process.
    Will it change anything? Maybe not, but if I were the editor I would want to know to not ask that individual to peer review again.

    Reply
  6. prepre

    Just as a practical option to consider, though I am no expert on this…perhaps you might wish to release a preprint of the paper in a citable database like https://www.preprints.org/ In this way, at least it is released into the world in a way that establishes your temporal priority in a minimal way. However, such an idea is something for you to discuss with your advisor as to whether it is really worth doing. Ultimately, probably what ttprof says is correct, unfortunately. I am reminded of The Red Shoes when Craster is advised by Lermontov, with respect to a composition of his that has been plagiarized by his professor, that it is much more disheartening to have to steal than to be stolen from.

    Reply
  7. no-bullshitter

    I agree with “Tell your advisor at least” — consult with your advisor asap, and if they agree, contact with the journal editor asap, present the editor your evidence, and request an expedited review by a different reviewer.

    Reply
  8. Let it go

    Just let it go. Present your boring papers at conferences and your best or more interesting ideas to trustworthy friends and colleagues.

    Reply
  9. j

    Interesting discussion. The advice to talk to an advisor seems right. However, what can the advisor do with this information? Can they get in touch with the editor? Or with the advisory board member? Not sure.

    Reply
  10. R1 assistant prof

    This sucks on both counts. I agree that discussing with a trusted advisor is a good idea. If nothing else, I’ve found it helpful to do so when something similar happened to me (in one case, the suspicion was confirmed, but I didn’t pursue the matter).
    But I also want to push against the grain of the conversation a bit, and suggest that, as things are described, there’s a very good chance that Professor X is not stealing your idea (again, not that this never happens as I had this at least once happen to me–confirmed).
    In my own case, I have way too many ideas I want to develop, and I discard many. I’m simply not looking to scoop for more. My sense from a number of friends is that they are in a similar position. (Not everyone is like this: I know some terrific philosophers who work on one idea at a time, but the idea is always amazing.) Sometimes it takes me a while before I post things on my website, even when I’ve already shared drafts of them in my seminars or given the papers as presentations. So I don’t think it is unlikely that Professor X is in a similar situation. That leaves open the possibilities that (a) it is a pure coincidence, or (b) that Prof X was indeed the reviewer, and the harshness of the review was on account of the fact that they thought you were not properly developing an idea they’ve already thought hard about (and, perhaps, expressive of fear that someone would publish before them). In most cases (b) would probably be wrong.
    I suppose how likely I would think (a) or (b) are over the author’s suggestion would depend on how original I thought their idea was (was it a natural move given trends in the lit, or more of a, wow, this is going to open a whole literature of its own), and this is another place where a trusted advisor might be able to help.
    And in answer to your second question, regardless of your verdict (even if it is ‘accept’) one should not cite unpublished drafts unless with permission of the authors unless it has been made publicly available (on archiv, philpapers, their website)–and sometimes that doesn’t suffice as authors explicitly say not to quote from that version without permission.

    Reply
  11. frustrated grad student

    Thanks a lot everyone for the advice and commiseration. I posted about this because I was mad, and I was looking for some validation that this was something to be mad about. After a couple days to sit on it, I don’t think it’s worth pursuing, both because I’m not 100% convinced my reviewer really was Philosopher X, and because I agree with R1 that it could have been that Philosopher X didn’t steal my idea even if they were my reviewer. Also, I thought of some ways of explaining the coincidence that are even less unfriendly to Philosopher X — maybe they’re friends with the reviewer, and the reviewer simply told them, ‘remember that idea you’ve been sitting on? Better get it out soon if you want credit for it.’ (They did coin the same terms as I did to describe the distinction, which would be a weird coincidence even given this possibility, but the choice of terminology is natural enough.) So, I don’t think I even really plan to hold a grudge against Philosopher X, although I’ll definitely be wary if we cross paths. I’ll just try to improve my paper and get it published ASAP, as ttprof advises.

    Reply
  12. Angry review explained?

    Isn’t it possible that Prof X presented the idea, and thought you were someone in the audience who stole the idea?

    Reply
  13. Not guilty as (hopefully never) charged

    I do think that you should talk to your advisor or to someone who would know the lay of the land better. I’m not sure there is much anyone can do — to the person who mentioned the APA, its not clear what they could do. I’m sure an ethics committee could say “don’t do that sort of thing” but really who doesn’t know that? They are not a licensing board and (rightly) schools are not bound to accept their claims about hiring, firing, and tenuring.
    I will say, these things can be complicated. I have absolutely never used another person’s idea (or at least not without clearly citing where they came from.) But I have been in a situation that could, I suppose, look like this to people who didn’t have the real information. (Here’s what happened. I was asked to review a paper. It was clear to me from the title of the paper that the person was working on something very similar to a paper that I had already written but had not sent anywhere, intending to check for typos/polish sentences when the semester ended. I did not want even a hint of concern that I was wrongly influenced, so I not only refused to review the paper, I refused to open the link to look at the paper to even see how similar it was (I was going off the title and the topic) and made it clear to the editor that I would not read the paper and would not review it, for precisely this reason. (So I don’t actually know how similar it was– I haven’t checked to see if it was published.) But the recognition that someone was working on this thing spurred me to send my paper off immediately. Someone COULD think that I was the reviewer for their paper (I’m a relatively straightforward choice for the topic). And someone COULD see that I published a paper on the same topic shortly thereafter. And it wouldn’t be a crazy inference to think there had been a connection. But they wouldn’t know that I had written the paper 7 months earlier and never read the other paper at all.

    Reply
  14. one more suggestion

    I know this feeling of OP vividly and viscously. My graduate years contained many feelings like that. (Not just being scooped. But also considering that Prof X has so little to gain from this and it means so much for your career.) So much so that I ended up making a career out of projects that no one else wants to write about. So I hear you OP, and the comment below is not out of cold-heartedness.
    If I am going to make one suggestion that isn’t directly related to OP’s questions, I would suggest not to try to figure out who wrote a very rude report on your paper. One, it could lead to a spiral like this. Two, it undermines anonymity which is supposed to be preserved even after a decision. Third, the report may actually not be as bad as it initially sounded to you (you may both be used to very different tones etc, especially considering grad students are used to very encouraging comments).
    As a sidenote, if you are willing to give the benefit of the doubt, and if you are otherwise trusting X, then maybe it is a good idea to send your draft to them for feedback in good faith. (If the interaction feels off to you, then run! or not, haha.)

    Reply
  15. philosopher

    I think the way to avoid this is to post all your papers on philpapers before submitting them to the gate keepers. That way if anyone takes an idea you can sue them or at least publicly disgrace them. I no longer submit blind for this reason.

    Reply

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