EEK!

what's up?!?! i just stumbled across your blog while googling mindlessly at work. gail told me that you were a famous poet now, but i had no idea. congratulations!!! i wish i were doing something creative, but alas...i'm an attorney. i used to love reading your stuff in the ariel....i can still remember some of the lines from my faves (with a look...lock...quietly combust scatter my ashes at your feet). you were so above college in college -- i always thought that was cool. i was way too earnest. i still remember your jesus weeps editorial about fairness and all that shiz. shoot me an email sometime....i'd love to hear more about how you're doing...

best,
matt

Hey, Matt Rich! Wow, voices from the past. I'll email. :)

I have to admit, I'm obsessed with this round of big publishing house plagiarism. Her comments in her defense are so lame--it's unbearable and entertaining at the same time.

What I find MOST unbearable is that the little cheat will most likely get a bookdeal to write aboout her experiences as a plagiarist. Or something terribly unfair.

I know that maybe, MAYBE, she has a side of the story but I have so little sympathy for plagiarisers. I had no sympathy for the Boston Globe writers who went down within months of each other (Mike Barnacle and that other chick) and I don't for this chick either. When I think about how I used to toss and turn and and thumb through obscure bluebook citation formats to cite PHRASES, I'm talking maybe two-words at most, out of cases and law review articles, my heart burns that these little cheats piss and moan and steal other people's crap.

I wrote a novel when I was seventeen. You may have read it: The Catcher in the Whole Wheat.

Anyone see The Squid and the Whale?
(Good movie, it might resonate with you literary types.)
Anyway, the 17 year old in the movie, whose parents are going through a hellacious divorce, "composes" a song that he performs at the school talent show.
Turns out to be Pink Floyd's "Hey You."
I think stuff like this happens all the time, with the huge exception that usually there is no book deal involved! The whole thing seems a bit odd...I wonder if there is more to it than just copy and paste. Didn't the editor/publisher notice? Or did *they* have something to do with it?
At the risk of sounding like Dear Abby, I hope the kid gets counseling.

"... you were so above college in college ..."

Matt, I think she's still like that. If it weren't so cute it'd be annoying.

- the employer

It's mostly incidental material that she copied, which is strange. Not sure of the extant of the plagarism, but from this, I don't think it's such a big deal. If she ripped off a plot or a character or some particularly good passages, that would be something else.

It's a very large amount of small plagiarisms. What irks me most about it is that it's very voicey stuff that she's ripped off. In my mind, that's worse than ripping off plot and character - I mean, how many YA books are essentially "awkward kid comes into own, learns lessons, navigates vicious social scene"?

I've worked with a lot of talented teenagers, and I've yet to meet a 17-year-old who's well enough developed as a writer to fully own their own writing style. They usually end up sounding like their latest favorite book ... and at that age, it's appropriate, and that's why you don't give them book deals.

Example:

Passage from McCafferty’s novel:

Bridget is my age and lives across the street. For the first twelve years of my life, these qualifications were all I needed in a best friend. But that was before Bridget’s braces came off and her boyfriend Burke got on, before Hope and I met in our seventh grade Honors classes.

--McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts (Three Rivers, 2001), pg. 7

Alleged infringing passage in Viswanathan’s novel:

Priscilla was my age and lived two blocks away. For the first fifteen years of my life, those were the only qualifications I needed in a best friend. We had bonded over our mutual fascination with the abacus in a playgroup for gifted kids. But that was before freshman year, when Priscilla’s glasses came off, and the first in a long string of boyfriends came on.

-- Viswanathan, How Opal Mehta…Got a Life (Little, Brown, 2006), pg. 14

Cil, yeah, I saw The Squid and the Whale. I was surprised when he got caught by the school.

heh
Yeah, well, perhaps the school authorities might have recognized Hey You from their youth? Dunno.
I knew I had heard it before, but did not recognize it being the Floyd. Or maybe another kid would have just squealed on him. That scene just felt so true to me; as you say, 17 year olds will tend so sound like their favorite book--or song.

I was surprised when nobody recognized it during the talent show and he won. Then I figured it was a metaphor for the divide between the adults and the kids in the movie. Or something. I guess after he got the check I figured he was home free, and his shame came in being called out by the grad school boarder.

What's funny to me about the snippets from the two books is that the only original sentence in the Viswanathan passage is a singularly unstylish sentence. I bet you could look at all the lifted passages and strike the lifted parts and get a pretty good sense for just how talented this young woman is.

Glad to hear Erin hasn't changed. In looking around the site, I see evidence of the snark factor that made her the stuff of legend at Bellarmine. I loved it, even when it was directed at me (I can say that now, thanks to my therapist)....

You know I kid because I love, Matt Rich!

I don't think her plagiarism becomes "not a big deal" just because it's sporadic or because she didn't lift entire characters and plot elements. I think very few people engage in wholesale stealing of an entire novel, article whatever. It's the petty theft here and there that just piles up over time (or the length of a book). I cited Mark Barnacle (from the BG) who stole phrases here and there over several years-and its the sum of his theft that came to define his "style"-said style being STOLEN and not developed by hiseth very own brain cells.

I can't speak to writing fiction but I know when I've had to write memos & briefs that I can't justify not citing an article or judgment because I'm just planning on stealing a paragraph or a couple of sentences here and there. I find legal writing torturous-think eye glazing over memos on limited partnerships and asset transfers blahdelblah. I'm sure whoever I'm citing spent a lot of time thinking up those two sentences because I know it takes me HOURS to swim through this stuff and even comprehend it to then write about it. It would be just as unfair if I stole those two sentences, which may be the heart of the opinion and have taken time to compose, than if I stole thing. It's still me lifting someone else's hard work.

I also don't particularly care if she's 17 years old. I'd like to think that a 17 year old that was capable of getting into Harvard knows what does and doesn't constitute stealing other people's work. After all, didn't Harvard try to justify giving 97% of its class As by claiming that they were ALL geniuses that deserves said marks? I'd like to think their baby geniuses could be trusted to understand theft of content.

In all the years that I've sat on my ass and not worked on papers that I should have been spending time on, I've NEVER, NEVER stolen someone's work and substituted it as my own. And any time my writing came even remotely close to an authority, I'd know it and feel that it was off or I was cutting it too close. So I'd either cite it or change it completely. Maybe she was under pressure to produce material by a certain date but she had the option to return the advance check than just steal someone else's work and I highly doubt her gut instinct didn't kick in to say "hey, I think this might be similar" or "hey, I swear this sounds exactly like that book I liked."

Aww shit, I clicked before I added the following.

and not developed by hiseth very own brain cells*

* See Super Eden, Pretty Much Every Single Post, 48 Super Eden L. Rev 309 (2006).

Har har.

she's 19 you idiot

Thanks for stopping by!

... and I'm guessing that the University of Wisconsin (Madison) doesn't give cheaters a pass just 'cause they're "19, you idiot." :)