Thanks, Jonathan. I didn't include thefts from articles on Robinson (Wiki), E. E. Cummings (Poetry Foundation), and Claude McKay (Poetry Foundation), because they weren't as extensive or striking--and, well, more would have been beating a dead horse. I cut out the error on "Richard Cory" because the list was getting too long--but you convince me that it should go back in.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
There's more...
On facebook, the reviewer who found the plagiarism, William Logan, told me, in a comment visible to hundreds (so I don't think it's wrong of me to cite it):
Unique
Imagine a language with 10 words, with sentence length limited to 10 words as well. This language has no syntactical rules so the words can come in any order, the number of sentences in this language is 10 billion:
10,000,000,000
Now imagine our language, with thousands of words, not 10. Our sentence length has no fixed limit, but let's say a lot of sentences are in the 30-word range. If we didn't have rules of combination (syntax) and the rule that sentences had to make sense on the semantic level, then we could have utterances like
pig pencil the the the and snare strives Houdini motion over arbitrary the contraption whiggish...
If my base ten example with 10 digits yielded 10 billion, then there is no way I can calculate the number of 30 word strings possible. I would be typing zeros all day long.
But we have syntactical rules, so we might think of utterances as syntactical patterns that we can plug lexical items into. The the game of saying adjective noun transitive verb adjective noun.
Fat pigs devour small toads. There are five slots, and in each slot can go as many different adjectives, nouns, and verbs exist in English. We are still talking about large numbers. If we filter out the ones that don't make any sense, then there are still huge numbers. With numerous syntactical pattern available, and relatively longish utterances, we are getting into multiple zeros of sentences that make sense, so that it is fairly easy to produce unique utterances like
The small vase contained a mixture of coffee beans from numerous regions and a specially trained cat was charged with the absurd task of separating them into fastidious piles.
This is what Chomsky called the creativity of language. There are other limits, I suppose. For example, language consists not only of words but of phrases in statistically probable combinations, so there will be hundreds of instances of "charged with the absurd task" on google. The more improbable the combination, the more unique, the less cliché-like, it is. It is easy to see why statistically common phrases exist: language is not random, and has no obligation to be. There are conventions of discourse and easy short-cuts like "this book makes a significant contribution to the field."
Some factual information is difficult to state in a unique way. So-and-so was born in this year in this place. The attempt to state it differently would sound affected. But the chances of several sentences in a row being identical without direct copying (or a common source) are infinitesimal. Imagine Thomas awaking today and coming up with the sentence: The small vase contained a mixture of coffee beans from numerous regions and a specially trained cat was charged with the absurd task of separating them into fastidious piles as his example of a unique sentence. We would call it a psychic phenomenon. We wouldn't believe it a coincidence.
It gets worse for the plagiarism defenders. When you are writing carefully and thoughtfully about something your ideas and your language will grow more unique and original, and probably more statistically improbable for that reason. Your writing will have an autonomous voice. This is what we expect from Mr. or Dr. or Ms. Prominent Writer. Will a good writer avoid all statistically common patterns? No. Good, fluid writing has to rely on some expected chunks of language that don't call attention to themselves. But if you never, ever find a luminously surprising adjective-noun combination or a semi-original turn of phrase you simply aren't a writer.
10,000,000,000
Now imagine our language, with thousands of words, not 10. Our sentence length has no fixed limit, but let's say a lot of sentences are in the 30-word range. If we didn't have rules of combination (syntax) and the rule that sentences had to make sense on the semantic level, then we could have utterances like
pig pencil the the the and snare strives Houdini motion over arbitrary the contraption whiggish...
If my base ten example with 10 digits yielded 10 billion, then there is no way I can calculate the number of 30 word strings possible. I would be typing zeros all day long.
But we have syntactical rules, so we might think of utterances as syntactical patterns that we can plug lexical items into. The the game of saying adjective noun transitive verb adjective noun.
Fat pigs devour small toads. There are five slots, and in each slot can go as many different adjectives, nouns, and verbs exist in English. We are still talking about large numbers. If we filter out the ones that don't make any sense, then there are still huge numbers. With numerous syntactical pattern available, and relatively longish utterances, we are getting into multiple zeros of sentences that make sense, so that it is fairly easy to produce unique utterances like
The small vase contained a mixture of coffee beans from numerous regions and a specially trained cat was charged with the absurd task of separating them into fastidious piles.
This is what Chomsky called the creativity of language. There are other limits, I suppose. For example, language consists not only of words but of phrases in statistically probable combinations, so there will be hundreds of instances of "charged with the absurd task" on google. The more improbable the combination, the more unique, the less cliché-like, it is. It is easy to see why statistically common phrases exist: language is not random, and has no obligation to be. There are conventions of discourse and easy short-cuts like "this book makes a significant contribution to the field."
Some factual information is difficult to state in a unique way. So-and-so was born in this year in this place. The attempt to state it differently would sound affected. But the chances of several sentences in a row being identical without direct copying (or a common source) are infinitesimal. Imagine Thomas awaking today and coming up with the sentence: The small vase contained a mixture of coffee beans from numerous regions and a specially trained cat was charged with the absurd task of separating them into fastidious piles as his example of a unique sentence. We would call it a psychic phenomenon. We wouldn't believe it a coincidence.
It gets worse for the plagiarism defenders. When you are writing carefully and thoughtfully about something your ideas and your language will grow more unique and original, and probably more statistically improbable for that reason. Your writing will have an autonomous voice. This is what we expect from Mr. or Dr. or Ms. Prominent Writer. Will a good writer avoid all statistically common patterns? No. Good, fluid writing has to rely on some expected chunks of language that don't call attention to themselves. But if you never, ever find a luminously surprising adjective-noun combination or a semi-original turn of phrase you simply aren't a writer.
Saturday, October 7, 2017
More plagiarism excuses
Shakespeare had a source for Hamlet.
Trump is president and ruining the world... it is not the time to complain about plagiarism.
It is not possible to be totally original. Everything has already been said / thought. Nihil novum sub sole.
Nobody cares anywhere.
It's not plagiarism if the source is anonymous, in the public domain...
There are only so many plots anyway...
Trump is president and ruining the world... it is not the time to complain about plagiarism.
It is not possible to be totally original. Everything has already been said / thought. Nihil novum sub sole.
Nobody cares anywhere.
It's not plagiarism if the source is anonymous, in the public domain...
There are only so many plots anyway...
Bialosky
Here is another likely source for a passage in Bialosky's book--one not noted by Logan:
Bialosky writes:
I suspect that there are many other passages in her book that are cribbed from wikipedia, beyond what Logan found. This is a borderline case that might not qualify as full-blown plagiarism. What interests me here is the general badness of the scholarship. She states that a poem published in the 1890s is a product of "the Great Depression" and says that the poem has lasted nearly a century after its appearance! She calls the poem a ballad (it is not).
Encylopedias are sources of first resort. We go there first if we don't know anything. Then we find better sources. And seriously, if you cannot do a simply summary of a poem without echoing this banal wiki, you shouldn't be writing about poetry. Almost everything of substance in her comments on this poem is taken from the first thing you might google about this poem, including the Simon and Garfunkel song.
The poem describes a person who is wealthy, well educated, mannerly, and admired by the people in his town.
The song "Richard Cory", written by Paul Simon and recorded by Simon & Garfunkel for their second studio album, Sounds of Silence, was based on this poem.
At his death, many critics[who?] considered Robinson the greatest poet in the United States. He is now best remembered for his short poems characterizing various residents of Tilbury Town, which was based on his hometown, Gardiner, Maine. A quiet, introverted man, Robinson never married and became legendary for his reclusiveness. (wikipedia entry on "Richard Cory.")
Bialosky writes:
The poem describes a wealthy, educated gentleman who is admired by his community.
It is no wonder that the poem endures nearly a century after it first appeared, adapted into a song by Paul Simon, and that its maker, Edgar Arlington Robinson--himself a quiet, introspective, reclusive man--was considered one of the greatest poets in America at the time of his death.
I suspect that there are many other passages in her book that are cribbed from wikipedia, beyond what Logan found. This is a borderline case that might not qualify as full-blown plagiarism. What interests me here is the general badness of the scholarship. She states that a poem published in the 1890s is a product of "the Great Depression" and says that the poem has lasted nearly a century after its appearance! She calls the poem a ballad (it is not).
Encylopedias are sources of first resort. We go there first if we don't know anything. Then we find better sources. And seriously, if you cannot do a simply summary of a poem without echoing this banal wiki, you shouldn't be writing about poetry. Almost everything of substance in her comments on this poem is taken from the first thing you might google about this poem, including the Simon and Garfunkel song.
Friday, October 6, 2017
It's not plagiarism
... if my friend did it (or a powerful person I want to defend)
if the accuser is a jerk
if everyone does it anyway
if the source is wikipedia
if it was unintentional, inadvertent
if it only occurs x many times in a book of y pages
if the plagiarist doesn't do it all that often
if it wasn't the most important part of the argument: just "ancillary".
it is just the matter of missing quotation marks and references
if the plagiarist was in a hurry
if it's just "intertextuality"
it is "unoriginal genius"
etc...
if the accuser is a jerk
if everyone does it anyway
if the source is wikipedia
if it was unintentional, inadvertent
if it only occurs x many times in a book of y pages
if the plagiarist doesn't do it all that often
if it wasn't the most important part of the argument: just "ancillary".
it is just the matter of missing quotation marks and references
if the plagiarist was in a hurry
if it's just "intertextuality"
it is "unoriginal genius"
etc...
No free speech for Nazis
That sounds good: no free speech for Nazis. But how about others? We could say no free speech for misogynists; we could sign on to that too. Soon, we will have other categories of people that don't deserve free speech.
But then the next step is for no free speech for an old leftie organization, the ACLU, long attacked by the right for defending Communists and atheists. If the ACLU defends free speech for Nazis, then they should be shouted down too, right? (As they were by BLM protestors at William and Mary.) Soon, then, free speech is only for someone who defends the exactly correct orthodoxy of the moment, including ideas about what speech should be free or not. If you can't even discuss the issue of free speech, then there is no free speech for anyone, really. At the very least you should be able to discuss that.
Then, as a "card-carrying member of the ACLU,"* I am suspect too, and you are too if you defend me, and anyone defending your right to speak, and so on.
____
*This phrase was used by George Bush's democratic opponent in 1988, Michael Dukakis, and Bush pounced on the ACLU as a far left organization.
But then the next step is for no free speech for an old leftie organization, the ACLU, long attacked by the right for defending Communists and atheists. If the ACLU defends free speech for Nazis, then they should be shouted down too, right? (As they were by BLM protestors at William and Mary.) Soon, then, free speech is only for someone who defends the exactly correct orthodoxy of the moment, including ideas about what speech should be free or not. If you can't even discuss the issue of free speech, then there is no free speech for anyone, really. At the very least you should be able to discuss that.
Then, as a "card-carrying member of the ACLU,"* I am suspect too, and you are too if you defend me, and anyone defending your right to speak, and so on.
____
*This phrase was used by George Bush's democratic opponent in 1988, Michael Dukakis, and Bush pounced on the ACLU as a far left organization.
Thursday, October 5, 2017
More disgusting plagiarism
A famous poetry world person plagiarized from Wikipedia in her memoir about how poetry can change your life. A typical passage taken from Wikipedia is this:
The worst thing about this is that this is not even worth stealing. It is boilerplate encyclopedia crap writing. I've never called poetry "important" in my entire life. What a disgusting case.
Although Lowell’s manic depression was a great burden for him and his family, the exploration of mental illness in his verse led to some of his most important poetry, particularly as it manifested itself in Life Studies. When he was fifty, Lowell began taking lithium to treat his mental illness.
The worst thing about this is that this is not even worth stealing. It is boilerplate encyclopedia crap writing. I've never called poetry "important" in my entire life. What a disgusting case.
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