Getting caught plagiarizing is one of the worst things that can happen to a writer, and, depending on when it happens, it can lead to severe academic sanctions or the loss of a job. If a writer gets caught plagiarizing, the repercussions are often so terrible that if they're able to continue writing, they are extremely careful to never plagiarize again.

Not so with writer Jumi Bello, who recently appeared on the literature website lithub with an essay titled "I Plagiarized Parts of My Debut Novel. Here's Why" only to have her essay deleted because that too was plagiarized.

would be very interested to hear lithub's justification for pulling this essay! https://t.co/CWerjeAKn3 pic.twitter.com/koPCHgHCsC

— bradley babendir (@therealbradbabs) May 9, 2022

Bello's novel The Leaving was a highly anticipated book slated for a July 12th release, but it was pulled by her publisher Riverhead after they learned sections had been plagiarized. Bello's essay initially appeared to be a mea culpa of sorts and an explanation. Bello dove into the history of plagiarism and explained that the pressures of a deadline caused her to lift passages of her novel from other sources. Whatever content was in the essay was swiftly overshadowed by the fact that it was also plagiarized.

Here's one of the key passages that got the essay deleted (emphasis added):

Plagiarism has been with us since the birth of language and art. For as long as there have been words to be read, there has been someone there copying the passages. It goes as far back as 8 AD with the poet Martial who caught another poet Fidentinus reciting his work. He called Fidentinus a plagiarus, meaning a “kidnapper.”

And here's an article from a 2011 essay in Plagiarism Today with the stolen text:

Plagiarism, the act of taking another’s work and passing it off as your own, has almost certainly been with us since the dawn of artwork and written language. For as long as there has been art and artists, there have been people who have put their name to it incorrectly. But while the act of plagiarism is as old as time, the word “plagiarism” is not. The etymology of the word plagiarism is an interesting one and its history actually dates back to the first century AD and involves a Roman poet and his literary “kidnappers” who became the subject of a literary beating.

The passage also appears on Turnitin.com, the website students use to make sure their essays are not plagiarized.

plagiarizing from turnitin……you gotta hand it to her. pic.twitter.com/0EJJf8018Y

— bradley babendir (@therealbradbabs) May 9, 2022

Bello and Lithub have not given any comments yet about why the piece was deleted, but if there's a lesson to be learned from this debacle, one that we are surely the first in a witty conclusion to a news blurb, it's that plagiarism has been with us since the birth of language and art, and for as long as there have been words to be read, there has been someone there copying the passages.