Plagiarism – the one word that’s guaranteed to strike up heated debates among scientists and educators, regardless of which field they’re in. Nearly everyone’s got some horror story or anecdote to tell – scientists churning out reruns of old papers to boost their publication count, non-English researchers lifting passages from textbooks ‘cos they’re written in better English that they could ever write, students swiping from everyone and everywhere. Almost always, the perpetrators’ work is similar to that of their victims (which makes it slightly easier to catch them out).
A few weeks ago, another plagiarism scandal broke. Certain passages and sentences from a nonfiction book on Native American culture were lifted, some verbatim – not by some lazy anthropology student, as you might expect, but a romance novelist. Like, whoa.
Hunky Male Noble Savage: Me Tarzan, you Jane. Incidentally, note that this arrow I hold has a rather interesting arrowhead, incorporating a groove allowing the blood of my prey to flow faster and hence hasten its death.
Sexy Female Love Interest: Make love to me! Did you know that black-footed ferrets are related to minks and otters, and their closest relations are polecats found in Siberia?
The full story can be found at Smart Bitches, but A Low Profile has the best summary of the whole scandal.
