Just to make it clear, I do understand that part of the concern here was the way in which he cited them (in the paragraphs vice a more formal format) and another part was that he evidently didn’t always cite them.

Certainly they should have been cited in all instances but, when it comes to the acceptability of format of the citation, that’s really a judgment call on the part of the publisher.

Was Chris trying to steal other people’s words?

Or was he–as it seems to me–merely attempting to write in such a way as to stay true to the originals?

If a writer, having cited sources, engages in too much paraphrasing, he runs the risk of altering the content so much that such attribution would amount to putting words into other people’s mouths.

Most of the examples above deal with people’s recounting of things that are supposed to be facts–including series of events. There’s only so much paraphrasing one could do without running the risk of altering the facts and/or making it seem that the sources had said things they actually hadn’t.

I think Chris simply opted for meticulous adherence to the facts that others had previously recounted. I see that as a good thing.

I’m not defending plagiarism by any means, but I don’t think it’s always an open and shut case. I often have international students who are very confused by American university standards for plagiarism because in their own countries they are taught to take, liberally and enthusiastically, the words of writers and use them in their writing with just the mention of the writer’s name. No need to paraphrase or cite. This is pretty easy for me to detect in their writing, as often the styles simply don’t mesh well. And I do require them to revise with the strictest definition in mind because it is the academic standard they will be held to as student writers.

In any case, I’m compiling a set of articles on plagiarism for an intermediate writing class as the foundation for a research project on plagiarism. And this fits in nicely–as do the comments. I’m hoping they will find some additional interesting cases to cite.

No, not because an editor stole ideas and foisted them off as his own. It’s because I just finished the latest issue and wasn’t as entertained by it as I am by this scandal and the insights offered by others, for FREE, in the comment section of a blog.

I am not out of line at all. Again, I urge you to click on the above link to the Indiana University Bloomington Writing Tutorial Services’s very helpful website. You may actually learn a few things about what constitutes plagiarism. And it is my hope that this incident will also aid you in discovering a few things about journalism.

In all these cases where it wasn’t my original research credit was properly given, as a fair-minded reading of the examples will show.

In the same way that downloading content without paying is just not seen as bad by a younger generation, it’s likely that our understanding of “cheating” will have to change with technology as well.

Not really excusing a mistake in this particular case, but it highlights the complication of a time when so much information is so easy to put together, from sources with very uncertain licensing requirements.

“Information wants to be free” doesn’t grant a license to steal.