The Wes Huff situation recalls a moment for me when, as a new PhD, I asked a senior colleague how they succeeded and gained their public platform. They said, don't chase applause, just do good work. I'm still grateful for that advice.
Drew N. Grumbles
YHWH Is There: Ezekiel’s Temple Vision as a Type
(Bought it now) Came to know about it through Jeff Taylor on X)
Reviews by: Iain M. Duguid, Westminster Theological Seminary
&
L. Michael Morales, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
We are indebted to Brotzman and Tully for providing a resource that does not avoid the complexities of the text but at the same time maintains the integrity of that text in terms of inspiration and authority.
Miles V. Van Pelt, Reformed Theological Seminary-- “Without a doubt, this is the best textbook for introducing students to the textual history of the Hebrew Bible.
Here’s a great example of why I think the plagiarism thing that we’ve seen on @WesleyLHuff is pretty ridiculous.
I can't find the paper below, but I'll go on the face of the picture and comparison:
- Alister E. McGrath (in a 2016 TEXTBOOK, which is not the type of source you're taught to cite) is summarizing the Cappadocian fathers.
- Huff (in a class in which he is forced to write a paper) cites different sources from 2006 and 2009 (which McGrath probably reviewed when looking at his 5th and 6th Edition textbooks from 2011 and 2016) to similarly summarize the Cappadocian fathers.
Why is McClellan (or the AI he used) finding so many similarities between Huff's summary and McGrath's summary? BECAUSE THEY'RE SUMMARIZING THE SAME UNDERLYING INFORMATION.
And is Huff stealing from McGrath as a source? No! THEY'RE BOTH STEALING FROM THE CAPPADOCIAN FATHERS, which is the actual source of the information.
This is a citation of AUTHORITY, not a citation of the source of an idea. This is an example of how citations operate differently in different context. Wes isn't "stealing an idea" he's playing the weird citation game in academia, providing a WELL-REGARDED SOURCE that agrees with his summary of the Cappadocian Fathers to prove that his summary of the Cappadocian Fathers is generally accepted in the weird club of academia.
That's the purpose of citing a source outside the writings of the Cappadocian fathers to make a point about the writings of the Cappadocian fathers.
So, to summarize, academia is weird, and the more I look into specifics of the accusation this, the less I am impressed.
@kennysilva I agree that intellectual honesty and proper attribution are essential, and plagiarism should never be taken lightly. At the same time, I believe we should distinguish between deliberate, habitual misappropriation and genuine mistakes or failures in academic practice.