Publisher to Recall Harvard Student's Novel (NYT)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/books/28author.html?hp&ex=1146283200&en=758cc054443c9335&ei=5094&partner=homepage

April 28, 2006
Publisher to Recall Harvard Student's Novel
By MOTOKO RICH and DINITIA SMITH

Just a day after saying it would not withdraw "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life" from bookstores, Little, Brown, the publisher of the novel whose author, Kaavya Viswanathan, confessed to copying passages from another writer's books, said it would immediately recall all editions from store shelves.

In a statement issued last night, Michael Pietsch, senior vice president and publisher of Little, Brown, said that in an agreement with Ms. Viswanathan, the company had "sent a notice to retail and wholesale accounts asking them to stop selling copies of the book and to return unsold inventory to the publisher for full credit."

The publisher had announced an initial print run of 100,000 and had shipped 55,000 copies to stores. Ms. Viswanathan, 19, a Harvard sophomore, has been under scrutiny since The Harvard Crimson revealed on Sunday that she had plagiarized numerous passages from "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings," two novels by the young-adult writer Megan McCafferty.

"We are pleased that this matter has been resolved in an appropriate and timely fashion," said Crown Publishers, which publishes Ms. McCafferty's books, in a statement. "We are extremely proud of our author, Megan McCafferty, and her grace under pressure throughout this ordeal."
...

Kids, don't plagiarize in the age of the internet, you WILL be caught.

[northzax]

1. oops.

what's going to happen to her seven figure advance, you think? bad luck.

and especially don't plagiarize wthin the SAME GENRE.

[kestrel91316]

4. Betcha this twit has already spent her advance!

[northzax]

7. Harvard ain't cheap, probably what she spent it on

I wouldn't consider that a bad investment.

[kestrel91316]

29. Well, if the publisher makes her pay it back, as they should,

and given her status as a known plagiarist, she may have trouble getting a good enough job to make the money so she can pay them back.............

[Tesha]

9. The publisher (yesterday) was standing by their deal with the author.

Nothing is going to happen to her advance; the publisher
(yesterday) said they were standing by their deal with
the author.

(After all, how many ways can you rip a bodice? Duplication
is bound to happen from time-to-time. Did you hear the excerpts?
Both books were using language you could hear in any women's
room nationwide; nothing unique in *EITHER*.)

Tesha

[Dora]

2. I hope this is a lesson to publishers and acquisitions editors.

You stupid craven dumbfucks. You're in such a hurry to make a GD buck by copying the success of another publisher that you'll give an advance contract to an immature punk incapable of producing the manuscript you need. And why? Because you're so hungry to reach yet another niche market that you're willing to overlook lack of talent and inadequate experience in favor of projected sales off of a knockoff ms.

Now you've embarassed the industry and Ms. Viswanathan has made a mistake of national interest. Geez, and to think if you'd left well-enough alone and actually done your job she could have just bought a couple of term papers online and maybe gotten away with it, maybe not. Now she's ruint for life because you gave her the opportunity to cheat on a grand scale. NOT the kind of mistake a 19 year old needs to be making. :eyes:

[kestrel91316]

5. I have to disagree on one point here:

"Now she's ruint for life because you gave her the opportunity to cheat on a grand scale. NOT the kind of mistake a 19 year old needs to be making."

Nope. She's ruined for life because SHE chose to CHEAT.

She is an adult. She needs to take full responsibility for the consequences of her actions. Now she needs to spend the next 10 years or so learning how to behave like an ADULT, since her parents don't appear to have taught her.

[Dora]

6. I really don't disagree with you on that point.

It's been my observation that young adults (18-22) are quite often unable or unwilling to make rational decisions, particularly if there is a moral/ethical issue involved. They're very much enrolled in "the end justifies the means" school of thought. I know many wonderful young adults who are not like this, but I've encountered too many who are.

I just think it's shameful that adults and professionals in the industry could be so disingenous to think that a 19 year old over-acheiver would actually produce a novel for them her freshman year at Harvard.

[reprobate]

11. Your right. 18-22 yr olds are NO T mature. Neurological research has

shown that the brain does not reach maturity until approx 25.

[wtmusic]

16. Oh keerist

Poor little Harvard student. Somehow made it into the school, but didn't know enough about plagiarism to appreciate the consequences.

Boo friggin' hoo.

:cry:

[Dora]

17. Yeah, no kidding.

A friend I went through grad school with had a short story plagiarized by a Princeton undergrad for his honors thesis. This idiot kiddo (his faculty advisory was Joyce Carol Oates herself) plagiarized writers recognized and yet-undiscovered, and the only reason his plagiarism was brought to light was because another faculty member had suspicions, and the department refused to do anything about it. So this faculty member went to the Princeton student paper, who did some good googling, and then busted the student with a front-page story.

The last I heard, that student has since lost both his degrees from Princeton, and is hiding out in So. Korea teaching English.

:cry:

[JoFerret]

42. That story is here

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/personalities/accidental_strength.php

[Dora]

62. Yeah. That's it.

Seth was pretty big about the whole thing. Ung Lee did threaten him with a lawsuit. Seth responded to that with outright laughter, and I understand that Lee hasn't been heard from since.

[pitohui]

32. oh what happy horsepuckey

a 19 yr old knows when she is committing a fraud to get her hands on six figures, nothing excuses this, nothing

if i had caught stealing from a cash register at that age i would have gone to jail

must be nice to be of the right class and college

she belongs in jail if you ask me

i'm tired of the double standard for rich and poor, apparently it's OK for the rich to try to steal because there are no consequences, their brains are not formed until age 40 or so ask george bush, but the young black man goes to jail as an adult at age 14

i'm really so sick of the double standard, words cannot express

the age of reason is age 7 but if you're privileged enough i guess it's age 70!

[jarab]

36. Good and sensible post.

Internalizing is so much BS. I've now (almost) heard it all.
...O...

[Dora]

39. Do you ever say anything that's not combatively argumentative?

:eyes:

Where you see a double-standard in my post, I sure don't know. Take a chill, Pitohui. Go do something fun and have a nice weekend, please.

[alcibiades_mystery]

44. Plagiarism is not against the law

If it was, I would have sent dozens to prison already.

;-)

[amandabeech]

48. Fraud generally is, however.

I imagine a few attorneys hovering around this one have uttered the word.

Makes you wonder how she got into the big H in the first place, doesn't it?

[Book Lover]

23. Sadly, it's a lesson I doubt we in the industry will learn

Out of the thousands of books that get published by the big guys that do not get copyedited or developed, only this one gotnailed. Her publisher will rue that the $10K they didn't spend on CE and development is going to cost them millions, but I don't think any other the other folks are going to change their tightfisted ways. Just my two cents from the buzz I hear in the halls...

[Dora]

25. What also disturbs me about this:

I find the agent's involvement with "developing" her manuscript troubling, to say the least. What little I've read about the agency tells me that they're essentially a hog farm for books targeted at the spendy-young-woman market. As well, I think it's pretty significant that the publisher isn't asking for the return of their advance.

Do you really think a copyeditor would have caught the plagiarism? I don't know because I'm still stuck in administrative support so I don't have much sense about these things.

I'm curious if PW or E&P will have anything to say on the matter. I haven't yet looked.

[Book Lover]

26. A well-read CE or Acq Ed would have

They would know the market and the voice of the most popular authors. I am 99.99% sure someone in an oversight position would have noted the lifting of verbage.

[reichstag911]

3. A future New York Times hiree,...

...no doubt!

[brentspeak]

8. If publishers didn't have a zeal to publish works by Ivy Leaguers

this kind of thing would never have happened. Being a Harvard or Princeton student apparently means almost guaranteed acceptance of a manuscript.

[LostinVA]

12. And to file their ranks with kids just graduated from Ivy League schools

And "other" Ivy League schools like Stanford, Duke, William & Mary, etc.

There are alot of great kids at other schools, you know. For both junior publishing personnel and as writers.

I write. This girl is a plagiarist of the worst kind -- she did it, and refuses to admit it was done purposely.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. The so-called author must be registered as a republican.

She claimed that she inadvertently used McCarthy's passages and it was not consciously done. She was so impressed with the books that they made a great impression upon her.

Oh, so that explains the 20+ examples from her novel that nearly mirror McCarthy's two books.

Maybe the English Department of her high school should doublecheck her papers that she turned in 2-3 years ago??

[northzax]

15. you know, I was just reading

a piece by Gene Weingarten in the Post, he talks about a play he had been writing, on and off, for a decade. Gene is a humor columnist, for those who don't know him, a compatriot of Dave Barry) He never showed it to anyone, besides his wife, who, ironically, is apparently and IP lawyer. Anyway, he went to a play and realized that much of his work, that he thought was his own, was almost lifted from the play. Of course, he never tried to publish his script, but neither he, nor his wife, ever thought of the similarities, until they were reminded of them. Sometimes language just seeps into your skull and you reuse it. it can honestly be completely unintentional.

the people who are supposed to catch that, of course, are the editors. that's their job.

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. I dunno...I kinda believe her

1) I know I internalize many things that I read and see on television; hell, I even internalize idiosyncratic ways of speaking from friends and colleagues. Hell, I probably plagiarize half of Michael Herr's Dispatches in my daily speech. I really can't see why people think it is so impossible for things like this to happen "inadvertently." It does happen. In Standing in the Shadows of Giants: Authors, Plagiarists, Collaborators Rebecca Moore Howard, perhaps among the nation's foremost experts on the issue of plagiarism, argues that even skilled academic writers engage in a practice she calls patchwriting. The difference between a skilled writer and a novice, she argues, amounts to an ability to skillfully "plagiarize" - or to incorporate another's work into your own in a way that tranforms it. Obviously, she is not saying this is an intentional theft, so much as a learned skill in transforming existing material.

I think it is probably only people who don't read and write extensively for a living who find the assertion of inadvertent plagiarism so hard to believe. This may be especially true among young authors. They have that knack for noticing interesting stylistic arrangements, but have not yet gained the skill in tranforming material, creating their own stylistic. This is the supposed anxiety of influence writ large. Most people, when they read a novel, follow the plot, or maybe major themes. They may notice the stylistic choices, but these are generally transparent. People who write tend to fixate on the language; they encounter it differently than the average reader. A sentence that the average reader may only glean for content may be lovingly embraced by the writer for its formal characteristics, its rhythm, its sound, all its asignifying features, its singularity. Hell, Nabokov said that he saw different words in different colors, and he meant literally. I think this is where the slippage may be. The average reader finds it absolutely impossible that 20 passages could look almost word for word with McCafferty's book. People who write for a living, people who are writers, don't find this particularly impossible. They might see it as the sign of a very immature writer, but the claim of accident itself is completely plausible. People see language, see writing, differently.

2) I can't believe that she'd write it word for word like that and not expect to get caught. Her book is written for the same niche audience as the McCafferty books. That said, the editor should be cashiered immediately. You must know the work in the same genre intimately if you are to be a commercial editor of fiction. It's more outrageous to me that the editor didn't pick up on this than that the passages may have been internalized by an 18 year old.

[no_hypocrisy]

20. How can it be an "accident" if it occurred more than 20 times?

Once, twice, OK. But that many passages so closely related? I doubt it.

[alcibiades_mystery]

22. That's what I'm explaining in my post there

:shrug:

[pitohui]

34. no it was supposedly based on her OWN story

when i was working as a writer i worried abt this a little bit, the famous helen keller example is there, but you know what?

if you tell of your OWN experiences and use your OWN research this just doesn't happen

she is giving a word for word of someone else's novel and claiming it was based on her own life experience, sorry, that doesn't happen

[alcibiades_mystery]

35. It's precisely the point that the content doesn't matter

n/t

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. Kaavya Viswanathan did not confess to copying

She says that Ms. McCafferty's words must have seeped in, because she read the works with interest several times. Viswanathan, to my knowledge, maintains that the similar passages are accidental, and not deliberate. So, it's hardly a confession, unless there've been new developments.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

27. Kind of like the Red State Blogger guy at Washington Post, except he

actually blamed his previous editors for "inserting" the plagiarized copy into his works, unbeknownst to him, although goshdarnit, he couldn't prove it! Ben Domeneche...

Kind of a serious coincidence considering it happened not only at his undergrad paper but also at the National Review. I guess those editors really had it out for him!

[pitohui]

33. yes sociopaths always have a story, don't they?

of course there is no confession, such people don't confess, good yale boy george bush has he fessed up to any of his crimes lately?

the first thing they must teach you in the ivy league is how to pile on the excuses for your bad behavior

jail to the thief, all of the thieves!

[IndianaGreen]

40. Plagiarism by any other name is still plagiarism

I wonder if Viswanathan plagiarized her school work...

[alcibiades_mystery]

43. Nonsense

Plagiarism implies intent.

[superconnected]

14. Good. Glad they pulled it.

Hopefully they can come after her for any losses.

[Sequoia]

18. Be sure your sins will find you out.

I can't remember what book it was that I picked up recently but it was very simialr to "Battle Cry", by Leon Uris where one of the guys was reading a book about Plato and another guy asked him why anyone would write a book about Mikey Mouse's dog. That was it for me.

This is one dopey girl who did this and thought she could get away with it. Idiot publisher/editor too sad to say.

[Orangepeel]

21. Do people with photographic memories remember WHERE they read stuff?

The idea that she didn't think she'd get caught is inconceivable to me (although really smart people aren't always known for their common sense).

That's no excuse for plagiarism, of course. Stealing someone else's intellectual work is stealing and can't be condoned. But, in analyzing the situation, I wouldn't be surprised if Viswanathan has convinced herself that she DID write the passages herself because they were in her head and she blocked out where they came from.

It is a given that this woman was a good student -- or she wouldn't have been admitted to Harvard -- and she's probably been unduly pressured and praised for all of her life. Excessive praise could easily lead to her believing that she herself was responsible for all the great ideas and excessive pressure could contribute to blocking out any notion that she wasn't.

(edited in an attempt to make my point clearer)

[miss_american_pie]

24. I'm not sure about that

I got through school without studying because I could visualize my notebooks when it came time to take exams -- literally picture the page with the writing. I don't think that type of recall could have worked if I were under that kind of pressure.

I am quite skeptical of any claim that she could have remembered long lines, including the use of punctuation, that frequently in a book, and not have her memory triggered as to where she would have seen them before.

[Halliburton]

28. she was lying through her teeth on the Today Show the other day

I don't buy this I did it "unconsciously" crap. she knew exactly what she was doing.

[fujiyama]

30. it's funny

she says she wants to be an investment banker...

Probably the kind heading a future Enron. Or maybe it's another Michael Milken in the works...

Anyways, I read several of the passages in question and it seems like she ripped off quite a bit of work. Either she or the publisher or packaging agency were trying to pull a fast one, or were very stupid. Who gives an untested 17 year old high schooler a half million dollar deal without checking first to make sure it's not plagerized? You would think an agency would know their target market well enough to know of other popular books in the genre (and apparently the other two were well known).

And this internalizing defense she's using seems like BS. A few lines or a few plot similarities I can see. But some passages are almost verbatim. It almost seems like she had the other two books by her side when writing her own. It almost reminds me of Ashlee Simpson's "I had acid reflux" excuse after her SNL incident.

I kind of feel bad for her since everyone makes a mistake and in her case it's especially worse since it's so public. But she has set herself up for it and still won't completely come clean. She should admit what she did and try to move on with her life.

It should be interesting to see what Harvard will do. They say their honor code only applies to coursework but they want people to act with integrity (their B school has an infamous alum with none of that). At the minimum all of her term papers and exams should be closely scrutinized.

[Halliburton]

38. maybe Harvard shoud look at her admissions essays

to make sure that those weren't plagarized either.

[ScreamingMeemie]

53. To be fair fuji, all of those passages are what I consider to be oft used

cliches. My daughter read all three books as did I. McCafferty is my daughter's favorite author. I did not notice a strong resemblance to the books until the media asked me to.

[pitohui]

31. she should go to jail, this is a major fraud

she signed a six figure contract knowing that she stole word for word from another writer who is getting paid a fraction of what she was offered because of her harvard cred

that is disgusting

if we respected intellectual property this young woman would do time and she should do time

this is grand scale theft and should be punished as such

it won't be though, she is a hah-vahd girl

it is disgusting, for the rich to cheat and steal has no downside, if they are caught they are not punished except by a little oops we're so sorry, just like at the rush limbaugh case

[1932]

37. Jeez, it's not a criminal offense! There are enough civil remedies

available to the publisher, I don't know why you'd need to get the government involved.

[Dora]

41. It's a violation of copyright; she profited from theft of work not hers.

She's goddamn fortunate that the author whose work she lifted doesn't sue her for the advance obtained by fraud. Seriously fortunate.

I imagine this is why the publisher isn't asking the plagiarist to return their advance - so as not to raise the spectre of monetary damages or compensation.

[alcibiades_mystery]

45. Oy

...

[1932]

57. Actually, it's probably not a sufficiently substantial copying for a claim

of copyright infringement.

She didn't take the characters or the plot. She lifted passages. That's not copyright infringement. It is just plagiarism. However, the contract with the publisher probably asked her to warrant the the entire work was original -- ie, it's broader than just copyright. Or maybe it wasn't broader than copyright, and that's why she's not in breach and doesn't have to return the advance (but I'm just taking your word on that being the case -- I don't know what the publisher is asking her to do).

[wizdum]

56. She and her publisher should be sued. She for theft and the publisher for

stupidity and aiding and abetting in the theft of intellectual property. Publishers are starting to throw money around like Hollywood producers, who hire a famous actor only to have a big budget movie tank. The publisher should be taken to the cleaners and whoever bought the film rights from this plagerizer should be forced to give them up. What bullshit.

[ScreamingMeemie]

46. My daughter and I have read all three books, and I have to say I

believe Ms. Viswanathan when she says she may have internalized some parts of the books of McCafferty. All three are decent quick, fun reads for those who wish to revisit their youth. While there are similarities between both authors, they are not to the extent that I thought,"Hey! I've read this before..." I agree with the article that much of this was due to the petty jealousy that seems to be the trademark of the average (and I do mean average) Ivy League student.

The long knives were out for this author from the moment her book hit the shelves...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

47. Whose jealousy? Are you saying her fellow students turned her in?

[alcibiades_mystery]

49. I haven't read the books

But it's totally plausible that she may have internalized the passages. What's mysterious to me is how few people think such a thing is possible. I think they just see language differently than writers do.

[Dora]

50. With all respect, not all writers see language in the same light.

I'm a writer too, and I don't believe that simple internalization can explain the similarities of text.

A.R. Ammons's long poem "Garbage" has some fascinating things to say about language. It's a good read.

[alcibiades_mystery]

51. I agree...not all writers see language the same way

No argument there.

[ScreamingMeemie]

52. My comment was originally that my daughter and I read all three books,

and the similarities were not noticed by me until they were brought to my attention by the Harvard Crimson. And,if you read the passages, I have seen the same tired cliches' used in many books...and even some posts on DU. It just isn't compelling me to believe it was intentional. And I am the girl who through down "Treasure Island" in disgust because of obvious errors on the writers part. I mean, how can a man strip naked, swim...and then fill his pockets up with all the gold they could take?

[LisaL]

58. You take your clothes with you, when you swim.

Then put them back on.
Then fill up your pockets.
LOL.

[ScreamingMeemie]

59. Except, the book says he took them off on the ship then swam to the

island... Did he carry them on his head?? ;)

[LisaL]

60. That's where you normally carry your clothes when you swim-

seriously.

[ScreamingMeemie]

61. I'll keep that in mind next time I go to the beach.

:rofl:

[Dora]

65. I was actually replying to somebody else's reply to you...

No argument with your post, other than that I can't imagine internalizing somebody else's writing to that degree of similarity.

[peacefreak]

54. Unlike the majority of the people here, I did read an advance of Opal....

and found it to be a fun little book. We aren't talking War & Peace, here.
The genre is about the teenage experience. If young women aren't reading Megan McCafferty, they're reading Sarah Dessen or Lurene McDaniels. It's not high art.
Little Brown was entirely correct in pulling it from the shelves. Nobody's pointed out, however, why Random House jumped so fast & hard. They are still smarting from the Million Little Pieces debacle.
As far as Kaavya Viswanathan, she SHOULD have known better. She will be paying for her actions well into adulthood. It may not have been intentional, but it was stupid.

[alcibiades_mystery]

64. What's amazing to me is that the editors

didn't appear to be knowledgable in the genre. These editors should know the genre inside and out, down to the last line. And of course McCafferty's books are among the best selling in that genre. The editors should be fired immediately for this.

[wizdum]

55. Stupid publishers pay this plagiarizer top dollar and she steals another's

work. How stupid are they? Shouldn't they try to hire someone who actually writes instead of copy? Good Grief!!!

[shrike]

63. Being that she worked with a book packager on this thing

And being that many book packagers are hands-on, I have to wonder.