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Coulter a Plagiarist?

slingblade

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Syndicator to review Coulter plagiarism claims
Media outlets raise questions about right-wing pundit's columns

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13803982/

The syndicator of Ann Coulter’s newspaper column is looking into allegations that the right-wing pundit has lifted material from other sources.

[...]

In "Godless,” Coulter writes:

“The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River in Maine, was halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant previously believed to be extinct.”

An article that ran in 1999 in Maine’s Portland-Press Herald contains the following passage:

“The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River, is halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant believed to be extinct.”

[...]

Coulter’s latest controversy includes a high-tech twist. The New York Post enlisted the Berkeley, Calif.-based iParadigms to run the author’s material through its iThenticate software program, a web-based plagiarism detection system.
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Gee, seems I was wrong: some Mondays, it really does pay to get up. :p
 
Does ONE SENTENCE satisfy your desires? A different sentence at that- it has two different words...
 
casebro said:
Does ONE SENTENCE satisfy your desires? A different sentence at that- it has two different words...
Click to expand...

Did you read the article, or just the snip I'm allowed to quote here?

And to answer you, you'd be amazed at how little will satisfy me. Have fun with that! :P

ETA: It is not a different sentence for having one word's difference. It is the same sentence, and it is plagiarism.
Or are you an adherent of the famous "change it by 10% and it magically becomes your work" school?
 
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As foul as Coulter is, I was expecting a bit more substance from the article......

the second example of plagurism is a little weak.....

“As New Hampshire attorney general in 1977, Souter opposed the repeal of an 1848 state law that made abortion a crime even though Roe v. Wade had made it irrelevant, predicting that if the law were repealed, New Hampshire ‘would become the abortion mill of the United States.”’

A Los Angeles Times article from 1990 noted: “In 1977, Souter as state attorney general spoke out against a proposed repeal of an 1848 state law that made abortion a crime — even though the measure had been largely invalidated by the Supreme Court in Roe. vs. Wade ... ‘Quite apart from the fact that I don’t think unlimited abortions ought to be allowed . . . I presume we would become the abortion mill of the United States[.]”’
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.....she re-words it sufficiently IMO.....

Her books are so full of SH**te it seems a little needless to point out issues of academic question.....

<godwin> It's a little like critising Meine Kampf for a few spelling mistakes.....somewhat beside the point </godwin>

:)
Must try harder.....
 
I, for one, am surprised any writer would not be ashamed to claim publically the stuff he wrote is the same as Coulter's, even if he did write it first.

Seems to me like claiming that the director of a porn film stole all of his characters' development in Dirty Sex VII from your script.

I mean, even if true, what does that say about you?
 
I don't think it's a very big deal either. I personally agree with Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit. (This isn't even about Coulter, but is applicable).

"Classically, plagiarism constitutes taking someone's work as a whole and passing it off as one's own, which pretty clearly didn't happen here -- at least, it's not what Barnes is alleging. At most, based on what Barnes says, what we have is sloppy work. It has become a fad to call the repetition of short passages "plagiarism," but that doesn't fit the classical definition..."

http://www.instapundit.com/extra_archives/2002_01.php#000038

I also find it funny that Coulter has been very effective - whether intentionally or not - in keeping her name and her books in the headlines as of late. Any press is good press especially when you're selling books.
 
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