Harvard undergrad novelist internalized a novel

[Epic Fail]

Originally posted by: AStar617

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: AStar617
Here is how she got the deal.

And here is the rather long list of her plagiarisms that have been noted.

:roll::thumbsdown:

Why, why, why would she not change the 170?! On one hand that is clear evidence that it was intentional, on the other hand it's clear evidence that it was not intentional because she can't be that stupid! Not saying it was coincidental, just possibly unconscious.

Never underestimate the potential for human stupidity. I hope she gets everything she deserves, professionally and scholastically, for trying to get away with this. :|

She can try asking for an MBA from Harvard business school, look at all the buzz surround ing her first book. Big royalities from the novel if she doesn't get bankrupted from the lawsuits.

 

[simms]

Originally posted by: AStar617

Originally posted by: simms
Those sentences aren't even crucial to the story. I don't know, considering that there are probably millions of other words in the book, 99.999% is original...

Actually, the overall premise of the book, as well as characters and plot points, apparently bear similarity as well.

After reading an article or two my perspectives have changed.

I think her parents would be disgraced with her.

:|

 

[ModerateRepZero]

crimson has another article on the controversy, published today...doesn't look good for the soph.

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513041">Publisher Rejects Soph?s Apology
?Nothing less than an act of literary identity theft,? says McCafferty?s publisher</a>

 

[respiras]

wow.

 

[gigapet]

I certainly don't recall where I read or heard every single phrase or grou8ping of words I've learned and used in my life. I doubt it was intentional.

 

[FoBoT]

so now "internalization" is an excuse for plagiarism?

does that stand up in court?


sorry judge, i didn't really plagiarize it, i just "internalized" it :roll:

 

[MaxDepth]

Burn the witch!

Oops. I need to put it in a 21st century context.

Put her on Oprah!



Put it this way, she clearly plagerized point, style, characters, and theme from two books. Harvard prides itself on having unique, disciplined individuals in the realm of prose. They live and breath the written word. So if a person used false pretenses to gain admittance or as a student broke the code of ethics, then that student should be expelled and perhaps be asked to pay back any gifts or scholarships. There should be no question.

Harvard could say that by signing the code of ethics as a new student, she was not truthful in signing it. Until she was caught, she fully intended to keep her plagerism a secret.

As the owner of the affected book, I would sue for the $500K and then deal directly wit Hollywood on the movie deal. Especially since they could be sued for prior art.

I don't blame the publishing company but they could have saved themselves a lot of grief if they had only researched the manuscript more carefully. They would have seen the similarities just by reading the synopsis on Amazon.com or bn.com. :roll:

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Kelvrick
Thats really iffy in my opinion, although if I was in charge, I probably wouldn't, but then I also need to read the rest of both novels.

That, and

Harvard undergrad Kaavya Viswanathan was getting paid 500,000 to write two novels, but turned out she plagiarized parts of her first novel. Should Harvard expel her?

made it sound like she used stuff from one of her own novels.

Which is it?

She plagarized another author's work.

so if i wrote "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" and someone else wrote a book that said "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" thats plagiarism?

maybe i don't get it but i don't see how something thats pretty much common knowledge or commonly used or thought of can be plagiarized.
how many times have we heard on this forum alone that if someone is ugly they are dumb and vice versa?

also, i thought plagiarism was word for word copying. she changed stuff around.

i think its a load of bull.

 

[MaxDepth]

Originally posted by: pontifex
so if i wrote "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" and someone else wrote a book that said "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" thats plagiarism?

maybe i don't get it but i don't see how something thats pretty much common knowledge or commonly used or thought of can be plagiarized.
how many times have we heard on this forum alone that if someone is ugly they are dumb and vice versa?

also, i thought plagiarism was word for word copying. she changed stuff around.

i think its a load of bull.

Plagiarism is by thought and deed. It does not have to be word for word. If you wrote a book called The blowing trees and I worte a book four years after and called it Summer of the Blowing trees and then went on to describe these trees in the exact same timeframe (our senior year of high school) and in the same state or area,, you'd be miffed. Especially since I varied your words just enough to get half a mill and a movie deal out of basically your work. Yeah, I'd think you would be pissed too.

I was told in in my Liberal Arts studies that you could take the bible and the collected works of Shakespeare and pull out a single movie script each year for the next 125 years. Yes, you can take license of a previous work and modify it enough that it stands on its own as a piece of art. The Shakespearian play, Taming of the Shrew, was modified and rewritten so that only the main theme still existed for a movie years ago. The movie was called "Ten things I hate about you." Yes, the critics spotted the theme and the movie producers even said they took the theme, but it is not a plagerized version of the play.

 

[MaxFusion16]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Kelvrick
Thats really iffy in my opinion, although if I was in charge, I probably wouldn't, but then I also need to read the rest of both novels.

That, and

Harvard undergrad Kaavya Viswanathan was getting paid 500,000 to write two novels, but turned out she plagiarized parts of her first novel. Should Harvard expel her?

made it sound like she used stuff from one of her own novels.

Which is it?

She plagarized another author's work.

so if i wrote "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" and someone else wrote a book that said "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" thats plagiarism?

maybe i don't get it but i don't see how something thats pretty much common knowledge or commonly used or thought of can be plagiarized.
how many times have we heard on this forum alone that if someone is ugly they are dumb and vice versa?

also, i thought plagiarism was word for word copying. she changed stuff around.

i think its a load of bull.

wow, you must be in high shool.

plagiarism is more than just copying words, it's the theft of ideas and opinions and disguising them as one's own.

either inject your own thoughts or give proper credit.

paraphrasing is still plagiarism.

 

[mwtgg]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Kelvrick
Thats really iffy in my opinion, although if I was in charge, I probably wouldn't, but then I also need to read the rest of both novels.

That, and

Harvard undergrad Kaavya Viswanathan was getting paid 500,000 to write two novels, but turned out she plagiarized parts of her first novel. Should Harvard expel her?

made it sound like she used stuff from one of her own novels.

Which is it?

She plagarized another author's work.

so if i wrote "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" and someone else wrote a book that said "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" thats plagiarism?

maybe i don't get it but i don't see how something thats pretty much common knowledge or commonly used or thought of can be plagiarized.
how many times have we heard on this forum alone that if someone is ugly they are dumb and vice versa?

also, i thought plagiarism was word for word copying. she changed stuff around.

i think its a load of bull.

It's not necessarily "word for word". She stole not only most of the words and most importantly the ideas. Stop trying to make excuses for this dumbass.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: pontifex

so if i wrote "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" and someone else wrote a book that said "the trees were blowing in the summer wind" thats plagiarism?

maybe i don't get it but i don't see how something thats pretty much common knowledge or commonly used or thought of can be plagiarized.
how many times have we heard on this forum alone that if someone is ugly they are dumb and vice versa?

also, i thought plagiarism was word for word copying. she changed stuff around.

i think its a load of bull.

If you found one or two phrases that were similar in a couple different books, that would be nothing. But they found a bunch of phrases and sentences that were VERY similar or identical in ONE other book. And no, plagiarism does not have to be word for word. If you used facts from a source in a research paper but used entirely different wordings, you still have to cite the source or it's plagiarism.

Example from the front page of Wikipedia today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Hartung

Clinton Clarence "Clint" Hartung (born August 10, 1922 in Hondo, Texas) was an American baseball pitcher-outfielder with the New York Giants, whose name has become associated with promising rookies who have undistinguished careers. His pro nicknames were The Hondo Hurricane and (presumably later) Floppy.

Originally signed for the Minneapolis Millers, Hartung played for the Eau Claire Bears of the Northern League for two months in 1942, hitting .358 and winning 3 games as a pitcher. He was then drafted into the U.S. Army where he spent the duration of the war, playing on military teams, often against other drafted pros.

If I wrote in my paper "Clinton Hartung was a baseball player who played for the Minneapolis Millers," I'd have to cite wikipedia. I believe there are exceptions for things that can be found in so many sources that they are considered common knowledge, and that would almost certainly apply in this case, but that's neither here nor there. Plagiarism does not have to be direct copying.

Now, with a novel it's a little different because you don't cite OR use sources. It's fiction, all from your head. There have to be some remarkable similarities for a work of fiction to be plagiarized, and in this case the similarities are pretty remarkable.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Viswanathan said in a statement on Monday that the phrasing similarities ?were completely unintentional and unconscious.?

That's such BS. As others have stated, if you're going to cheat, at least change specific numbers used in the original book. I could understand about small common numbers, but when the original source states "170 specialty shops" and the plagarized work says "170 specialty shops", then it's pretty obvious. :roll:

 

[AZGamer]

Mugs-

And if you cited Wikipedia, plagiarism would be the least of your problems

 

[dxkj]

my question is, in thousands of lines in a novel, why even bother to plagarize those 10 20 or even 50 lines? It just isnt neccessary

 

[Babbles]

Part of me says "yes" she should be expelled, but another part of me thinks that there is so little originality left in many art-forms, I can see how many topics really can be just a coincidence. I read something that this student's book somewhat paralleled her own life, and as such why should she be punished for loosely basing a book on her own life? Yeah, that McCaffey (sp?) person wrote a book that was clearly an inspiration for this student, however does that initial author not have a monopoly on the concept of a high school girl that studied so much she lost a social life?

 

[AStar617]

Originally posted by: ModerateRepZero
crimson has another article on the controversy, published today...doesn't look good for the soph.

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513041">Publisher Rejects Soph?s Apology
?Nothing less than an act of literary identity theft,? says McCafferty?s publisher</a>

Viswanathan said in a statement on Monday that the phrasing similarities ?were completely unintentional and unconscious.?

But Steve Ross, the senior vice president and publisher of Crown Publishers and Three Rivers Press?two subsidiaries of Random House?characterized Viswanathan?s statement as ?deeply troubling and disingenuous.?

?This extensive taking from Ms. McCafferty?s books is nothing less than an act of literary identity theft,? Ross said yesterday. ?Based on the scope and character of the similarities, it is inconceivable that this was a display of youthful innocence or an unconscious or unintentional act.?

McCafferty?s agent, Joanna Pulcini, said that she has found 45 passages in ?Opal Mehta? that are ?strikingly similar? to parts of McCafferty?s two books.

:|

As someone who has experienced firsthand the difficulties in getting published, I have absolutely zero pity for her. :thumbsdown:

I've even managed to dig up her MySpace page in case anyone wants to have fun with that.

 

[AStar617]

Originally posted by: Babbles
Part of me says "yes" she should be expelled, but another part of me thinks that there is so little originality left in many art-forms, I can see how many topics really can be just a coincidence. I read something that this student's book somewhat paralleled her own life, and as such why should she be punished for loosely basing a book on her own life? Yeah, that McCaffey (sp?) person wrote a book that was clearly an inspiration for this student, however does that initial author not have a monopoly on the concept of a high school girl that studied so much she lost a social life?

I would have agreed with you if we were talking about the basic premise of the book. But exact wording of sentences is inexcuseable, IMO. There are stolen italicizations that are exactly the same, for goodness' sake.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: AZGamer
Mugs-

And if you cited Wikipedia, plagiarism would be the least of your problems

Yes I know, it was just the first example that popped into my head that was easily accessible. As a computer science major I rarely had to write papers in college. SUCKERS!

 

[AStar617]

As an update, the publisher has pulled all the copies from stores (naturally making eBay prices absurd), and the girl is on self-imposed leave from Harvard, back home in NJ. I hear she also went on "Today" or "Good Morning America" (whichever has Katie Couric) in a half-assed attempt to explain herself. Reportedly, after thanking Couric for the opportunity to tell her side of the story, Couric replied that she didn't really succeed in explaining anything. :laugh:

Every Harvard student I know says the student body is generally glad she's in hot water. I'm sure jealousy plays into it, but she did have this all coming to her.

 

[jds2006]

Originally posted by: AStar617
As an update, the publisher has pulled all the copies from stores (naturally making eBay prices absurd), and the girl is on self-imposed leave from Harvard, back home in NJ. I hear she also went on "Today" or "Good Morning America" (whichever has Katie Couric) in a half-assed attempt to explain herself. Reportedly, after thanking Couric for the opportunity to tell her side of the story, Couric replied that she didn't really succeed in explaining anything. :laugh:

Every Harvard student I know says the student body is generally glad she's in hot water. I'm sure jealousy plays into it, but she did have this all coming to her.

I wonder if I can download the morning talk show she was on.

 

[AStar617]

Originally posted by: jds2006

Originally posted by: AStar617
As an update, the publisher has pulled all the copies from stores (naturally making eBay prices absurd), and the girl is on self-imposed leave from Harvard, back home in NJ. I hear she also went on "Today" or "Good Morning America" (whichever has Katie Couric) in a half-assed attempt to explain herself. Reportedly, after thanking Couric for the opportunity to tell her side of the story, Couric replied that she didn't really succeed in explaining anything. :laugh:

Every Harvard student I know says the student body is generally glad she's in hot water. I'm sure jealousy plays into it, but she did have this all coming to her.

I wonder if I can download the morning talk show she was on.

Haven't found it yet, but here's a pretty good commentary.

Usually "owned" and "Katie Couric" don't pop up in my same thoughts, but there ya go.

 

[isekii]

She got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
I know others cheat... but Indians from my university are infamous for having cheating circles etc...

 

[eflat]

Why would she be expelled? What does this have to do with her schoolwork?

 

[AStar617]

Originally posted by: CitizenDoug
Why would she be expelled? What does this have to do with her schoolwork?

I'm pretty sure Harvard has made a statement that she won't be expelled because it didn't involve schoolwork. However, one of the Crimson articles cited precedent of at least one prospective applicant being turned away when it was discovered that they had plagiarized articles for their local newspaper.