The Latest Plagiarism Allegations

mollyluna said:

At least she's reading. You've obviously missed the posts about MY mother... Give her a book, she uses it as a door stop.

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Oh I come by my love of reading honestly. Both my parents love to read. They spend more money on NEW books each year than some small libraries.

Susan G.

Signet appear to have changed their minds about the possibility of Ms Edwards having done something wrong.

It's a Good Thing.

girlyswot said:

Signet appear to have changed their minds about the possibility of Ms Edwards having done something wrong.

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Must've been Nora's statement that prodded them.

AnneMarble said:

There's one poster who accused Nora Roberts of being a "snitch" and said she must have made these statements to "get her competition out of the way."

Her what?!


On what planet is Cassie Edwards Nora's competition? Maybe in the 1980s, when Nora was new and wasn't a best-seller yet? Luckily, other posters are trying to set her straight on the concept of why Nora Roberts (let alone any writer) might have an opinion about plagiarism, and why a reporter might actually want to ask her to share her opinion. I don't think she's gonna listen, though.

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On one of the groups I belong to there was a poster who said something about Nora and the Janet Dailey thing. She said Nora must have had sour grapes and that she had previously tried to discredit the great Janet Dailey (something to that effect). Fortunately she was quickly corrected about her stupidty and told no, hon, Janet DID steal from Nora. She admitted it. People amaze me.

AnneMarble said:

Luckily, other posters are trying to set her straight on the concept of why Nora Roberts (let alone any writer) might have an opinion about plagiarism, and why a reporter might actually want to ask her to share her opinion. I don't think she's gonna listen, though.

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Yeah, I stupidly jumped in there myself. I'm a little late to the game on the Amazon thread, and her attitude just amazes me.

mollyluna said:

Is Signet a division of Penguin?

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Yes.

AnneMarble said:

. . . In the article, she admitted that "she sometimes 'takes' her material 'from reference books' and then says that she didn't know she was supposed to credit her sources . . .

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Wait, I'm sorry, but we learned in the fifth grade (that would be 1967 for me) that we had to both quote and credit all sources. This disdain for non-fiction infuriates me, I don't give a shit if it's about ferrets or anything else.

nerdsRus said:

Wait, I'm sorry, but we learned in the fifth grade (that would be 1967 for me) that we had to both quote and credit all sources. This disdain for non-fiction infuriates me, I don't give a shit if it's about ferrets or anything else.

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I absolutely agree with you. I have read other writers since this broke about Edwards. They are whining about how are they supposed to do historical research and opining that Edwards is being picked on and there are only so many ways you can describe historical events so what is a fiction writer to do? (Um, maybe not steal someone's hard researched work verbatim comes to mind) It is mind boggling to me that there are writers out there incapable apparently of realizing stealing someone's words in non-fiction is wrong. Geez

mollyluna said:

Okay, now I'm confused. I thought the other statement came from Penguin because I was surprised it was the same publisher as Nora. Is Signet a division of Penguin?

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Penguin has many imprints and divisions. They are pretty big.

I have no sympathy for the whiners.

And it makes me wonder what the hell is being taught. In grade school (GRADE SCHOOL !) you either quoted the piece of text and footnoted it with the annotation(s) at the bottom of the page or the back of the paper, or you found your own way to say it, and STILL credited it at the bottom of the page or the back of the paper.

If you got or worked from a hunk of something from Collier's Encyclopedia, by God you said so, and you had it in quotes with credit if you used it verbatim (which was in fact very much frowned upon). Teachers had your hide if you didn't do it right. Why? BECAUSE IT WASN'T YOUR OWN WORK. The preference was that you find your own way to say it.

I'm well aware that non-fic readers are a much lesser number than fiction readers. But just pick up a respected non-fic book in a bookstore, flip to the back, and there you will see the work, the indices, the lists of attributions, the attention to accuracy, the bibliographies, the brain-blowing amount of time put into respecting the fellow writer. These are the things no one reads, the things which put people to sleep, which are often not cared about one little bit. But they represent, usually, years' worth of work on the author's part to get things right.

Ms`Edwards hasn;'t been in grade school for quite some time, but I suppose her editors might have been.

smlgr8 said:

I absolutely agree with you. I have read other writers since this broke about Edwards. They are whining about how are they supposed to do historical research and opining that Edwards is being picked on and there are only so many ways you can describe historical events so what is a fiction writer to do? (Um, maybe not steal someone's hard researched work verbatim comes to mind) It is mind boggling to me that there are writers out there incapable apparently of realizing stealing someone's words in non-fiction is wrong. Geez

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Quite a lot of us aren't whining, actually. Quite a lot of us are royally pissed. Because it happened. Because there's already mass confusion among readers (and some writers who should know better) as to who stole what from whom, because the initial reaction from the publisher side was lukewarm -- and will in all probability never get as indignant as it should be, and because plagiarism is ethically and morally wrong, and copyright infringement is illegal (though a civil matter, not a criminal one), and chances are that if CE confesses or is proven guilty, she'll get no more than a slap on the wrist.

Yeah, we're pissed. Especially those of us who had ringside seats to what Nora went through when Dailey plagiarized her work.

CheshireCat said:

Quite a lot of us aren't whining, actually. Quite a lot of us are royally pissed.

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Oh believe me, I completely agree.

I am just saying what some of the writers on another loop are saying. I was completely surprised by their remarks. And many of them had been around during the Nora/Janet thing (myself included) and knew about it, yet they couldn't understand how they were supposed to do research if they could get in trouble for lifting someone else's words. It was really rather bizarre that they couldn't see what the problem was.

Maybe they just don't want to see. Or maybe other authors out there have taken the easy and lazy way out in their "research."

To my mind, you're in this business, you'd better learn the ins and outs of it. And I'm big on personal responsibility, so I have little sympathy for anybody who claims to be a writer and yet also claims to not understand or just not "get" why stealing another writer's work is wrong.

Or not understand how they're supposed to use research materials correctly.

Give me a break.

GMFB.

None of this surprises me, but then I taught freshman composition for 8 years. Year after year, standing in front of classrooms of college kids, explaining what plagiarism is. Explaining how using "substantially the same words" as your sources, or failing to identify sources was theft. Explaining what would be the consequences of plagiarism. Like pouring water in a sieve. Typical statistics in any given semester? 60 students, 15 kids kicked in the ass for plagiarism. Some folks are dumb. Some are ignorant. Some are downright dishonest.

The Daily Telegraph (largest broadsheet newspaper in the UK) reported on this today

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...GAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/12/wnovel112.xml

It's mostly the reporting of the established facts and Nora Roberts' comments with no debate on fair use

smlgr8 said:

I absolutely agree with you. I have read other writers since this broke about Edwards. They are whining about how are they supposed to do historical research and opining that Edwards is being picked on and there are only so many ways you can describe historical events (my bold) so what is a fiction writer to do?

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Ummm ... writers are saying this?
Can you say who ?

The mind, like, boggles.

Writing essays in grade & high school I was taught 'you cite your sources'. I guess Edwards never went to school.

And how on earth did she get on the RWA honor roll? That thought is frightening.

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She wrote (maybe) and sold over 100 books.

THAT'S a lot of money. Doesn't matter if the books were well or badly written, money talks. That's just how it is.

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The Smart Bitches have posted a .pdf document citing the original scources for many questionable passages.

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/uploads/CassieEdwards.pdf

Several are from books still under copyright.

Edwards is screwed and so's her pooch. She crossed a line that even her money-minded publisher cannot ignore.

I feel sorry for her now.

Her worst course would be to stay in denial and claim she never did what is so painfully obvious.

Her best course is to issue a simple, "I've made a bad mistake, and I apologize to everyone" then hope her lawyer can keep the legal fees down.

I think this went on unnoticed for so many years by her publisher because they simply did not know what she was doing. Trust is a big thing to publishers. They really do expect their writers to be honest about their works.

And again, she might have not seen anything wrong with adding in a "so&so said" to break up the copying of passages. To her that might have constituted paraphrasing. She was wrong, and she never fixed it or learned better, but she never got caught, so it must be okay, right?

But folks, her curtain's rung down. She's a 71-year-old writer who's been caught doing something ethically unforgivable in the publishing world.

So I feel sorry for her. Her career is over in disgrace and dishonor. Time to stop egging her house and go home and be better writers for the tough lesson she's taught us here.

there are only so many ways you can describe historical events so what is a fiction writer to do?

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Be REALLY GOOD at the craft.

I read THIS guy to learn how to do it right:

George Macdonald Fraser

One of his rippingly great reads (all exhaustively researched and cited and nary a plagiarized passage in sight) covered the battle of the Little Big Horn and Native American life is rare and baudy detail.

I recommend Flashman and the Redskins as the best it can be when done right.

We lost him this year, and I am sorry. I love his books and his energetic, uninhibited, and sheer fun to read style and learned much from him.

If you will, the politically incorrect but compelling opening:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452264871/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

job said:

Ummm ... writers are saying this?
Can you say who ?

The mind, like, boggles.

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No one actually published. These are unpubs, mostly, who are clearly having trouble comprehending what the issues are. Last night I checked again and this same group had others posting about what really was going on and that it was not right. So clearer heads are prevailing there.

Most of them thought because she had 100 books in print she must be all right even though many of them had not even heard of her or read her books.