Apr

26

Young Author Plagiarist

April 26, 2006 | |

I could not believe something like this happened. And I thought Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Trilogy had done enough copying the plotline of LOTR and Star Wars now someone has lift not only plot BUT ALSO LINES AND CHARACTERS. Warning: Never trust young American authors!! Especially somebody under the age of 20.


Harvard Novelist Says Copying Was Unintentional by Dinitia Smith of New York Times writes, "

Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard
sophomore accused of plagiarizing parts of her recently published
chick-lit novel, acknowledged yesterday that she had borrowed language
from another writer’s books, but called the copying "unintentional and
unconscious."

In her e-mail message, Ms. Viswanathan said that "the central stories
of my book and hers are completely different." But Ms. McCafferty’s
books, published by Crown, a division of Random House, are, like Ms.
Viswanathan’s, about a young woman from New Jersey trying to get into
an Ivy League college — in her case, Columbia.
(Ms. Viswanathan’s character has her sights set on Harvard.) Like the
heroine of "Opal," Ms. McCafferty’s character, Jessica Darling, visits
the campus, strives to earn good grades to get in and makes a
triumphant high school graduation speech.

And it gets worse. My jaw literally dropped when I read the following sentences:

And the borrowings may be more extensive than have previously been
reported. The Crimson cited 13 instances in which Ms. Viswanathan’s
book closely paralleled Ms. McCafferty’s work. But there are at least
29 passages that are strikingly similar.

At one point in "Sloppy Firsts," Ms. McCafferty’s heroine unexpectedly encounters her love interest. Ms. McCafferty writes:

"Though
I used to see him sometimes at Hope’s house, Marcus and I had never,
ever acknowledged each other’s existence before. So I froze, not
knowing whether I should (a) laugh, (b) say something, or (c) ignore
him and keep on walking. I chose a brilliant combo of (a) and (b).

" ‘Uh, yeah. Ha. Ha. Ha.’

"I turned around and saw that Marcus was smiling at me."

Similarly,
Ms. Viswanathan’s heroine, Opal, bumps into her love interest, and the
two of them spy on one of the school’s popular girls.

Ms.
Viswanathan writes: "Though I had been to school with him for the last
three years, Sean Whalen and I had never acknowledged each other’s
existence before. I froze, unsure of (a) what he was talking about, or
(b) what I was supposed to do about it. I stared at him.

" ‘Flatirons,’ he said. ‘At least seven flatirons for that hair.’

"
‘Ha, yeah. Uh, ha. Ha.’ I looked at the floor and managed a pathetic
combination of laughter and monosyllables, then remembered that the
object of our mockery was his former best friend.

"I looked up and saw that Sean was grinning."

OMG! WTF?! Ms. Viswanasomething deserves to be burned at the stake for this. Is that so called copying ""unintentional and
unconscious."????????? HELLO!!! Are they blind or something??? The copied sentences ARE REALLY GLARINGLY OBVIOUS!! And they still call that unintentional and unconscious?  As if that wasn’t enough, Ms. Walsh,Ms. Viswana-whatever said,"Knowing what a fine person Kaavya is, I
believe any similarities were unintentional. Teenagers tend to adopt
each other’s language."

Teenagers who are lucky (or stupid) enough to have a published book should know the responsibilities regarding plagiarism. Has anybody heard of the word copyright all rights reserved?

(Note: I will post an abridged version of this post in my ksyu wordpress blog)

 

 


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