You can check out the full story over at the Virginia Quarterly Review.
What really bothers me, and this is probably fodder for a much longer future post, is that the author and some of the commenters seem to diminish the dishonesty of this plagiarism. Towards the bottom of the article, Chris Anderson responds via email and make a few statements that are unbelievable, such as:
- As you’ll note, these are mostly on the margins of the book’s focus, mostly on historical asides, but that’s no excuse. If it’s not an excuse, don’t try to make it one. Don’t try to diminish the dishonesty by noting that the plagiarized content is “historical asides.”
- I think what we’ll do is publish those notes after all, online as they should have been to begin with. The real question here is, if VQR or another site didn’t find this information, would you be publishing the full notes?
- All those are my screwups after we decided not to run notes as planned, due to my inability to find a good citation format for web sources… WTF? Couldn’t find a decent citation format?
It’s baffling to me. Either you went through and corrected the problems, or you didn’t. None of this, well, I didn’t realize we missed anything until we published… I simply can’t believe that Hyperion doesn’t have a fact checker or review editor.
The reason this really pisses me off is that I’m a Citadel Graduate. If you’re unfamiliar, The Citadel and VMI are the only two colleges, that I know of, that strictly enforce an honor code. (EDIT: Turns out that UVA also has a strict, single sanction code. I am sure there are others, so please feel free to correct me.) The Citadel code is simple: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do.” At The Citadel and VMI, this is a single sanction process. In other words, if you’re found guilty, you are expelled. Now, I haven’t been a cadet in years, but I still follow these rules in my personal and professional life. Any gain you receive from breaking these rules is fleeting and the truth will always come out. When it does, you have two problems: the original lie/cheating/etc and the coverup. Remember, Martha Stewart didn’t go to jail for insider trading, but for lying about it.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
We have a single-sanction honor code here at the University of Virginia, too, that’s precisely the same: no lying, cheating, or stealing, or tolerating those who do. There are a large number of universities who have the former portion as their honor code, but the “won’t tolerate those who do” clause is relatively uncommon. The combination of both of those and the single sanction is quite rare.
Thanks Waldo, corrected in my post. How could I forget about UVA…? Sorry.
Eric