Plagiarism is not limited to the student level. In the past year alone, many famous authors have been accused of plagiarizing passages from their books. The consequences of these allegations are still not clear, but it has shown the public that an author’s word may not be solely their own.
The most recent allegation of plagiarism has been made against historian Stephen Ambrose. Ambrose, author of many books including “Band of Brothers,” has been accused of taking some of the lines in his book “Wild Blue” from a work of Thomas Chiders, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, according to CNN. Ambrose mentioned Chiders in the bibliography, but not in the specific passage.
“There are something like six or seven sentences in three or four of my books that are sentences of other writers,” Ambrose said at a lecture at Maryville University on Jan. 31. He said the only thing he failed to do was place quotation marks around the statements.
Other history writers are also under suspicion. Doris Kearns Goodwin has been accused of plagiarism, and David McCullough in his recent book “John Adams” misquoted Thomas Jefferson.
This does not stop at non-fiction. In 1999, Tom Stoppard, a screenwriter, was accused of stealing the idea for the Oscar-winning “Shakespeare in Love” from Faye Kellerman. Kellerman said she had written a novel similar called the “The Quality of Mercy” which has a love-lorn William Shakespeare similar to Stoppard’s. However, the similarities seem to end there. In “Shakespeare in Love,” the woman is used as the inspiration for “Romeo and Juliet” whereas in Kellerman’s book, Shakespeare tries to solve a murder, and his lady works on freeing Jews from the Spanish Inquisition.
Cabrini graduate Chris Vesci, permissions and research coordinator at a middle-sized publishing company in Philadelphia, now deals with making sure no allegations of plagiarism are made against his company. He deals mainly with pictures, but he explained that the process of securing a permission.
Vesci said that permission is needed to print anything that appears from another source and is not yours. Most permissions are for a one time only use, and you must get it in writing. You must also tell whoever holds the permission what you intend to do with the picture or writing. Sometimes you will have to pay for permission. This can cost as much as $200 for one image, according to Vesci.
There are three types of permissions, electronic, which is anything on a CD-ROM or like source, print and Internet. If you wish to use something from another medium on the Internet, you need to get a separate permission for that. If permissions are not secured, lawsuits can follow.
While a lawsuit in the Ambrose case is still not certain, the issue of plagiarism and honesty has become a hot topic. According to CNN.com, college professors have taken Ambrose off of their reading lists and are discussing plagiarism more openly with their classes. Professionals are also taking a stand. In a CNN article on Jan. 23, Anita Jones, executive director of the American Historical Association, said, “This saddens me because I’ve always been an advocate of historians trying to reach a public audience, and I would hope the next generation of historians will not be dissuaded.”
Vesci, however, feels there is an easy way not to get caught in a lawsuit. “The best solution is not to borrow anything or at least to limit your borrowing,” he said.
