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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 5/8/2006 5:09:15 PM
Title: Piece on plagiarism was plagiarized
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From MICHAEL DAVID SMITH: Are you aware that the exact words you used from David Edelstein's piece on plagiarism were used in a piece two months ago by Joseph Epstein in the Weekly Standard? (If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what is plagiarism? The least sincere form? A genuine crime?)
> SMITH'S SECOND LETTER: Ha! I didn't read Edelstein's last paragraph, in which he acknowledges that "even this" isn't original.
> New York spokeswoman BETSY BURTON explains: "With the endless stories about the Kaavya Viswanathan case, and thinking about the plague of plagiarism, we decided to write a piece about plagiarism that is plagiarized. David Edelstein, our film critic, conceived of this idea and tracked down 20 articles on the subject of plagiarism pegged to various scandals. Then he did a big cut-and-paste job and wrote a denunciation of plagiarism that is roughly 99% plagiarized. (The first and last lines are the only original things in the entire piece.) The words are those of Samuel G. Freedman, Ruth Marcus, Jack Shafer, Malcolm Gladwell, various bloggers, and reporters from the Boston Globe, New York Times, and others. A section was also taken from Thomas Mallon's well-known study of plagiarism, Stolen Words. The idea is that we're putting the piece out there and seeing how long it will take anyone to notice." [Permalink]

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