Alleged Plagiarism In Chris Anderson's New Book

ScorpFromHell writes "Blogger Waldo Jaquith alleges in his blog that Chris Anderson, Wired magazine's editor-in-chief and writer of The Long Tail, has apparently plagiarized content from various sources without attribution for his soon-to-be-published book. 'In the course of reading Chris Anderson's new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, for a review in an upcoming issue of VQR, we have discovered almost a dozen passages that are reproduced nearly verbatim from uncredited sources. ... Most of the passages, but not all, come from Wikipedia.' When questioned about the similar passages, Anderson responded, "All those are my screwups after we decided not to run notes as planned, due to my inability to find a good citation format for web sources... As you'll note, these are mostly on the margins of the book's focus, mostly on historical asides, but that's no excuse. I should have had a better process to make sure the write-through covered all the text that was not directly sourced. I think what we'll do is publish those notes after all, online as they should have been to begin with.'"

Comments

It's not plagiarism...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's a "mashup"...

Re:It's not plagiarism...

[megamerican]

Plagiarism is copying from one source. Research is copying from many.

Re:It's not plagiarism...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

It's a "mashup"...

Re:It's not plagiarism...

[wild_quinine]

Plagiarism is copying from one source. Research is copying from many.

Another snappy witticism on slashdot. But it's wrong. And not in a nitpicky killjoy technicality kind of a way, but just plain wrong. So inaccurate, that it's not funny is what I'm saying. Plagiarism is when you directly copy, or reinterpret with significant similiarity, the work of another without citing the original author. It's got squat to do with how many places you take from. And it's perfectly fine to build on the ideas of others - hell that's the foundation of academia - as long as you don't pass off that work as your own.

Re:It's not plagiarism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Plagiarism is copying from one source. Research is copying from many.

Another snappy witticism on slashdot. But it's wrong. And not in a nitpicky killjoy technicality kind of a way, but just plain wrong. So inaccurate, that it's not funny is what I'm saying. Plagiarism is when you directly copy, or reinterpret with significant similiarity, the work of another without citing the original author. It's got squat to do with how many places you take from. And it's perfectly fine to build on the ideas of others - hell that's the foundation of academia - as long as you don't pass off that work as your own.

Re:It's not plagiarism...

[0xdeadbeef]

Plagiarism is copying from one source. Research is copying from many.

Another snappy witticism on Slashdot, but it's wrong, and not in a nit-picky killjoy technicality kind of a way, but just plain wrong. It's so inaccurate that it's not funny is what I'm saying. Plagiarism is when you directly copy, or reinterpret with significant similarity, the work of another without citing the original author. It's got squat to do with how many places you take from. It's perfectly fine to build on the ideas of others - hell that's the foundation of academia - as long as you don't pass off that work as your own.

Re:It's not plagiarism...

[TheLink]

It's still plagiarism even if it's allowed by the original author.

For example if you were a researcher in some university, and the original author gave you permission to plagiarize and publish his work as yours, it's still plagiarism and it's still wrong, and you should still be punished.

Students get in trouble if they get someone to take their exams for them.

As long as there's misrepresentation going on, even if the original person gave permission for the misrepresentation, it's still a form of deception.

It's pretty simple. The "warning bells should ring" whenever deception is involved.

If the misrepresentation was unintentional then that's different, but then one should not be so careless either especially when creating works in certain fields.

Re:It's not plagiarism...

[winwar]

As there is no "-1 Wrong" moderation, I'll respond instead:

"It's still plagiarism even if it's allowed by the original author."

You are wrong. It is called authorized copying. There may also be some legal issues if the author wasn't allowed to get permission.

"Students get in trouble if they get someone to take their exams for them."

This is called cheating. Not plagiarism.

"As long as there's misrepresentation going on, even if the original person gave permission for the misrepresentation, it's still a form of deception."

Deception is not plagiarism. It may be considered unethical but that does not make it plagiarism.

"If the misrepresentation was unintentional then that's different..."

It doesn't matter. Now the penalties, if any, may be lower.

Re:It's not plagiarism...

[Hognoxious]

That is in academic environment where a Student Handbook will clearly outline rules regarding plagarism and the submission of work not your own

Plagiarism has no meaning outside of an academic institution. It's an academic offence, not a legal one[1]. That's why you can't sue someone for doing it.

[1] It may be copyright infringement too - but in that case that's what the law would be interested in.

Re:It's not plagiarism...

[hplus]

According to the OED, you are wrong. Here is how it defines plagiarism:
the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

Time Warp!

[eldavojohn]

I found the February 20th, 1875 article online that both Anderson & Wikipedia excerpted and it was actually pretty interesting to read. In college I had an English composition teacher that had us dig up old Microfiche and select an interesting article and write an essay on it. I found one that was an article of the execution of a slave convicted of rape and murder. It was amazing to find out that the details of the rape and murder obviously sold newspapers then just as much as they do today.

What is really interesting is that even though this article is 140 years old, they still ended the soft articles on a light note (maybe I notice this because the Onion mocks it so often?). The last few sentences:

I related to Mr. Lacoume the conversation which I had overheard between the old Frenchman and the waiter, and asked him if he had many discontented customers. "Oh yes," he replied laughing, "there are at least a dozen old fellows who come here every day, take one fifteen cent drink, eat a dinner which would cost them $1 in a restaurant, and then complain that the beef is tough or the potatoes water." Mr. Lacoume confirmed the statement that thousands of people in New-Orleans live on free lunches.

Inability to cite web???

[clifyt]

"All those are my screwups after we decided not to run notes as planned, due to my inability to find a good citation format for web sources"

Really...because almost every form of writing style has web formats as a cite style these days.

Hell, I use APA style, but it isn't much harder in MLA (the two biggest styles)...and it isn't hard to find even more...

I wouldn't call this plagiarism, just lazy...and honestly, I know I've been lazy myself at times and screwed up (as I double check my thesis before handing it in tonight to make certain this hasn't happened to me!!!)

Re:Inability to cite web???

[sys.stdout.write]

Try arguing that in school: "I didn't plagiarize my paper, I was just being lazy!"

Using Wikipedia entries as if they were your own is completely unacceptable in all contexts.

Re:Inability to cite web???

[eln]

Using Wikipedia entries even if they're properly cited is unacceptable. If he wanted to use Wikipedia as a research tool, that's fine, but he should have read through the materials cited by the Wikipedia article itself and used them as his sources, with proper citation. If the Wikipedia article cited no sources, then it shouldn't have been used at all.

Re:Inability to cite web???

[eln]

Of course it does. Citing from encyclopedias, whether Wikipedia or any other, is not an acceptable practice in any sort of research I've ever heard of.

Re:Inability to cite web???

[sorak]

Why shouldn't you use information from Wikipedia with no cited sources?

I hope you're being sarcastic. If you have a source, then you have accountability. You may not be able to sue someone or have them arrested, but you at least have a name, and a person's reputation being staked on the accuracy of the work. In the case of Wikipedia, you MAY have a citation.

Why can't Wikipedia be the source?

Think of it this way. Someone publishes a paper or a college level manual, or conducts an interview. The person is the primary source of information on what they did. As such, which would you rather have, their account, or a summary of their account? Wikipedia is, at best, secondhand information.
.
Don't get me wrong, I use Wikipedia all the time, but if I were doing a research paper, I would use it only to get a grasp on the basics of the subject.

Does the same go for citing from Encyclopedia Britannica?

Yes.

Re:Inability to cite web???

[TerranFury]

Using Wikipedia entries even if they're properly cited is unacceptable.

When I hear about this statement I wonder if it has more to do with fundamental truth or social convention. Are "authoritative sources" truly more authoritative? As a pragmatist, I simply avoid citing Wikipedia because I know there are people with strong opinions who would disapprove if I did.

But let me give you an example:

Suppose I need to look up a mathematical identity which is not obvious. I go to Wikipedia and find it there. Then I sit down, verify it myself (math has that advantage), and use it. Now I have a dilemma. Do I,

1 - Use the identity without citation.

2 - Cite Wikipedia.

3 - Cite the source cited by Wikipedia without reading it.

4 - Cite the source cited by Wikipedia after wasting my time slogging through it to get to the punchline that I just verified myself.

Option #1 is fairly safe, but does nothing to help the reader, and moreover represents someone else's idea as your own (even if it is "common knowledge"). Option #2 makes your paper more transparent and accessible, and is honestly the most helpful, but it makes you look bad. So you might be tempted to do #3; that's somewhat helpful to your readers (but less so than #2) but also not entirely honest; it's also slightly risky because it's entirely possible that the unread source doesn't actually contain the tidbit you used. Option #4 is by far the safest, but it is a tremendous waste of time -- and since it asks your readers to slog through the same dense paper, it is less helpful to them than #2.

Of course, this kind of use of Wikipedia is only really justified for things that one is in a position to verify oneself, like math. But I think that the standard debates about "authoritative sources" tend to neglect this angle, assuming that truth is necessarily generated by authority and is not observable directly from nature. For those cases where I can verify myself that what Wikipedia says is true, I'd sort of like to be able to cite it. Being a pragmatist, however, I refrain!

Re:Inability to cite web???

[Achromatic1978]

Unacceptable? This isn't his dissertation or a thesis. It's a non-fiction book. It's not peer reviewed, and it's not subject to defense.

He did the wrong thing. But let's not go OTT here.

Re:Inability to cite web???

[Bigjeff5]

Wikipedia at face value is just as valid as a source as any other collection of research. Wikipedia takes information from sources and condenses and analyses them for the reader, just like any other encyclopedia. It is perfectly viable as a quality source, as long as you take into account the quality of the sources cited by each encyclopedic article.

For example, if you are writing a "general knowledge" sort of essay/book/whatever, directly sourcing Wikipedia is probably fine unless the cited sources of the wikipedia article are complete hogwash. Usually Wikipedia itself notes these sorts of issues, but you should at least peruse them yourself.

However, if you are conducting academic research, Wikipedia is probably at best going to give you a basic understanding of the subject and point you in the direction of some research sources. It should probably not be used as a source itself. There are, however, a few very high quality editors in some of the subjects, so even this shouldn't be completely discounted.

It sounds like Scott Adams used the Wikipedia snippets primarily as the former, in sidebars as general clarifications for the uninformed - something encyclopedias are very, very good at. It would be perfectly acceptable to source Wikipedia on this, especially if Wikipedia's sources are confusing compared to the article.

Basically, anything can be a valid source - hell you could source a comic strip and it would be valid. What matters is your purpose, how you use the sourced information, and the quality of the source you are using. This goes for ALL forms of research. Nothing should be discounted simply because of where it comes from, but on the other hand nothing should be accepted for no reason other than the source.

Re:Inability to cite web???

[dkleinsc]

None of the above: use option 5, which is including your verification as a lemma, and also referring them to the work described in option #4.

Re:Inability to cite web???

[julesh]

Of course it does. Citing from encyclopedias, whether Wikipedia or any other, is not an acceptable practice in any sort of research I've ever heard of.

Yes, but writing a non-fiction book for the general market is not research.

Slashdot covers own ass (allegedly).

[wild_quinine]

Nice cover with the 'alleged' in the title and all... but accidental non-citation is still plagiarism, I do believe. Therefore, since he's admitted himself, it's pretty much not 'alleged' any more. I don't care to share an opinion on the act, but I think we can safely call a spade a spare.

Re:Slashdot covers own ass (allegedly).

[langelgjm]

but I think we can safely call a spade a spare.

I like bowling too.

Web citing made easy

[GMFTatsujin]

Anderson responded, "All those are my screwups after we decided not to run notes as planned, due to my inability to find a good citation format for web sources... "

Zotero, brother: a plugin for Firefox. Makes citing online sources a breeze in any format you care to mention.

Re:Web citing made easy

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

He didn't say it was difficult, he said he couldn't find a good format. So a tool that makes it easy to do in any format, wouldn't have helped much. Still, its a lame excuse. Its like saying I didn't pay my bills because I couldn't decide on the right signature.

Re:Plagiarism

[wild_quinine]

The term is largely meaningless if you accept all works are derivative. Seems its only use is as writer's equivalent of gorilla feces-pitching.

No, the meaning is utterly clear. Don't pass off the work of other people as your own. Anything you add to the foundation is your contribution, and others wishing to build still further should cite you for that. Plagiarism is, in fact, when you *don't* accept that all works are derivative, and take credit for the whole body of work, not just the ideas that you added.

It's not a copyright issue.

An open-source equivalent would be if I created a cute little font switching extension for Firefox, and then claimed to have singlehandedly coded the browser, standardised HTML, and come up with CSS whilst I was at it.

Wikipedia?

[sabt-pestnu]

I can understand problems with trying to cite a web source. Things like Wikipedia, you'd have to refer to a page in the history; the content is always being changed. ... and vandalized.

My objection to the author would be more along the lines of "why didn't you look up the sources used by wikipedia? Where IS the research?" As Wikipedia has a policy against original research, anything reliable on it is by definition at least second-hand. Is there a reason besides laziness that the author would not have indicated at least the sources given by wikipedia, if he could not do the research himself?

Plagiarism without attribution

[SheeEttin]

Chris Anderson ... has apparently plagiarized content from various sources without attribution

As opposed to...?

Only one way to respond

[Locke2005]

Boycott buying hard copies of the book, and make electronic copies widely available via bittorent. Simple test: If all the copied text was in quotes or italics, I would say he actually intended to attribute it. If not, it would appear that he was trying to claim it as is own, and only made up an excuse after he got caught. Which is it?

Re:I thought piracy was okay?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I was angling for a quick and easy "funny"; but I'll answer anyway:

Norms of academic citation have basically nothing to do with copyright. Whether or not you cite something has no bearing on whether or not it constitutes copyright violation(except in the specific cases where citation is a license condition; or, possibly, in influencing a court's subjective judgment of whether use is "fair" or not). Also, whether or not something is copyrighted has no bearing on whether or not you are expected to cite it. Inserting an excerpt from a public domain text into your text would, without citation, count as plagiarism to exactly the same degree as an uncited clip from a copyrighted work; but could not possibly constitute copyright infringement.

I'm not sure I buy the "double standards" argument(since slashdot isn't a hive mind, the fact that different comments say different things proves nothing, unless it is further demonstrated that the same commentators say different things under different circumstances); but that is tangental to this case.

I don't think that I've ever seen an argument on Slashdot in favor of abolishing citation or attribution as a norm.

Re:wkipedia guidelines

[zxjio]

No the author has ignored the terms of the license and stolen their work. To be okay, he would need to have given its authors credit, and said that it is licensed GFDL/CC and so you too can use it. He can charge for a reproduction if he wants, cost is not relevant; but freedom and acknowledgement are necessary.

Re:I thought piracy was okay?

[afabbro]

since slashdot isn't a hive mind

Try posting something positive about Microsoft here...