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The Hysterical Woman’s Guide to Dealing with Plagiarism
Unless it’s a coincidence, so please don’t make a scene!
I read the article again, and I blink. As if closing and opening my eyes would somehow make it all go away. When I read it for the third time, it’s still there, no amount of blinking and refreshing makes it disappear.
I shake my head in disbelief, I am seeing my own main arguments tweaked and rephrased, I see how my original point has a spin on it, I see how the topic I thought to be kind of unusual is used again — by someone else.
Disappointment, disbelief, doubt — they rain over main me in rapid succession and I am saddened, enraged and confused.
Someone who is more established, better known and more appreciated than I am, took the same topic, made very similar points to my work. It’s not plagiarism, it’s not stealing. It’s a mess, that is messing with my head.
I don’t know what to do about it, and I am blaming myself for my inability to react to this properly. Because I am new here, because I am a nobody, and because I am a woman.
Various scenarios are racing through my head:
