Blamed for typos in thesis

Question

I am a graduate student (PhD) in a STEM program. A fellow lab mate of mine asked me to review a chapter (basically the background/history of their project) of their graduate thesis a couple months ago. It was during my finals, I had conference papers due, along with the pandemic shutting everything down, it was a crazy time. I informed this person I was really busy but I would try. They sent it to me (in pdf format) and I read through it and made some suggestions on content, ideas, and presentation. It was in rough shape, there was a lot of work to be done, but their main concern was if the content made sense and had good logic flow. I replied with my opinions. Fast forward to now, this person defended their thesis this week and passed.

Yesterday I received a very passive aggressive text message from this person that stated the following (mostly paraphrasing): "The only real critique I had on my thesis was that the chapter I sent you had typos. I went through this chapter again and found quite a few. In the future when someone asks you to review a chapter you need to carefully check and find typos because it's embarrassing to send a final thesis with a chapter filled with typos. Its disappointing when you rely on someone and they screw you I hope in the future you do a better job." The rest of the text chain did not go well.

Let me start off by admitting that I am able to see my fault in this. I could've (should've) done a more thorough job in editing. But my question is, is it really my responsibility to find typos? It's always been my view that you polish something as much as you can before sending it off to others. They sent it in a pdf which I can't edit (also no indication of spelling mistakes, and its so easy to gloss over mistakes), and I informed them I was super busy, both excuses, but still a little relevant. I also was dumbfounded that they didn't do a single edit after mine. I feel ultimately it is their graduate thesis and their responsibility for its contents. I feel I can't be blamed for this person literally not pressing the spell check button.

In hindsight I should've been more assertive with this person by saying I didn't have enough time to fully give myself to editing. This is a lesson I've learned. They are now removing me from their acknowledgements (I couldn't care less), but what I do care about are the things they are telling other people about me (ie I screwed them, I'm lazy, etc). I replied to their texts expressing my view that the typos are not my fault, and it quickly turned into a blow out where I just ended up apologizing and asking not to discuss it further.

What could I have done better? What should I do now? Am i justified in my opinions?

Answer 1

You say at the top that "but their main concern was if the content made sense and had good logic flow". If they had asked to point out typos, you would have probably asked for an editable copy as well, correct? You perhaps should have mentioned that there were still a lot of typos that needed to be cleaned up, but it's also understandable to think that their word processor would be all red because of them, so that was something they would clean up.

This isn't really work related, but more interpersonal. But often, when someone is told they did something wrong, they try to find a way to put the blame elsewhere. This time, he was pushing it on you, rather than taking responsibility for it himself. That's not yours to fix. Nor to take any of the blame for. You were asked to do a specific task, you did it, and unless you were being paid to do a job and that part of the statement of work, you did what was appropriate.

Answer 2

I will assume you did this for free as a favor and have no other commitments to this person.

If someone sends you a rude email that has no time limit, just ignore it for a day or two.

That gives the writer time to think about it. Especially if you otherwise reply very fast, this is enough of a deviation from the norm, to make them think about what they sent. Maybe they recognize their mistake and apologize. Who knows what their day has been like, everybody deserves a chance to recover from mistakes made in stressful situations.

If they don't, either don't reply at all, or write something non-commital like

Duly noted, I will take that under consideration.

That is the polite version of saying "go to hell". Because that is what they deserve. Don't spend any more time on people who do not value your free labor.

Answer 3

Rather a belated answer, but I'll add my voice as a professional editor for several academic/technical publishers. Yes, your colleague's expectations were quite unreasonable and they are responsible for the typos in the final version.

Just about every publisher I've worked for makes for a distinction between editing for clarity/flow and editing for typos. These are separate tasks, often performed separately and by separate people. Occasionally I do get tasked with doing both those jobs at once, but then I get paid for both those activities.

There are a couple of reasons for this separation of tasks:

• Any change to the content (e.g. tweaking for flow and clarity) has the potential to introduce new typos. Therefore, it is a waste of time to do typo-checking before finalising those other stages; you'll just need to do it over again.

• Cognitively speaking, these are two quite different tasks. I can focus on whether the author is expressing their ideas clearly, or I can focus on the spelling etc., but if I try to do both at once then one is likely to suffer.

In the end, the norm is that the author who gets their name on the publication takes ultimate responsibility for its quality. In a situation like this, they have more or less final say over the final content. Even if you notice an error and point it out to them, it's up to them whether they choose to fix it, so the editor cannot bear final responsibility.

Many authors choose to acknowledge their editors in forewords etc. but you'll normally see that accompanied by a statement to the effect of "any remaining errors are my own responsibility". Your colleague could take a lesson from that.

If they chose to get it done for free rather than going to a professional editorial service, and if they didn't clarify expectations about exactly what you were supposed to be doing for them, and if they then printed it without giving it a look over themselves, that is very much a Them Problem.

Answer 4

It would have been appropriate to say "I noticed some typos (abov, undder, throufh among others). You didn't ask for a full proofreading, and I didn't have time to do one, so I've left those and focused on content. I presume you will do a full spilling chuck beef or scenting this to the committee."

Of course they shouldn't have been relying on you to do work you didn't sign up for. But reminding them that this remained to be fine would have been a good idea.

Having said that, anyone who doesn't do a final typo check (preferably with multiple readers) before submitting has only themselves to blame. It's their document, it's their responsibility.

Answer 5

If you want to have a document checked for typography, you can hire a professional who (for good money) will do exactly that.

To this “colleague” I’d say that his thesis is ultimately his responsibility. If he found these typos after delivering his thesis he could have found them before delivering just as easily. You can always offer to refund him half his money - assuming he didn’t pay you anything.

Answer 6

It is clear that they are going out of their way to be rude to you, and that they have very little justification for doing so. They also removed you from the acknowledgements, which is an (albeit weak) attempt to damage your professional credibility.

In those circumstances you have three options:

1. Be a better person. This is trickier than it sounds, and not always without risk, but is usually the best option.
2. Get revenge now.
3. Get revenge in the future.

The main problem with the revenge option is that it is usually very hard to find a response which is both proportionate and impactful. Revenge also has quite a bit of potential to backfire.

In this case a proportionate response might be to submit a complaint that you have been wrongfully removed from the acknowledgements.... but it isn't clear (to me) whether such a complaint would be considered appropriate (and thus impactful) by your supervisor or institution. Submitting an inappropriate complaint would be more likely to damage your career than your colleagues.

Answer 7

Bottom Line

In the absence of clearly communicated expectations, when somebody asks you to review something, it's strange for you to assume that copyediting was off the table if you didn't say so. You were busy and life is chaotic, which is fair, but those are just excuses.

On the other side of the coin, it was a huge mistake for this person to submit their work having only had one person review any section of it. Ultimately, of course, people are responsible for their own work.

What could I have done better?

If you only had time to review for content and not copyedit, you should have said so. Really, that's all there is to it.

What should I do now?

Off topic for this stack, as it's an interpersonal question now. Seems like you're not friends with this person any more, so what to do now depends mostly on how you feel about that. You've already apparently apologized, so that's that.

I will say that you shouldn't feel like you have to litigate this with common friends, nor should you assume they'll think less of you. If it comes up I'd say "we had a miscommunication" and leave it at that.

Am i justified in my opinions?

That opinion being that you've done nothing wrong? No. As far as I can tell, somebody asked you to do something (review written material to get it ready for submission) you agreed to do it, and you didn't do it. Whatever your opinion about what they "should" have provided you with if expecting certain types of assistance, it doesn't appear that any of that was ever discussed.

Setting aside how stupid it is to submit work under your own name without doing a final review of it yourself, it appears based on your description that you did let this person down.

Answer 8

There are several clues as to why this person behaved in the way he/she did. First I notice you said it was a very chaotic time and you did not have any time to do X, Y, and Z. So you were very busy. Yet, it sounds like this thesis is very important and you asked someone to review it.

In my opinion, this person has a right to be upset. You made it well known ahead of time that you do not value his/her opinion because you said it was a very busy time. On top of that, the person in reverse also sent you a copy of their thesis that you cannot edit. You also claimed that you were very busy and did not really have time to do much of anything. You can absolutely modify a pdf with notes and annotations.

I'm not sure, but in the future I recommend simply putting time aside for something critical, especially if you have prior obligations. For example, if someone invites you to a dinner, tell them, "Sorry, I have to stay home and proof read my thesis and I have a peer review of another person." Or whatever other functions that may come up. Since you agreed to review his/her thesis, and on top of that, he agreed to set time aside to review yours, that would mean you need to set time aside and honor this commitment.

Otherwise break it off ASAP. Tell the other party you're sorry but you can't review his/her paper and in vice versa, you are not expecting them to review yours.