Joy, for it is Saturday. Fingers crossed that my boys play well tomorrow 
First the way cool news: Book three in a series I’ve been editing has just been released, and it’s on the NY Times bestsellers list! How cool is that?
Second: Reporting of the Cassie Edwards plagiarism “incident” is gaining steam; there’s an article about it in The New York Times.
I would like to see this turn into the catalyst for discussion among readers of what plagiarism is and why it’s wrong. Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen, many readers are choosing instead to attack Nora Roberts for speaking out, saying that since she’s not involved in this she should have kept her mouth shut.
Sidebar: Quite frankly this astonishes me, because Nora Roberts has herself been a victim of plagiarism (Google Nora Roberts Janet Dailey plagiarism if you’re not familiar with this). Cassie Edwards’s publisher had initially issued a statement brushing off the plagiarism claims; it was not until Nora Roberts went public that the publisher backed off and announced it was going to review all books by Edwards. Why is this important? Because Edwards and Roberts have the same publisher, and you can’t have it both ways: it can’t be plagiarism when someone steals from your author, but fair use when your author steals from someone else.
But yes, I think it would be wonderful if more readers were aware of what plagiarism is and why it’s wrong. So many readers seem to think it’s perfectly okay to quote nonfiction sources verbatim without attribution because “it’s just saying a fact.” The irony here is that while most of these people seem to think that using an academic source without attribution in a work of fiction is fine, academia is the setting where plagiarism is perhaps the worst possible sin.
Not to mention Jessica Casavant turning one of NR’s stories into lesbian romance by simply changing names & gender & keeping the rest of the book almost word for word…
Plagiarism sucks…
I can’t understand how anyone would want praise for something they didn’t write… what’s the point?? It’s not your work that people like it’s whoever you stole it from. Makes no sense to me, if someone likes something I wrote then I want it to be something I wrote
There’ve been several lesfic writers who have plagiarized, only they were hushed up. It’s extremely frustrating. I’ve never understood how people can get any satisfaction out of being praised as the result of cheating.
So many readers seem to think it’s perfectly okay to quote nonfiction sources verbatim without attribution because “it’s just saying a fact.”
I went to 5 different high schools and in each one we were taught that you could not quote a nonfiction source without proper credits and quotation marks when it was verbatim. I’m sure that Michigan high schools aren’t the only ones that teach that, so I don’t see how anyone who graduated highschool in the US (probably other countries as well) can get away with claiming they didn’t know any better.
I have numerous friends who are teachers, from grade school through high school through university, and the Internet has changed everything. One friend who teaches English comp says that despite lectures and handouts and honor codes, she catches her students plagiarizing. It makes sense, though; for a generation raised on downloading music and television programs, why should words be any different?
But a 71-year-old woman with more than 100 published novels should bloody well know better.
You know, earlier I posted a comment to your journal about myself and two other people, Martha and… I can’t remember his name. I’m sure I would if I went through my yearbooks. I think it was Matt, the son of my junior high school counselor. Matt Iskra. I think. The three of us pulled one on our Mensa-IQ-level high school humanities teacher. (At least Martha and I and a boy.)
Anyway…
I really don’t like liars, cheats, and people who search my stuff. In college, even after I got Martha, who had lied to me and searched my stuff and was really filthy and disrespectful, special okays for some of her unauthorized class substitutions (she didn’t tell me until we were roomies and practically not speaking that she didn’t make it into the Honor’s College, so was taking some completely irrelevant classes… I figured out how she could make it work and was so stupid so as to tell her how to do it…) Well, she got busted in one of the classes she shouldn’t have been in in the first place — for plagiarizing. And the instructor asked me some pointed questions (I didn’t turn her in, I merely said, “Yes, she has that book. Yes, she’s read the entire series from what I can tell, because I’ve seen them all sitting around the room all semester long.” I was stupid enough to even defend her and say something like, once I was told what was up and what she’d done, “Y’know, she talked a bit about this idea like it was her own, so I’m not sure if she knew she plagiarized… I haven’t read the books nor her bit, so I can’t say for sure anything.”
Jeepers, if that instructor caught me these days, I’d likely have crucified Martha. Which I should’ve done then, but I was a lot nicer then.
The irony here is that Martha is now a teacher or some such at Grand Rapids Community College in Grand Rapids Michigan. Or at least that’s what I think she’s doing. She was truly a wannabe rebel without an identity of her own.
Now, I frequently write things for others — like speechwriters do all the time. TV writers do it, too. Everyone does it. But I also posted about the one time a coworker really tried to pass off my writing as her own — and I had to correct her in page proofs yet again. That one time is the only time that sort of thing has really upset me. (Although there’s at least one book out there that makes me cringe.)
I agree with Stacia — all the proof shows it’s not research, it’s plagiarism. By someone who ought to know better. But apparently she’s made her career on such.
BTW: I’d think the first clue to lesfic writers who are simply retypers is their posts.
Plagiarising is addictive?
The pressure of keeping up that kind of output needs some resource…
Evecho
Re: Plagiarising is addictive?
It’s just so disheartening. The latest is that she apparently plagiarized from a Pulitzer-prize-winning novel, and that makes all claims of “research” vanish into the ether. Not that using works of nonfiction as source material excuses or exempts her from responsibility, but the minute you start quoting from a work of fiction, all claims that you didn’t realize it was plagiarism vanish.
And as an editor, I can’t help but wonder if I would have queried any of her work. We approach our work thinking that the work is original, and my experiences with approaching publishers about instances of plagiarism have not been good.
Re: Plagiarising is addictive?
No one likes a shit-stirrer, do they? But if its the right thing to do … I’ve always believed professional ethics are important.
Evecho
Re: Plagiarising is addictive?
Indeed.
I’m curious to see what happens with this. And I’m a bit amazed at the absence of discussion about it on the lesfic lists. Sigh.
Re: Plagiarising is addictive?
Because it would bring up the scandal-that-shall-not-be-named
E
Re: Plagiarising is addictive?
Which one? Off the top of my head, I can think of five!
Re: Plagiarising is addictive?
Well, me not being in the know, I only know of one. But any scandal involving plagiarism is bad.
E