How Opal Mehta got caught

April 24, 2006 6:59 AM

Kaavya Viswanathan is a 19-year-old Harvard student whose first novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, just cracked the New York Times bestseller list. The problem? The Harvard Crimson and SF Gate assert that the author plagiarized much of it from two books by Megan McCafferty. Of course, it's not like this kind of thing hasn't happened before with young writers.
posted by mothershock (222 comments total)

Here's an example from the SFgate story:


On page 213 of McCafferty's book: "He was invading my personal space, as I had learned in Psych. class, and I instinctively sunk back into the seat. That just made him move in closer. I was practically one with the leather at this point, and unless I hopped into the backseat, there was nowhere else for me to go."

On page 175 of Viswanathan's book: "He was definitely invading my personal space, as I had learned in Human Evolution class last summer, and I instinctively backed up till my legs hit the chair I had been sitting in. That just made him move in closer, until the grommets in the leather embossed the backs of my knees, and he finally tilted the book toward me."

Obviously she borrowed passages. But if the rest of the book is different in plot and other details, then who gives a rip? Our obsession with plagiarism smacks of ambulance chasing. You rarely see this sort of righteous indignation with a book that didn't sell its film rights to Dreamworks.
posted by mecran01 at 7:10 AM on April 24, 2006

I like how Viswanathan tries to explain that she is not like Opal, the protagonist of her book:

"They've always been very good about not putting pressure on me," she said of her mother and father. "I mean, I adore them."

Her parents were not immune to the competitive pressure, however. Because they had never applied to an American educational institution, they hired Katherine Cohen, founder of IvyWise, a private counseling service, and author of "Rock Hard Apps: How to Write the Killer College Application." At the time IvyWise charged $10,000 to $20,000 for two years of college preparation services, spread over a student's junior and senior years.

Yep, sounds normal to me - no pressure there...
posted by vacapinta at 7:14 AM on April 24, 2006

I don't know mecran01, how about the original author? The one who didn't get a three book deal in high school and a picture deal from dreamworks based on plagiarized work. I bet she cares.
posted by cyphill at 7:14 AM on April 24, 2006

You rarely see this sort of righteous indignation with a book that didn't sell its film rights to Dreamworks.

No, those ones just don't get caught as easily.
posted by mendel at 7:16 AM on April 24, 2006

Take that, overachiever!
posted by stavrogin at 7:18 AM on April 24, 2006

Kaavya was, of course, rather prominently featured in the Indian press, what ith her being Indian, American, apparently well-read, and seemingly on her way to being well-educated as well.

In particular, the following section was rather ironic, given the circumstances:

Isn't it a little precocious for an 18-year-old to be penning a chick-lit novel?
Probably not as much as a30-year-old, but I think I've experienced enough to capture the angst and drama of high school.

Is this inspired by Bridget Jones' Diary?
Not consciously. (emphasis mine)

She should, of course, know that being Indian, having a biz-oriented degree and pursuing a career in literature don't really go hand in hand, except perhaps, if you were cornering the techie/call-center-crowd market, who, by definition, don't have an idea about such things as getting kissed or having a "life".
posted by the cydonian at 7:18 AM on April 24, 2006

Why can't you filthy people just accept that Ivy Leaguers are, in fact, definitely smarter than you and are born to succeed, actually. Thus it is predestiny, like how they take care of their own. get it?

Whereas you, the unwashed masses, are like purposed to serve, even if it means bowing your heads in submission to a great author who has, well, like graduated high school.

Yawner.
posted by jsavimbi at 7:22 AM on April 24, 2006

Hrm. A young over achiever with the stress of a $500k contract under the pressure of going through Harvard turns to plagiarism to meet the expectations of a publisher? Nah, that doesn't sound very feasible.

My guess, the girl freaked out under the pressure and starting grabbing from other sources to meet a deadline. Throw the book at her, scare her into doing it right the next time around. And then, perhaps, we can have a book about a New Jersey teenager that I'll be proud to own...

eh.
posted by Atreides at 7:25 AM on April 24, 2006

I'd hit it.

. . . What?

Damn, if you're going to plagiarize an author, at least pick a good one. There's something sad about crappy cutesy teen-drama writers lifting passages from one another. It's like garbage dump dwellers arguing over a piece of trash.

That said, the plagiarization doesn't surprise me. It's fairly common among high-pressure students in institutions like Harvard.
posted by schroedinger at 7:26 AM on April 24, 2006

Also being discussed over at Sepia Mutiny.
posted by chunking express at 7:28 AM on April 24, 2006

The story behind the story, you know, the one about how smart and over-achieving this young woman is, is pretty much undone by this kind of revelation. Kinda like when you write a book about what a badass drug-user you were, only, you weren't. It isn't that there is this much or that much plagarism, it's that the other part of how the book is being sold, as the product of a particular person with particular gifts, is untrue.
posted by OmieWise at 7:28 AM on April 24, 2006

The FPP's "...assert that the author plagiarized much of it" is extremely misleading. If these are the only passages in question, then yes, it's apparently plagiarism and should be treated as such, but it amounts to maybe a few hundred words.

I also find it interesting that in every case, Viswanathan seems to have improved on the original. Makes you wonder if the liftings weren't originally more blatant, but massaged by a good editor. (Not that I'm suggesting the editor was aware of the plagiarism, just that they punched up some bad prose into less-bad prose.)
posted by staggernation at 7:31 AM on April 24, 2006

Also, if she went to Northeastern instead of Harvard, this would be a non-issue. She'd be chastized for cheating while looking up, not down.
posted by jsavimbi at 7:42 AM on April 24, 2006

And also discussed at Readerville and GalleyCat.
posted by mothershock at 7:42 AM on April 24, 2006

Reminds me of this bright young thing.
I can't deny the schadenfreude I feel in seeing people like her go down. They always remind me of the people in my high school whose every move was cynically calculated according to how it would play on their college app.
And hey, Viswanathan dreams of being an investment banker? Big suprise there.
posted by banishedimmortal at 7:48 AM on April 24, 2006

Future spouse for Ben Domenech?

Or will his parents allow him to cross racial lines for matrimony?
posted by nofundy at 7:52 AM on April 24, 2006

hmmm ... a couple of these seem obvious ... but the style's so generic in some of these that it's really hard to tell

Sabrina was the brainy Angel. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: Pretty or smart.

Moneypenny was the brainy female character. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty.

one could make an argument for plagarism here ... one could also make an argument that two authors with such chiched and trite styles are bound to come up with similar sentences at some point

Damn, if you're going to plagiarize an author, at least pick a good one.

yeah, really ...
posted by pyramid termite at 7:54 AM on April 24, 2006

mecran01 : "Our obsession with plagiarism smacks of ambulance chasing."

Er, how so? Ambulance chasing is "being a lawyer, seeing an ambulance, and following it so that you can talk to the freshly injured party and get them to sue someone, using your services". Are you saying that people obsess with plagiarism because they see an angle where they can make money off of it?
posted by bugbread at 8:01 AM on April 24, 2006

one could also make an argument that two authors with such chiched and trite styles are bound to come up with similar sentences at some point

That would make sense if this was the only passage in question, but when there are numerous passages that paraphrase the same author, it is, quite obviously, plagiarism.
posted by missmerrymack at 8:02 AM on April 24, 2006

A 19-year-old Harvard student, Kaavya Viswanathan , is the author of a novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. This book recently cracked the New York Times bestseller list. However, there's a problem. The SF Gate and the Harvard Crimson both contend that the author plagiarized much of it from two books by another author, Megan McCafferty. But hey, it's not like this kind of thing hasn't happened before with young writers.
posted by lord_wolf at 8:21 AM on April 24, 2006

Our obsession with plagiarism smacks of ambulance chasing.

Oh, nonsense. Our plague of plagiarism smacks of too many people being convinced that success in literature (or anything else) is a matter of having a good backstory and knowing the right people rather than knowing how to actually write (or whatever). I hope this gal gets smacked down hard, and maybe puts a little doubt into the mind of the next spoiled idiot who decides to "write" a book.
posted by languagehat at 8:24 AM on April 24, 2006

bravo
posted by NinjaTadpole at 8:30 AM on April 24, 2006

I don't get it.
posted by OmieWise at 8:32 AM on April 24, 2006

I hope this gal gets smacked down hard, and maybe puts a little doubt into the mind of the next spoiled idiot who decides to "write" a book.

Seconded. Also, I hope everyone watches closely as she isn't expelled from Harvard.
posted by allen.spaulding at 8:34 AM on April 24, 2006

Also recently in plagiarism news: Emily Davies, formerly of the Times of London, confessed in March to plagiarizing in a book proposal for her own memoir -- which had netted her a $900,000 advance. Some discussion here, here, and here.
posted by mothershock at 8:38 AM on April 24, 2006

Man I love the internet, it's the perfect medium for semi-anonymously condeming individuals.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 8:43 AM on April 24, 2006

On what grounds would Harvard expel her? She hasn't plagiarized her work for school, that we know of, and she hasn't committed a crime. Even plagiarizing a paper doesn't get you 'expelled' except under unusual circumstances at most US universities, so the particular school has little to do with it.

No use hating on the woman. As we have seen over and over, there are a lot of people doing this. The fault must lie more deeply within our culture, though this does not exempt the individual agent from blame.

That said, I too hope this is the end of an unpromising literary career, and that she has a very happy life as an investment banker, a career in which cheating is rewarded more consistently.

And if it's not too much to hope for, maybe this can also be the end of "chick-lit" as a genre label.
posted by fourcheesemac at 8:47 AM on April 24, 2006

I also find it interesting that in every case, Viswanathan seems to have improved on the original.

Menard's version is better yet.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:50 AM on April 24, 2006

On what grounds would Harvard expel her?

Oops, I thought she had put the work down on her application to get in. Looks like she didn't sign the deal until after she had dropped 20k. I'd kick her out anyway, but that's just me.
posted by allen.spaulding at 8:57 AM on April 24, 2006

From the first link to the Times article:

Ms. Viswanathan's own parents have been intent on giving her a book party when she gets home from college this summer. "They wanted to have a red carpet strewn with rose petals," she said, her voice rising. "And I've just woken up and I'm still in my pajamas and my mom will call, and she'll say like, 'Kaavya, would you prefer pink or white rose petals?'

Ouch. Maybe they can have the party in Baghdad.
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:01 AM on April 24, 2006

This makes me incredibly happpy. A contrived ending to a contrived plot.
posted by jne1813 at 9:04 AM on April 24, 2006

It's been said before, but how do her and Ben Domenech and Mr. Towelie expect not to get caught? Google's a bitch people. A raging, balloon-popping bitch.
posted by bardic at 9:04 AM on April 24, 2006

"Ambulance chasing" meant "hunting for profits in injury," where this plagiarized-but-now-popular-and-valuable book represented a target for such a hunt, as I read mecran01's comment, bugbread.

And who's "Menard"? Did I miss something?
posted by cgc373 at 9:05 AM on April 24, 2006

Our plague of plagiarism smacks of too many people being convinced that success in literature....

Yeah, there's a real plague of plagiarism. In the last ten years we've seen the number of incidents climb by nearly 5000%.

Wait. No we haven't. That's not been the case at all.

This isn't a big deal. As I've said before, there are classes of people where it's imperative they always tell the truth. Academics, scientists, judges, CFOs, generals, etc. "Celebrity authors" isn't one of those classes. This is classic displacement. Nobody knows how to respond, or rather everybody is too afraid to respond to all the lies and blatant disregard of the truth by people who matter like Enron's management or the President and so instead people seize upon a 19 year old student or a former drug addict and crucify them for lying. Kinda like battered wives who abuse their children. I wonder if the future will be forgiving to our authenticity anxiety.

Man, it's amazing how much resentment and envy the blue can draw upon.
posted by nixerman at 9:05 AM on April 24, 2006

No use hating on the woman. As we have seen over and over, there are a lot of people doing this.

to say the least

let's condemn the writer while we read poets like marianne moore, ezra pound, and others, who would lift whole phrases from other writers ...

let's call her a plagarist as we laugh over webcomics made from generic clip art ...

let's hate her as an unoriginal scab while we listen to drum and bass music derived from that infamous "amen break" ...

i can think of a lot more examples ...

what i was getting at in my previous post wasn't that she didn't copy ... but what she copied was so common, one could find similar phrases anywhere

i just find it interesting that one person can do this and be considered a plagarist and others do similar things and they're considered legitimate

what is the difference between plagarism and some postmodern art? ... do we define it, or do the courts and the lawyers? ... is it an artistic question or a legal one?

personally, i feel she flunks the art test, so i guess we're stuck with legalities
posted by pyramid termite at 9:06 AM on April 24, 2006

Viswanathan's novel, page 48: "It was obvious that next to casual hookups, tanning was her extracurricular activity of choice. Every visible inch of skin matched the color and texture of her Louis Vuitton backpack. Even combined with her dark hair and Italian heritage, she looked deep-fried."

Hey, I think I've seen that chick walking around Cambridge. Plagiarism my ass!
posted by rkent at 9:06 AM on April 24, 2006

Google's a bitch people. A raging, balloon-popping bitch.

Actually...the sentences were changed so as to evade Google, as someone pointed out. These similarities were all caught by astute readers of both novels.
posted by vacapinta at 9:08 AM on April 24, 2006

cgc373,

Yeah, that's how I read it too, and I didn't really get it. How is this a target for a hunt for profits in injury (er, well, rather, I understand it could be, but is it so great that you could say that our obsession with plagiarism comes from a desire to hunt for profits in injury?)

On reflection, I'm thinking mecran01 is confusing "ambulance chasing" with "rubbernecking" or "schadenfreude".
posted by bugbread at 9:09 AM on April 24, 2006

I think that ambulance-chasing in this example refers as to how Megan McCafferty and her lawyer-types have signalled to Little, Brown that they're going to be expecting a share of the proceeds.

If Ms. McCafferty can prove that whatsherharvardface did indeed copy her stuff, the term ambulance-chaser does not apply. More like chick-lit troll. Yeah.

And why does Harvard let all these phonies in anyways? Do they not have enough inbred wasps to go around? It's social misfits like these that have Disneyfied my proud country.
posted by jsavimbi at 9:18 AM on April 24, 2006

This isn't a big deal. As I've said before, there are classes of people where it's imperative they always tell the truth.

It's not like she just made up facts, a la Frey. She lifted actual writing. And the difference between plagiarism and postmodern pastiche is fairly clear to most people. Here, she's lifted serially from a single source, made precise modifications clearly intended to disguise the lifted text, and represented the product as a piece of original prose. Unmasking this does not reveal an intentional comment on originality or play with text, but a banal writer copying another banal writer and covering her tracks.

You could make up a truly fantastic story about your own life and pass it off as a memoir and be accused of dishonesty. But if you do it using someone else's words, it's also theft.
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:18 AM on April 24, 2006

pyramid termite : "what is the difference between plagarism and some postmodern art?"

I don't know about that broad categorization, but going with clip art comics and the amen break:

Artists who remix are upfront about remixing.
Artists who plagiarize deny that they do so.

Or, rephrased for accuracy:

An artist who uses other people's works, and admits it readily, is not called a plagiarist.
An artist who uses other people's works, and doesn't admit it, is called a plagiarist.

If she said this work was a mix of other people's work, then, sure, a few MeFites would still be upset (a few MeFites will always be upset), but the number would be way lower.

Of course, the nebulous area is the timing and type of admitting. For example, I've made tracks using the Amen break, but I've never gone and told someone "Hey, this uses the Amen break, which is sampled". If someone asks me, I'll admit it. I'm sure there are plagiarists that lift passages, but don't tell anyone, but if someone confronts them, they'll fess up. We consider the first case "discussing the music", and the second one "catching a plagiarist", but I think this just comes from the background of the two areas. DnB/Jungle is so thoroughly based in sampling that individual artists don't have to fess up in advance, it's understood. Literature, however, uses far less, so it isn't understood, and needs to be said in advance to not be plagiarism.

This sticks out especially with the old days of rap breaking into the mainstream: now, if you sample Led Zeppelin in a hip-hop song, nobody thinks you're a plagiarist, just regular sampling. In the old days, that may have been true within the rap community, but it wasn't in the mainstream music community, which resulted in things like the big "Snow vs. Queen" debacle ("Ice Ice Baby" vs. "Under Pressure")
posted by bugbread at 9:19 AM on April 24, 2006

Blair Hornstine! White Courtesy telephone, please!
posted by paddbear at 9:23 AM on April 24, 2006

jsavimbi : "I think that ambulance-chasing in this example refers as to how Megan McCafferty and her lawyer-types have signalled to Little, Brown that they're going to be expecting a share of the proceeds."

But that doesn't really fit "ambulance chasing". After all, Megan McCafferty is the injured party. Ambulance chasing is about other, unrelated parties flocking to a wreck to profit.

If Megan McCafferty had gotten in this plagiarism tussle, and a lawyer out of the blue offered his services to sue Viswanathan, that would be ambulance chasing.

And, either way, the initial contention was not that this was an example of ambulance chasing, but that our "whole obsession with plagiarism" smacks of ambulance chasing. Which means our whole obsession comes from us trying to profit off the problem, which I don't see.
posted by bugbread at 9:24 AM on April 24, 2006

And who's "Menard"? Did I miss something?

Pierre Menard is one of the most under appreciated authors of the 20th century. Despite his obscurity, his Don Quixote ranks as one of the best books ever written!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:34 AM on April 24, 2006

From the Harvard Crimson sub-headline:

"Book by Kaavya Viswanathan ’08 contains similarities to earlier author’s works"

Now, if it had similarities to a later author's works, that's be a story. Or old hat according to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Fans.

Someone else can explain the reference.
posted by Reverend Mykeru at 9:35 AM on April 24, 2006

Kaavya was my student last spring (in a section where I was a TA). I was surprised to learn she had written a book, as her writing was awful-- I had given her low grades on her papers.

I feel bad for her, even though she was always falling asleep in section (as if you don't notice a snoozing person sitting at a conference table for ten). Plagiarizing from chick lit has to be some kind of double whammy against artistic integrity.
posted by mowglisambo at 9:40 AM on April 24, 2006

I just thought this whole discussion could be enriched by this article by Malcolm Gladwell, where he discusses being plagiarized and how maybe we overreact about it sometimes.

Personally, when I looked at the passages in question I felt like the author did a decent job of changing them, and that the charge of plagiarism is not clear cut.
posted by bove at 9:42 AM on April 24, 2006

I felt like the author did a decent job of changing them

I don't know. I think the tweaking makes the plagiarism all the more damning. Obviously she was concerned about getting caught, which implies that she knew what she was doing wasn't kosher.

I feel sorry for her though. Freshman year is extremely busy - people would have understood if she said she couldn't make the deadline. The fact that she felt she couldn't push it back speaks to the sort of pressure she felt she was under.
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:48 AM on April 24, 2006

Ah, okay, robocop is bleeding. It went right past me the first time.
posted by cgc373 at 9:53 AM on April 24, 2006

Plagiarism of creative material, however bad the source, strikes me as a much more serious crime than stealing somebody's property. My personal 'obsession' with plagiarists and other hypocrites comes from my respect for authentic creativity and scholarship. I find it alarming that the idea that everyone does it, or that 'she changed it enough' makes it ok.

pyramid termite :as we laugh over webcomics made from generic clip art ...

It's not the art we're laughing at, it's the writing. There is no assumption when we look at these things that they drew the clip art, same with post-modern art that uses visual references that we all recognize as coming form other sources.

what she copied was so common, one could find similar phrases anywhere

Based on what's been provided here, it's obvious she sat typing with this other book by her side, or possible just cut and pasted her way through. That's not a coincidence, that's stealing.
posted by tula at 9:53 AM on April 24, 2006

The "similar phrases anywhere" defense has to account for stuff like this:

From page 237 of McCafferty’s first novel: “Finally, four major department stores and 170 specialty shops later, we were done.”

From page 51 of Viswanathan’s novel: “Five department stores, and 170 specialty shops later,

Or, is "170 specialty shops" some common phrase in this genre?
posted by vacapinta at 9:57 AM on April 24, 2006

I know this story is only tangentially related, but I can't help but be amazed anew at how morally and intellectually impoverished the admissions process at the ivies is. Do not the most creative and clever kids require some room to manuever, explore alternatives, rebel, etc.? Are the brightest kids really the ones who diligently divide each day into prescribed activities?
posted by ori at 9:57 AM on April 24, 2006

Do not the most creative and clever kids require some room to manuever, explore alternatives, rebel, etc.?

Those kids are at Harvard too. Dont generalize from a sample of one.
posted by vacapinta at 10:01 AM on April 24, 2006

Man, this is weird. Looking at the Crimson article I'll buy that there was conscious lifting going on. There's too much of a pattern. But they're such unmemorable, even cliche, passages that it's a wonder anybody remembered they were copied, and why would you do so in the first place? I mean, how many times has the 'Come On, I Want To Talk To You' passage cited in the Crimson article been duplicated in Western literature? If there were only half of these I wouldn't believe it was intentional and I still have a twinge of doubt. The other part of me wonders if there are other novels, maybe in entirely different genres, that she's serially lifted passages from.
posted by furiousthought at 10:04 AM on April 24, 2006

Are the brightest kids really the ones who diligently divide each day into prescribed activities?

Some of them are, some of them aren't. Some of each type get into Harvard. Creative people have all kinds of different ways of getting things done.

The Blair Hornstine incident was the most bizarre and disgusting pile-on I've ever seen here, several front-page posts about a story that shouldn't have been of interest outside of that school district. This one is at least newsworthy, since Viswanathan actually had a book published, but some of these comments are along the same lines. I didn't get into Harvard either. No one thinks less of us for it.
posted by transona5 at 10:10 AM on April 24, 2006

mowglisambo: I don't want to see you get in trouble, and obviously I'm not suggesting that I'd bring it to their attention or anything like that -- but I can't imagine your department would be glad to discover that you're discussing your experience teaching students, and in particular their grades, in a popular public forum.

Maybe if you ask, Matt will remove that comment for you?
posted by BackwardsCity at 10:14 AM on April 24, 2006

someting tells me this blog won't be getting updated any time soon.
posted by mowglisambo at 10:14 AM on April 24, 2006

A devastating blow to the integrity of Chiclets!!!!
posted by Marnie at 10:19 AM on April 24, 2006

"Oh, nonsense. Our plague of plagiarism..."—languagehat

and from furiousthought:

"But they're such unmemorable, even cliche, passages that it's a wonder anybody remembered they were copied, and why would you do so in the first place?"

Ever since I read Harvard psych chair Daniel L. Schacter's popular book on memory, I've been both skeptical and worried about the recent spate of accusations of plagiarism. One of the very common failures of memory is a failure of attribution and specifically an attribution to oneself that is false. He describes one example where everyone involved agreed no plagiarism had taken place where one writer uses almost exactly the same words as another in a lengthy paragraph.

It seems odd to me that the popular culture that readily accepts the (mostly false) idea that through something like hypnosis our brains can serve up oceans of accurate detail of otherwise dimly remembered events, and the same culture that necessarily includes everyone's personal experiences of remembering something but not remembering where it came from, would be a culture that so credulously accepts anything that looks like plagiarism to truly be plagiarism.

In this specific case, the alternate possibility of simple memory error answers furiousthought's question.

I don't know which of these accused plagiarists are guilty and which are innocent, but I do have a strong intuition that we will realize retrospectively that some of them must have been innocent.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:29 AM on April 24, 2006

I felt like the author did a decent job of changing them

Is that what you think writing is? The author pulls a few books off the shelf and starts busily rewriting other people's sentences so they'll sound different enough to pass muster? Somehow I don't think that's how Hemingway and Nabokov did it. And spare me the lecture about how artists always reuse the past, etc; it's one thing for Shakespeare to take plots and characters from history books or Vergil to do variations on Homer, quite another for a submediocre would-be chick-lit writer to sit there copying out sentences from slightly-closer-to-mediocre chick-lit authors and revamping them to avoid Google.

what is the difference between plagarism and some postmodern art?

Ah yes, the old "what is reality? what is 'authorship'? it's all postmodern!" defense. I'm too tired to rant about that today. But it's very silly.

BackwardsCity: What are you, hall monitor? If you really thought that was an issue mowglisambo should be made aware of, there's an e-mail address on the userpage.
posted by languagehat at 10:30 AM on April 24, 2006

"Somehow I don't think that's how Hemingway and Nabokov did it."

As a possible test of what I suggest in my previous comment, a widescale cross-examination of a great many works by authors we, for the most part, are unwilling to believe to be plagiarists might be very useful.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:35 AM on April 24, 2006

re: the conflating of postmodern art and music with the plagiarism of Kaavya Viswanathan:

I think that bugbread has it right. The poet who lifts lines from another poet, or the musician who samples does so with the expectation that those who matter (in the limited sense of the art form's insiders--colleagues, critics, insider aficionados of whatever stripe) will know not only what the reference is, but will appreciate it is contextually appropriate.

The best examples of this are Shakespeare, the Bible and the Amen break (mentioned above), probably. I can not begin to tally in my head how many written works I've read that directly quote ol' Bill or the Good Book without attribution. But they didn't need to. We recognized the phrase, and they knew we would. And usually, the line and the lift is appropriate to the context at hand, at least if they're a good writer.

The difference is (apparently, I'm not a big chick-lit reader), Kaavya didn't reference, she stole. She directly took other peoples writing and changed it enough so that it wasn't an exact copy, and passed it off as being authentically her own.

This is what she's charged with, and it's fundamentally different from the work that postmoderns engage in.
posted by illovich at 10:38 AM on April 24, 2006

languagehat: I agree that Hemingway and Nabokov probably worked differently than the author in question. Part of my point is in reference to the Gladwell article I linked to, and is also supported by Ethereal Bligh's statements. I do think that some authors who are drawing on multiple sources may feel that they have taken something previously written and made it unique and individual to themselves and therefore undeserving of attribution.

In addition, I also feel like what is copyrighted is language, not ideas, and that since she changed the language maybe it isn't plagiarism.

This has nothing to do with the quality of the book. It may be utter crap. My guess is that it is not great if she needed to rework or plagiarize things from other sources. However, that is separate from whether what she did is plagiarize.
posted by bove at 10:40 AM on April 24, 2006

bugbread: And, either way, the initial contention was not that this was an example of ambulance chasing, but that our "whole obsession with plagiarism" smacks of ambulance chasing. Which means our whole obsession comes from us trying to profit off the problem, which I don't see.

We're not profiting in monies, per se, but profiting in the group effort to fan the fires of schaudenfraude and see that this perceived social wrong is percetionally righted.

Perceived because I, for one, do not read crappy books about teen angst, and perceptionally because all everyone is doing is castigating a 19 year-old not-s-normal teenager. If anyone should have their name dragged through the mud, it should be whomever put her up to this nonsense and the parties that allowed it to flourish.

She's the child victim of bad parenting/marketing. I'd like to hear what her parents have to say about those charges.
posted by jsavimbi at 10:42 AM on April 24, 2006

She's the child victim of bad parenting/marketing.

A 19-year-old is perfectly capable of writing a novel and deciding not to plagiarize for herself (apart from Ethereal Bligh's point that memory is more complicated than we think.) The problem isn't that she became too successful too young, or that she's a spoiled, regimented overachiever, or that she fits into some other narrative that sums up everything that's wrong with society today. It's that she plagiarized.
posted by transona5 at 10:52 AM on April 24, 2006

"I do think that some authors who are drawing on multiple sources may feel that they have taken something previously written and made it unique and individual to themselves and therefore undeserving of attribution."

Your point is legitimate, but it is not mine and I don't claim it. My point is that the sole evidence we demand for proof of plagiarism is that some group of words are very much like another group of words and it cannot be explained by coincidence or triviality. If it seems unlikely to us, and the words are the same, we jump right to screaming "plagiarism". But that ignores another alternative, the possibility that it may be much more likely than we think for people to appropriate exact or near-exact phrasing as their own presentation of an idea entirely in innocence and good-faith. We ignore this because people think it just wouldn't happen. That's exactly what some commenters are saying above. But there's scientific evidence that this does happen often enough that it must be considered as a possible explanation.

Furthermore, for all that seems commonsensical that identical sentences and paragraphs can never be unintentional, a bit of reflection on how people actually use language (languagehat, I'm looking at you) reveals that particular expressions of an idea are more attractive than others for various reasons. That is, phrases are catchy. Certain presentations of some idea are more memorable than others not in any sense with regard to the identity of an author, but simply in the specific utility of that exact or near-exact choice of words. Some phrases have personal resonance with each of us, and for the exact, identical reason they have resonance to the reader they will be attractive to that person as a writer. With this in mind, then, to take such a rigid and ungenerous position with regard to plagiarism means that we require writers to avoid at all costs and without exception the exact errors they are most prone to make when they are honestly writing about that which matters greatly to them.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:56 AM on April 24, 2006

LH, I hope you don't take my "languagehat, I'm looking at you" comment as mean-spirited or even intolerant in any way...I meant it good-naturedly.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:01 AM on April 24, 2006

EB: thanks for the clarification. I definitely agree with your point. Just a related issue. I am an academic and I write articles where I have to describe my methodology. It is very difficult for me to explain my analytic and statistical choices in language that has never been used before. To add to the weirdness b/c when I get something published I have to relinquish the copyright, I have to be very careful to avoid plagiarizing myself. Because I have used similar methods I am likely to describe it in the exact same way.
posted by bove at 11:02 AM on April 24, 2006

"Because I have used similar methods I am likely to describe it in the exact same way."

What an odd and sorry state of affairs. At any rate, thank you for your clarification.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:06 AM on April 24, 2006

mowglisambo writes: Kaavya was my student last spring (in a section where I was a TA). I was surprised to learn she had written a book, as her writing was awful-- I had given her low grades on her papers.

This is why I lurve metafilter. Backwardscity, chat on the intarweb is the least of Harvard's concern right now regarding this situation. And as a former TA at a comparably esteemed research institution, I can assure you that TA's and grad. students in general don't really warrant that much attention. (Making them the perfect moles! *wrings hands together*)
posted by bardic at 11:08 AM on April 24, 2006

Your point is taken and understood, EB. If there were only one or two instances of these passages, I'd agree with you. But I think there are enough similarities that she crosses that line. She didn't just borrow a turn of phrase, she lifted and altered descriptive passages. The similarities were notable enough that a (presumably) unbiased reader noticed these things and alerted Mcaffery. One also assumes that that same reader must consume this genre of novels, must know all the cliches of the genre, and yet still - these things struck them, not as stylistic cliches but as plagiarism.

You do agree there's a line somewhere don't you? And I guess discussions where people argue about whether that line is two inches to the left or to the right rarely end in any kind of resolution.
posted by vacapinta at 11:12 AM on April 24, 2006

I adore Nabokov (and Hemingway), and think plagiarism is a very big deal, and bad thing, and fully worthy of a good torches-and-pitchforks mob. But: sigh.
posted by COBRA! at 11:14 AM on April 24, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "My point is that the sole evidence we demand for proof of plagiarism is that some group of words are very much like another group of words and it cannot be explained by coincidence or triviality. If it seems unlikely to us, and the words are the same, we jump right to screaming 'plagiarism'. But that ignores another alternative, the possibility that it may be much more likely than we think for people to appropriate exact or near-exact phrasing as their own presentation of an idea entirely in innocence and good-faith."

Well, except when it happens again and again from the same source. I'm sure language is complex, but I'm also pretty sure that this woman plagarized with intent. I've read neither book, but the extracts make it fairly clear that not simply the language, but the situations which made the language permissible, must have been lifted.

I'm curious about those who thought the second versions were better. I thought exactly the opposite, that the attempt to make them new robbed them of any charm they might have had (which was, admittedly, slight to begin with).
posted by OmieWise at 11:14 AM on April 24, 2006

I agree with Ethereal Bligh's view that this was likely unconscious recall of material that she had previously read. Calling it plagiarism when a novel contains a few sentences that are similar to sentences in another novel would be absurd if it wasn't happening so frequently.

For some historical perspective, Helen Keller had a run-in with accusations of plagiarism that she put down to this cause.
posted by alms at 11:20 AM on April 24, 2006

illovich : "The best examples of this are Shakespeare, the Bible and the Amen break"

I love this sentence.
posted by bugbread at 11:25 AM on April 24, 2006

COBRA!, I'm inclined to accord Nabokov, who was a mnemonically spectacular individual, much greater leeway in the case of a book he probably read or knew about from his time in Germany, and unconsciously drew on for Lolita, some thirty years later, than to accord Viswanathan the same. She must have read these books she's lifted from within the last two or three years, and has read (one presumes) not a tenth of what Nabokov had read, to draw upon in her own writing.
posted by cgc373 at 11:32 AM on April 24, 2006

alms: that story of Helen Keller is great and goes along with Ethereal Bligh's point exactly.
posted by bove at 11:32 AM on April 24, 2006

"You do agree there's a line somewhere don't you?"

Oh, yes. Certainly. And I don't think it's all that ambiguous. Knowing, intentional theft of someone else's words is plagiarism. The ambiguity is how to determine this.

And, truly, a lot of what I thought I knew about memory was destroyed or greatly reshaped by Schacter's book that I now have very little to no confidence in what I otherwise think I know about memory, and what other people commonly think they know about memory. Even with a number of repeated passages as both you and OmieWise point out I am utterly without confidence about any claim as to what is likely or not likely.

I recommend this book often—it's a book written to the popular audience but by an acknowledged leading researcher on memory—because I came away from reading it with the strong impression that "we" very badly misunderstand or are ignorant of memory and as a result we are making a number of important judgments based in this misunderstanding or ignorance. Schacter spends a great deal of time on the various ways eyewitness testimony can be the least credible...yet we commonly accept it to be the most credible. That's just one example. Evaluating a charge of plagiarism is another.

The theme of that book by Schacter is the errors of memory, how they are a product of how memory actually works, and how little we understand those failures, and the practical consequences thereof. I trust in no way my intuition about how likely or unlikely is this young woman's innocence.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:33 AM on April 24, 2006

Errors of memory and simple random chance could explain an occasional lifting of a phrase or a sentence from this or that source over the course of a book-length manuscript. It is vanishingly possible that a long series of passages with striking and non-trivial resemblances to a SINGLE source, and with words clearly strategically substituted to obscure the copying, could happen by error or accident. One of the amazing things about language is that for all the redundancy of our social lives, it is actually very likely that a large number of even the most banal utterances have never been made before in exactly the same way. The odds of this being a case of unconscious influence, failed memory, or sheer chance are slim to none.
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:39 AM on April 24, 2006

COBRA!, I'm inclined to accord Nabokov, who was a mnemonically spectacular individual, much greater leeway in the case of a book he probably read or knew about from his time in Germany, and unconsciously drew on for Lolita, some thirty years later, than to accord Viswanathan the same. She must have read these books she's lifted from within the last two or three years, and has read (one presumes) not a tenth of what Nabokov had read, to draw upon in her own writing.

Yeah, I didn't mean to conflate Viswanathan with Nabokov; not the same situation at all. I look at the article I linked as a piece of evidence in favor of what EB said up-thread (which I actually disagreed with, until I remembered reading that Nabokov article a while back).
posted by COBRA! at 11:43 AM on April 24, 2006

I've read neither book, but the extracts make it fairly clear that not simply the language, but the situations which made the language permissible, must have been lifted.

Yeah, but they're such commonplace situations – omg the nonsexual female friend, the Playboy bunny tube top, what groundbreaking notions, I'm inspired, must steal! On the other hand some of the lifted phrasings are so unremarkable that it points back to intentional plagiarism. I mean, if you're going to unconsciously imitate something, it's usually going to be something you think is cool, right? Why would you jack "pause." "another pause." – because it's such a great way of portraying pauses? I don't know. Some of these passage comparisons are pretty lame. I mean, wow, she copied "sweet and woodsy," quick, call the Style Police, two adjectives have been spotted in identical succession, set revolvers to kill, oh wait, they don't have any other setting. But still... it's the overall pattern that makes me lean towards intent.

I agree that McCafferty's bits are a little more psychologically complex.
posted by furiousthought at 11:45 AM on April 24, 2006

EB: Well, I don't buy the claim that people are jumping to accusation based on the assumption that any similar copying is intentional. I can make an argument that these similar passages are less likely to be memory slips based on what I know of memory research.
1: Memory tends to work by dropping details and recreating them on an ad hoc basis. Some copied passages include both sentence structure and arbtrary detail ("170", "pink tube top with a playboy bunny") that should mutate as the line is recalled.
2: One or two slips is not a big deal. But there are so many slips from two novels that are not highly read blockbusters (at least not according to Amazon sales ranks.)

Also, part of the whole craft of writing is to be acutely aware of how you are influenced, and to make your work distinct. Fiction texts are supposed to be intentional. Unintentionally copying catchy phrases and current cliches is sloppy. Sloppy incompetence may not be malicious as intentional copying, but it isn't entirely innocent either. Both options are worthy of criticism.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:55 AM on April 24, 2006

Take that, overachiever!

Right On!


posted by jonmc at 11:56 AM on April 24, 2006

"1: Memory tends to work by dropping details and recreating them on an ad hoc basis. Some copied passages include both sentence structure and arbtrary detail ('170', 'pink tube top with a playboy bunny') that should mutate as the line is recalled." (my emphasis)

Is this what you truly know from current memory research or what you think you know of current memory research? Because according to Schacter, this isn't the case. It is not so simple.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:08 PM on April 24, 2006

Harvard Sucks.
posted by bardic at 12:19 PM on April 24, 2006

So my hallmate here at cornell went to high school with this girl, and told me about this book deal a few months ago. He stoned-dialed her last semester which was highly enjoyable to sit in on. Too bad shes a fraud.
posted by Kifer85 at 12:22 PM on April 24, 2006

and harvard sucks.
posted by Kifer85 at 12:24 PM on April 24, 2006

"Because according to Schacter, this isn't the case. It is not so simple."

...and an example occurs to me. When people forget a phone number, are they more likely to forget a single digit or a group of digits, or the entire number? I'd argue that in my experience, it's very unlikely that only a single digit is lost. Note that I'm not making the claim that this is functionally the same as I'm discussing with regard to plagiarism. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. That's not the point. The point is more to demonstrate that what is retained and what is lost is not a matter of pure chance, not statistically comparable to, say, corrupted bits in computer data storage (by cosmic rays, whatever). You're quick to claim that both "170" and "pink tube top" are arbitrary details, but you cannot know that this is the case unless you have a great deal of knowledge of both how memory works generally and how Viswanathan's memory works specifically. The number "170" and the color pink and tube tops may well not be as memorable to her as 218, aquamarine, and tank-tops are. In the production of language, in the description of a mental image, I am unwilling to make claims to what is arbitrary and what is determined. Why do we pick the specific words we do? Do we have functional bags from which we draw specifics at random? How likely is it, in fact, that we would pick and order words truly at random?

And this goes to the heart of an earlier comment which claims a statistical description of the frequency of phrases or sentences. I'm aware of the folkloric claim that a large number of all sentences uttered have never been said before—but I'm not aware the authority of that claim and I'm certainly not going to rely upon an assumption that the basis for this claim rests upon a comprehension of human language such that it can reliably make such a claim. Indeed, I strongly suspect that this folklore rests upon a very, very naive and simplified probabalistic calculation that has no real meaning. I might be wrong. But it is here that I wish the participation of our friend languagehat, a linguist, because I suggest that he more than we has an idea about how likely one person's sentence may match another's.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:26 PM on April 24, 2006

You'd think a phrase like "And this goes to the heart of an earlier comment" would be common. But Google shows not one hit

The phrase is all yours, EB.
posted by vacapinta at 12:36 PM on April 24, 2006

But did EB read this article sometime in the last couple of years? Google doesn't have all the answers. [I guess a "yet" could be appropriate here.]
posted by cgc373 at 12:45 PM on April 24, 2006

That's a compelling example. But I don't really have a framework within which to properly evaluate this. You're going in the right direction and, really, what needs to be done is a rigorous analysis like I suggested earlier that could give us ballpark—quantitatively and qualitatively—within which we could assume unintentional plagiarism occurs.

While I obviously do have some inclinations about all this in light of Schacter's book, I really do not intend to make the opposing argument—I am only express very strong skepticism at the contentional argument which appears in this thread.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:48 PM on April 24, 2006

Wow. Web serendipity. Text from that article: Disclaimer: Harvard does not purposely train criminals, but any that get trained here are, by definition, not dumb. The above opinion is mine, not that of the university.
posted by cgc373 at 12:48 PM on April 24, 2006

Speaking as an author, I think it's reasonably obvious that this was deliberate lifting. Too many items, too many exact parallels, notably all from the same source.

That being said, is there any similarity in plot, character, situation, or intent between the earlier novels and this one? Because if all it is, is the stealing and alteration of maybe a dozen or so descriptive phrases, then it seems a fairly minor deal to me unless more plagiarized bits (from McCafferty's books or from a different source) come to light.
posted by kyrademon at 12:56 PM on April 24, 2006

The blog mowglisambo linked to at 10:14 now has no content; it had three posts a few hours ago, each of them paraphrasing more-or-less famous literary works, such as "It was the best of times . . ." Now a shell.

Not a good sign of good faith, in my view.
posted by cgc373 at 1:59 PM on April 24, 2006

According to MLA guidelines, three or more words that match in series constitutes plagiarism. This book is definitely plagiarized.
posted by nlindstrom at 2:03 PM on April 24, 2006

cgc373, I know, the Dickens reference was portentious, and ironic given today's news. I don't blame her from taking it down.
posted by mowglisambo at 2:08 PM on April 24, 2006

It's worth reading the last link in the FPP. Just for comparison. Way back in 1980, one fairly highbrow author plagiarises another and the plagiarisee gets his revenge by writing a witty, barbed piece in a highbrow newspaper. The plagiariser apologises fulsomely and honour is restored. I can't help but feel that modern life is rubbish.*


*disclaimer: last four words are the name of an album by Blur.
posted by rhymer at 2:14 PM on April 24, 2006

No matter how you apologists contort for this girl, she is not going to fuck any of you.
posted by basicchannel at 2:21 PM on April 24, 2006

nlindstrom writes "According to MLA guidelines, three or more words that match in series constitutes plagiarism."

Well, I think we can all agree that this particular definition of plagiarism is nonsense. Otherwise, nlindstrom is a plagiarizer!
posted by mr_roboto at 2:27 PM on April 24, 2006

LH, I hope you don't take my "languagehat, I'm looking at you" comment as mean-spirited

Far from it! I have enjoyed your discussions of memory in this thread, and I thoroughly agree with you that we have a poor understanding of how it works and are likely to jump to false conclusions; that being said, however, I'm reasonably sure that you're falling prey to the common temptation to let a striking new fact or perspective color your view of things excessively. Yes, in general we should be more cautious than we are about crying plagiarism, but in this particular case I really don't think it's plausible that we're dealing with unconscious memory. As others have said: too many specific liftings from a single source. But I like your standing up for the cowering victim of the mob. She's still not going to fuck you, though.

Oh, and I don't have any special knowledge of the unsaid-sentences thing, but it seems true on the face of it that "a large number of all sentences uttered have never been said before"; you'd have to work very hard to convince me otherwise. That claim is separate, mind you, from the fact that a large number of utterances (Fuck you! Have a nice day!) have been said many, many times before.
posted by languagehat at 2:49 PM on April 24, 2006

languagehat : "a large number of utterances (Fuck you! Have a nice day!) have been said many, many times before."

Google hits:

Fuck you!

• 18,100,000

Have a nice day!

• 12,300,000

Fuck you! Have a nice day!

• 1,190

This trivia has been brought to you by the letter B.
posted by bugbread at 3:05 PM on April 24, 2006

EB: Is this what you truly know from current memory research or what you think you know of current memory research? Because according to Schacter, this isn't the case. It is not so simple.

I'm sorry did I claim it was so simple? Pardon, I don't feel like spending a few hundred posts in the same song and dance as before. And I certainly laced my post with multiple qualifiers that would suggest that I don't consider this "simple."

At least from the lit I've read on this, (including more than a little peer-reviewed stuff) memory is a reconstructive process in which we catch some things as important and then creatively fill in the details as necessary. As a classic example, how many people remember, "Play it again Sam?" over the less essential, less catchy but more accurate, "You played it for her, you can play it for me." (And that probably isn't an accurate quote either.) From a personal example, for years I thought I was quoting Vonnegut as writing, "Let ashes sleep like ashes, let no light disturb their rest" when the actual text is quite a bit different.

What I'm aruging is that each case of similarity, each layer of similarity between the two bodies of work reduces the probability that these are a few innocent slips. I'm not strongly convinced that it's plagairism, not enough that I'd make the decision to reward damages to Ms. McCaffery. But there certainly seems to be enough that McCaffery and her publisher would be well justified in obtaining legal council and expert analysis.

And again. I've allready granted the possibility that this could all be a series of unintentional memory slips. Even giving her that benefit of the doubt, she is still open for criticism as a sloppy and unoriginal writer since trying to avoid those slips is what writers are supposed to do.

I don't see where anyone has proposed formal statistical claims here, and even so, such claims wouldn't depend on the population distribution being "random." For parametric statistics, perhaps, but there is nothing wrong with resampling techniques.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 3:18 PM on April 24, 2006

There may be a story within the story here - with the Harvard Crimson having set out to "get her" in a sense.

Thus begins a review of her book from last week:

A little-known fact about Harvard students is that we hate each other almost as much as the rest of the world hates us—maybe more. When one of us succeeds, the rest of us go berserk. Public congratulations barely conceal private disgust, which turns out to be an even poorer mask for deep, soul-burning jealousy and crippling self-doubt. The distance from “How could she...” to “Why didn’t I...” to “Undeserving slut” is, unfortunately, short and easily traveled.

Harvard being Harvard, we have by necessity adjusted; it takes a mighty victory to ruffle our proud feathers. How mighty?

Kaavya Viswanathan’s ’08 recently procured $500,000 two-book deal and forthcoming DreamWorks contract seem to have qualified. Almost as soon as her success became public knowledge, Viswanathan became the target of an inspired private butchering.
posted by vacapinta at 3:24 PM on April 24, 2006

I don't know about broad categorizations, but going with clip art comics, the amen break, and whatnot:

Artists who remix are upfront about remixing.
Artists who plagiarize deny that they do so.

Or, if I rephrase for accuracy:

An artist who uses other people's works, and admits it readily, is not called a plagiarist.
An artist who uses other people's works, and doesn't admit it, is called a plagiarist.

If the author said this work was a remix of other author's work, then, sure, a few MeFites would still be upset (a few MeFites will always be upset), but the number would be significantly lower.

Of course, the nebulous area is the timing and type of admitting, I should think. For example, I've personally made tracks using the Amen break, but I've never gone and told someone "Hey, this uses the Amen break, which is sampled". If someone asks me, I'll certainly 'fess up, and I'm sure there are plagiarists that lift passages, but don't tell anyone -- but if someone confronts them, they'll fess up. We consider the first case "discussing the music", and the second one "catching a plagiarist", but I think this perhaps comes from the background of the two areas. DnB/Jungle is so thoroughly based in sampling, for instance, that individual artists don't have to fess up in advance: it is understood. Literature, however, uses far less, so it isn't understood, and needs to be said in advance to not be plagiarism.

This sticks out especially with the old days of rap breaking into the mainstream: now, if you sample Bon Jovi in a hip-hop song, nobody thinks you're a plagiarist, just regular sampling. In the old days, that may have been true within the rap community, but it wasn't in the mainstream music community, which resulted in things like the big "Snow vs. Queen" debacle ("Ice Ice Baby" vs. "Under Pressure".)



Yes, I plagarized that from someone else's comment, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
posted by davejay at 3:39 PM on April 24, 2006

“Immature poets imitate; great poets steal”--T. S. Eliot

Says the poet who "stole" most of "The Waste Land." In a good way. Which is to say, this girl is a plagiarist and should be treated as such. She's hardly trying to present herself as standing on the shoulders of giants.

For anyone trying to defend her, I'd suggest they get in contact with Megan McCafferty and see how she feels about it.
posted by bardic at 4:01 PM on April 24, 2006

Yes, I plagarized that from someone else's comment, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

no, dude: i plagiarized in my earlier comment, you remixed.

wait, by admitting that i plagiarized...d'oh!!!!
posted by lord_wolf at 4:06 PM on April 24, 2006

Well, this comment is a total plagiarization of lord_wolf's, but I've changed enough that even the most intensive Google search won't bring it up.
posted by bugbread at 4:16 PM on April 24, 2006

Let no one else's work evade your eyes.
posted by cgc373 at 4:19 PM on April 24, 2006

Kifer85: Go Big Red!
posted by Stynxno at 4:52 PM on April 24, 2006

For anyone interested in updates, two articles on the Crimson site: Kaavya Speaks -and- a grim statement from McCaffrey's publishers lawyer.
posted by vacapinta at 5:17 PM on April 24, 2006

From the grim statement:

“As has been previously reported, we helped Kaavya conceptualize and plot the book,” Leslie Morgenstein, the president of Alloy Entertainment, wrote in an e-mail today.

No comment.
posted by languagehat at 5:28 PM on April 24, 2006

EB: Daniel L. Schacter's popular book on memory...

Which book? Amazon lists several.

My own views on eyewitness testimony were reset by Elizabeth Loftus (a book which, oddly enough, I read for a class at Harvard).
posted by cribcage at 5:33 PM on April 24, 2006

I have a question.

Megan McCafferty claims she was alerted to the plagiarism on April 11 via e-mail from a fan. Her publisher, Random House, hand-delivered a letter to Little, Brown yesterday (Sunday) — the same day the Crimson broke this story on its website.

Who tipped off the Crimson?

Maybe it's a coincidence, that Viswanathan’s school newspaper just happened to break this story on the same day that Random House lawyers delivered their letter...but I doubt it.
posted by cribcage at 5:44 PM on April 24, 2006

No matter how you apologists contort for this girl, she is not going to fuck any of you.

But she might say she did.
posted by bunglin jones at 5:59 PM on April 24, 2006

the big "Snow vs. Queen" debacle ("Ice Ice Baby" vs. "Under Pressure".)

I believe you mean "Vanilla Ice vs. Queen". Snow's big hit was "Informer".
posted by ktoad at 7:05 PM on April 24, 2006

Actually, it's Vanilla Ice vs. David Bowie, isn't it?
posted by mowglisambo at 7:12 PM on April 24, 2006

But she might say she did.

only if someone else says it first.
posted by lord_wolf at 7:35 PM on April 24, 2006

nvm, it's bowie & queen. But I'll bet Bowie penned it and Queen took all the credit!
posted by mowglisambo at 7:43 PM on April 24, 2006

"For anyone trying to defend her, I'd suggest they get in contact with Megan McCafferty and see how she feels about it."

Heh. I was on the minority side in that debate, too, but not really because I was defending her so much as I felt that what he did was wrong.

I really can't imagine committing plagiarism; I'm pretty sure I can honestly say that it has never occured to me to do it. But in spite of that (or because of it?) I remain puzzled at the very strong negative feelings it generates in people.

Anyway, I may be far too credulous about claims of innocence in this matter. But it's long seemed to me that something that other people feel is extremely self-evident (two passages are the same? plagiarism.) may be a lot more complicated than we think but right now we're really not that far from that simplistic MLA guideline which, applied indiscriminately, would have absurd results. It seems to me we give zero consideration to the possibility that it might be plagiairism, but unintentional. Helen Keller's story is interesting...I'm curious about how many people here who read it believe or disbelieve her. If we changed the name and obscured the disability-indicating details, would we still be willing to consider innocence?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:51 PM on April 24, 2006

She admits it and apologises.
posted by bonaldi at 8:30 PM on April 24, 2006

galleycat's follow-up further clarifies the role of alloy entertainment/17th street productions, aka the people who brought you sweet valley high ...

And while the 'sphere buzzes with schadenfreude, speculation and wonder that this may well be Freywatch redux, what's lost in the shuffle is the silent middleman in the equation: 17th Street Productions, the book packager responsible for giving the YA world SWEET VALLEY HIGH, GOSSIP GIRL and other YA teen glam books.

Let's go through the timeline: back in 2004, Visnawathan was a high school senior making use of IvyWise -- a five-figure program to help her get into Ivy League schools such as...Harvard. The college counselor she worked with was Katherine Cohen, who also happened to be an author ('Rock Hard Apps: How to Write the Killer College Application") and represented by Suzanne Gluck at William Morris. Visnawathan showed Cohen some of her writing samples, including a 100-page draft of OPAL MEHTA, and ended up in the hands of Jennifer Rudolph Walsh (best known as James Patterson's agent.)

Then Walsh turned around and sent Visnawathan to 17th Street Productions, Why? Because as Walsh told the Boston Globe back in February, she didn't have a "commercially viable" work, having instead written something much darker. 17th Street worked with the young author to "flesh out the concept" of what would become OPAL MEHTA, which sold to Little, Brown on the basis of a few chapters and a detailed plot synopsis.

posted by maura at 8:35 PM on April 24, 2006

I remain puzzled at the very strong negative feelings it generates in people.

1. If everyone did it, we'd have no literature, just a million people submitting the same manuscript with minor changes to defeat simple searches and to get simpletons like those in this thread to say "hurr maybe she just did it by accident."

2. Plagiarizing a retarded genre is actually sadder and more pathetic than writing an original work in that genre.

3. She has had opportunities that some smart kid living in poverty would kill for yet wastes it by being an immoral spoiled thief.

To hell with her and her defenders; anyone who can't tell the difference between borrowing from earlier sources and plagiarism needs to have his fucking head examined.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:51 PM on April 24, 2006

Oh, and her "apology"? A classic "I apologize but I didn't do anything wrong."

"Recently, I was very surprised and upset to learn that there are similarities between some passages in my novel and passages in these books. While the central stories of my book and hers are completely different, I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalised Ms McCafferty's words.

"I am a huge fan of her work and can honestly say that any phrasing similarities between her works and mine were completely unintentional and unconscious. My publisher and I plan to revise my novel for future printings to eliminate any inappropriate similarities.

"I sincerely apologise to Megan McCafferty and to any who feel they have been misled by these unintentional errors on my part."

Ugh. What a disgusting person.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:54 PM on April 24, 2006

i like how that apology also claims authenticity of authorship, and doesn't mention 17th st./alloy once.

ah well. i'm sure her scruples will serve her well in the i-banker world.
posted by maura at 8:57 PM on April 24, 2006

"She admits it and apologises."

Actually, she asserts exactly my defense of her. And so now we are faced with what I believe might well be deeply unfair to her.

Optimus Chyme and others, you are so damned sure of yourselves in your condemnation. It's reminscent to me of the common conservative mentality (or at least the liberal caricature of it) that almost invariably finds a defendent guilty of a crime by virtue of a sort of reverse "reasonable doubt" thought process. That is, if there's any possible the accused might be guilty, they probable are.

I find this mindset deeply disturbing in people that are otherwise more careful and generous minded.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:00 PM on April 24, 2006

Optimus Chyme and others, you are so damned sure of yourselves in your condemnation.

EB, the point where it's clear she's full of shit is in her changing the phrase "Psych" to "Human Evolution." The concept of "personal space" would not be included in a class on evolution whereas it's perfectly appropriate in a psychology class. She changed it to the closest thing she could think of and it was a deliberate choice, because it's so fucking flat and obviously false in her rewriting. If it were truly an error on her part, and unintentional, she would have used the correct class, instead of struggling to fit something in there as long as it wasn't Psych.

As someone who has written his fair share of (unpublished) fiction, I know exactly where and where my influences are coming from, as well as any borrowings or retellings I use - and I'm just a scrub amateur without an editor and publishing company to check my work. It is impossible for someone without brain damage to take multiple sentences from the same fucking two novels and only change one or two words in each without knowing about it over mutliple drafts and galleys. Her claims of innocence are clearly false to any person who has any experience in reading, writing, or analyzing literature.

It's reminscent to me of the common conservative mentality (or at least the liberal caricature of it) that almost invariably finds a defendent guilty of a crime by virtue of a sort of reverse "reasonable doubt" thought process. That is, if there's any possible the accused might be guilty, they probable are.

Please. All the evidence -

- multiple phrases and sentences
- from the same two novels
- with very minor changes
- that usually do not fit as well as the original

- screams plagiarism. Screams it. If I were grading an essay and saw this kind of evidence, I would immediately mark it a 0 and talk to the head of the department as well as the appropriate student ethics officers.

No one has presented any reasonable defense for her actions. It's not unusual that a smart person under intense pressure will plagiarize; I've seen it happen dozens of times. So why not go with this simple explanation, well supported by the evidence, rather than with some hand-waving bullshit non-apology?
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:40 PM on April 24, 2006

No one has presented any reasonable defense for her actions.

No defense of her actions is necessary. The righteous condemnation of her is an empty show. (Heck, it might've even be a publicity stunt. She'll definitely sell a few more copies because of it.) All the various talking heads, big and small, that have appeared and will appear to fret and rant about plagiarism and authenticity are like whores who frets over their makeup. I suspect it's even worse then that, but... What is remarkable is how quickly these public (witch)trials took on the form of ritual. The script already feels old and tired. The internet news story that makes the shocking announcement, the blogs and chattering classes that relentlessly tear at the story, finally the accused confesses and the story is allowed to fade, forgiveness in the form of forgetting. All it needs is an Oprah/Jerry Springer/Dr. Phil-like entity to provide a crisp, closing benediction to the whole affair.
posted by nixerman at 10:11 PM on April 24, 2006

So what you're saying is that because, yes, there are other stories to cover and discuss, and because, yes, the world moves on, that plagiarism is okay? That we shouldn't talk about it at all? That there should be no repercussions, no shame in the theft of others' hard work?

I expected better from you.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 10:30 PM on April 24, 2006

The righteous condemnation of her is an empty show.

I don't even know what that means. Do you mean that it's inconsequential, in that discussing the story is unlikely to affect its outcome? That's probably true, but (a) discussion can have other results and (b) hardly any news stories are "affected" by folks discussing them over coffee or telephone lines. So what?

I'd say the people being "righteous" are the ones turning up their noses at people who condemn plagiarism. And it's my humble opinion that your "righteous indignation" is born less from a sincere belief that Viswanathan's act is defensible and more from...well, methinks thou doth protest too much.

Ethereal Bligh: Which Schacter book did you read?
posted by cribcage at 10:45 PM on April 24, 2006

I agree with you OC, this "apology" reads just like the Cynthia McKinney "apology." Neither of them actually say they are sorry for the action they have been accused of, just for the way that other people have perceived it. The subtext is that, if no one had gotten upset, it would have been just fine...and clearly they don't really feel sorry at all.

MCKINNEY:
"I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all and I regret its escalation and I apologize. " [not "I am sorry I hit a police officer"]

VISWANATHAN:
"I sincerely apologise to Megan McCafferty and to any who feel they have been misled by these unintentional errors on my part." [not "I sincerely apologize to people who thought they were paying for something I created instead of cut, pasted, and sanitized with a Thesaurus"]

Oh, and naturally they both have to use the passive voice, a la "Mistakes Were Made"

VISWANATHAN:
"there are similarities between some passages in my novel and passages in these books" [not "I wrote similar passages"]

MCKINNEY:
"There should not have been any physical contact in this incident." [not "I should not have made physical contact"]

Both of them took fairly understandable mistakes and made them a lot worse by refusing to take responsibility. The only question now is whether Viswanathan is going to reach for the race card...
posted by banishedimmortal at 10:56 PM on April 24, 2006

cribcage: Ethereal Bligh: Which Schacter book did you read?

He can't remember, but it's probably what I read, and which comes up first on Amazon: The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers.
posted by daksya at 11:10 PM on April 24, 2006

Hi, maura!
posted by cgc373 at 11:54 PM on April 24, 2006

Arguing over orgiginality in chick-lit is like two bald women fighting over a comb. (With apologies to Borges)
posted by rhymer at 11:57 PM on April 24, 2006

The righteous condemnation of her is an empty show.

as is so much righteous condemnation these days ... it's a ritual dance ... the finding of the fault ... the awkward scurrying of the accused ... the cries of outrage and attempts to troll for other people's outrage ... and last of all the mumbled half-apologies of the accused and the arguments over how sincere the apology was

actually, i wasn't defending her, i was trying to get the issue into perspective with other similar cultural trends ... one can argue, of course, that sampling is a "given", but that's an understanding between people in the know, isn't it?

from the last linked crimson article -

According to legal experts, infringement litigation operates under a “different standard” than plagiarism. They said that it is possible to plagiarize a work without infringing on its copyright.

“Plagiarism is passing off one’s work as your own, but that doesn’t necessarily make it copyright infringement,” Justin Hughes, the director of the intellectual property law program at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, said. “In an infringement action, a person can use a ‘fair use’ defense. That is, that they didn’t use so many words as to be guilty of infringement.”

and so it goes ... the artistic minded people carry on about how she's committed an artistic crime ... while the lawyers shrug it off ...

mccafferty's books are now going to probably sell even more copies ... a few interviews in the right places about how she feels outraged and violated should pay off for her handsomely

for various reasons ... not the least of which is the recombinant nature of many of our popular arts, many younger people seem to think this kind of copying is alright ... we can get indignant about it all we want, but i'd bet we're going to see a lot more of it

what's inherent about literature that makes it somehow different than cliched filled movies, music and video games full of cops off of other works? ... sure, you say, it's "given" that people don't do that when they write books, and it's "understood" that dance music composers do ... but is that an actual artistic law or just a convention? ... and what if the coming generation decides that convention doesn't work for them?

the lawyers have already admitted that a lawsuit by the plagarized is dubious ... so what's left? ... outrage? ... over chick lit?

hey, if it makes you feel better ...
posted by pyramid termite at 12:58 AM on April 25, 2006

Ohh, I'll try to cut short a very long post.

Let's drop the language of guilt, innocence, intent and plagiarism. A manuscript that has multiple flaws in it is delivered to a publisher. The publisher prints the manuscript. Multiple flaws in the manuscript are discovered that make both the author and the publisher look bad. The publisher takes the heat for letting those errors get to press, the author takes the heat for including those errors. That's how getting published works. It doesn't matter if you write one column a week for the local newspaper, a peer reviewed academic paper, or a novel. It does not matter if the problem is an error of fact or an error of attribution or defamation. It does not matter if the error was intentional or unintentional. Each publication puts the reputation of the author and the publisher at risk. The authors get the worst of the blame if there is a problem with the manuscript, but they get most of the credit if it's a great manuscript. If you don't like accepting that risk, don't accept publication.

Ms. Viswanathan has admitted to being guilty of negligence demanding at least a revision. Little, Brown & Co. consider this serious enough to investigate. So far, both of the two key stakeholders who should be defending Opal Mehta are admitting there is a problem with the current edition. (Dreamworks will probably just bury the movie rights someplace dark and legal.) Hasn't the fat lady sung on this? Is there any question that there is a problem with Opal Mehta, and that most of the responsibility for this problem rests on her Viswanathan's shoulders?

6 weeks ago my van was t-boned by a driver who, for reasons unknown to me, pulled out from a stop sign and right into the driver-side door. The first things she said to me were something like, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it." (What I really wanted to hear was, "an ambulance is on the way.") The high probability that she really didn't intend to bust up my knee is not going to replace the money I pay in doctor's bills, my van, the lost wages, or the lost mushroom season this year.

Quite thankfully, neither the traffic laws of the State of Indiana or the insurance companies are eager to consider intent in judging guilt or innocence. Car one refused to yield right of way to car two, resulting in a collision that caused personal injury. The driver of car one is at fault, and the insurance policy on car one is responsible for damages to the passengers of the other vehicles.

We can quibble until the cows come home about the definition of plagiarism, and whether it was intentional or unintentional. What matters is that there is a problem with the manuscript, and the primary responsibility falls person listed as the author.

pyramid termite: what's inherent about literature that makes it somehow different than cliched filled movies, music and video games full of cops off of other works?

Who is saying it is different? But you are mixing up a few things here. There is a big difference between working within the cliches of a genre, and copying the work of others with trivial changes and passing it off as your own.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:15 AM on April 25, 2006