Harvard author faces scrutiny

[Patiod]

Harvard undergraduate who signed a book deal for reportedly $500,000 while still a freshman is facing allegations that portions of her newly published first novel closely resemble parts of a coming-of-age novel published by a New Jersey writer in 2001.

Kaavya Viswanathan's ''How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" contains more than a half-dozen passages in which the language closely echoes ''Sloppy Firsts," published by a division of Random House Inc., including one 14-word sequence that appears in both books. Late last week, Random House sent a letter raising concerns about the similarities to lawyers for Little, Brown and Co., the publishers of ''Opal Mehta," a spokesman for Random House said yesterday.


http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2006/04/24/opal_mehta_vs_sloppy_firsts/

Help me out - how does a plagerist think this WON'T get picked up?

[democracyindanger]

1. Busted.

I wonder if this could get her kicked out of Harvard, too. At the very least, I bet her classwork receives some extra special scrutiny.

[sir_captain]

6. If they decide that she plagiarized

and it really does seem difficult not to draw that conclusion, she will most likely be asked to take a leave of absence for 1 or 2 years, at which point she'd be able to petition to come back. Ted Kennedy, for instance, had to take 2 years off after he got someone to take a spanish exam for him.

[spag68]

2. Sorry

I just can't get myself to care.

[habitual]

3. ditto, yawn. n/t

[daleo]

4. Some passages are pretty close

Far from a direct copy though - she may be able to argue that she was "inspired by" the other novel, or words to that effect. One would have to read both novels to judge the situation properly, I think.

[Book Lover]

5. Due to a little thing called cutting corners

Trade books are not copyedited (broad brush, I know, but dammit, it's true, and not the fault of the copy editors!) Trade editors don't read anymore (another broad brush, but dammit, also true). What boggles me is that if I thought I had a first-timer who would bring in more than half a mil worth of just royalties (or close enough so as to not make a hole in the editor's list numbers for the year), I would be damn sure she checked out. I hope the Random House editor gets fired, I really do. That's a shitload of money that could be used on a hundred other books.

[brentspeak]

7. Obvious plagiarism, judging from the side-by-side passages

The thing about plagiarism -- sooner or later, it will be caught. Always.

Case in point: "Primary Colors" by Alexander Theroux, published in 1993. Only a couple of weeks after the book hit stores, a reader detected whole passages lifted from an obscure title that had been out-of-print for 25 years.

[mitchum]

8. Why didn't she just write a banal little memoir like most Harvard...

student/authors have done for the past 15 years or so?