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Case of alleged plagiarism reported from the New Orleans Creole "transferred to his own pages entire sentences of description, explanation, illustration, argument and appeal"--sound familiar? It is pointed out that Dr. Scott noted in the preface of his work the acknowledgement of his sources and that in his lectures he advises his listeners to "procure and read" specific works--sound familiar?
Contains several examples of plagiarism by Prof. Adams--scholastic setting.
"The great poet never steals, to use a plainer expression than the conventional one of "borrowing.""
"In every branch of knowledge writers and thinkers more or less appropriate the ideas of their predecessors and endeavor, as far as lies in their power, to improve upon them; and how many, I wonder, acknowledge the source of their information?"
Has a short poem by Rudyard Kipling on plagiarism -- Edward Fitzgerald on plagiarism: "My canon is that there is no plagiarism when he who adopts has proved that he could originate what he adopts, and a great deal more." Closes with the quote: "Let the good theft go on!"
example of a stanza of a poem published in May 1900 being the same as an unpublished poem written in Jan. 1899 -- 'thought transference'
Case of copyright infringement and judgment against the plagiarist--interesting to note that Ellen G. White was never sued, nor even threatened with suit, even though the claim of plagiarism was made in her own lifetime.
It was suggested that a novelist (Mrs. Kathrine C. Thurston) "derived the idea" for her novel from a work published 17 years earlier. Even though there was "nothing particularly original" in her work it was recognized that the "plot and its very situations have long been parts of the stock in trade" of the writers in that genre. "Charges of plagiarism are easy to make. Every newspaper receives many communications embodying such charges from irate, well-meaning persons who cannot be made to understand why the Editor does not immediately lend all his resources to their cause. Frequently men and women of the highest literary standing are thus ruthlessly assailed."
J.O.H. Cosgrove, editor of Everbody magazine 'didn't think that London had resorted to plagiarism. He had ideas enough of his own. In treating similar themes resemblances would occur.' The publisher (Doubleday, Page & Co.) of the book from which London is alleged to have plagiarized declined to prosecute.
"Hus and Wycliffe seem to illustrate the phenomena of an idea developing in two minds along parallel lines to results that are surprisingly similar. This is to history what "unconscious plagiarism" means in letters."
"If only thoughts are duplicated, expressed in different words, there is no breach ... Also, there is no breach if it can be proved that the duplicated wordage was arrived at independently." (page 494).
Ayres notes in the Preface that this bibliography includes titles "as far as possible to April 1, 1906." Pals (page 11) notes that the bibliography is "incomplete." With 445 pages in the bibliography and an average of over 14 titles per page there could be some 6,000 titles.
"Where the truths of a science or the methods of an art are the common property of the whole world, an author has the right to express the one, or explain and use the other, in his own way."
A Special Report in previous issue "suggests that six words used contiguously in more than one published paper now constitutes plagiarism. ... Plagiarism must absolutely be defined not by words used but by data shown."
"This research examines adult age differences in source monitoring for literary texts. ... older adults are impaired in everyday source-monitoring tasks that involve written discourse." (page 187)
Ends shortly after the Sermon on the Mount.
Recommmends multiple readings in order to detect possible plagiarism. It is fairly obvious that most of the critics against EGW haven't even read her alleged sources even once.
On page 31 she presents evidence that one Thomas D. Suplee who in 1870 virtually copied every single word of a story written by Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth. The book was withdrawn and all copies destoyed along with the plates.
Cites several cases which include Nietzsche, Helen Keller, Freud, Skinner, and others (see below for more details). One of which (Daniels) is interesting because when he was informed that "significant portions of his book duplicated the work of others" he responded: "I have certainly been aware that I had an extraordinary ability to remember material when I wanted to, but I have never before realized that I did it unconsciously [sic]." This is interesting because I remember reading about a reporter who listened to Ellen G. White and noted her ability to remember details.
The authors note (page 475) that "dramatic and serious incidences of cryptomnesia do exist". On page 476 they deal with specific cases: Jung "noted that 20 years elapsed between Nietzsche's hearing a folk story to his using it in a novel," Helen Keller heard a story and 3 years later wrote it as her own short story, Freud, heard a friend talk about a theory and "2 years later inadvertently claimed the idea as his own." That EGW could have done the same is never considered as a viable option by the critics--of course, that assumes that they even know what "cryptomnesia" is.
Confronted a critic who accused her of 'borrowing' the title of her poem from another. Turned out that her's had been published years before the alleged original. "But further, not only were the poems identical in name--that name constituting their refrain, an entire line, oft repeated--but their burden was the same, and the rhythm--very irregular, identical also. The critic was dumbfounded ..."
Presents a double-column analysis of Professor Oates's "appropriation of words from other authors without quotation marks." Unfortunately, there are no page references and in some cases the use of ellipsis obliberates the context of the quotes. We should also note that Lindey warned of, and Oates points out, the pitfalls of a double-column analysis because it "underscores similarities and suppresses or minimizes differences" and thus is misleading.
"The more readers and writers revered 'originality' as an absolute artistic virtue, the more the spectre of guilt floated over the 'influenced' writer's horizon."
Richard L. Marsh: "When you put people into a creative task like coming up with new ideas or solving puzzles, they're directing conscious processing at the task itself, which leaves fewer resources to monitor idea's source."
Charvat describes the 1840's as an era of "wholesale scissoring"
"5. In short, plagiarism, then, is a literary masquerade as to the identity of the true author-one's attempt to pretend that he is the original author, when he is not.
a. Plagiarism, however, is not necessarily the borrowing of another writer's ideas or words, and employing them in one's own material, for one's own literary ends.
(1) And this, precisely, is where the rub most often comes."
Reveals that a letter written by F.B. was “a lie of the first order”.
"... nineteenth-century literary ethics, even among the best writers, approved of, or at least did not seriously question, generous literary borrowing without giving credit ... " (page 6)
A successful suit obtaining a "perpetual injunction" against and legal fees to be paid by the infringer.
Notes, on page 39, that an number of scholars have examined "Poe's role as an author and journalist within the context of the culture and mass market of his day"--this has yet* to be done for Ellen G. White despite the need for such an examination being recognized with the publication of Dr. Veltman's study back in 1988!
"... whisper campaigns about alleged plagiarism blight the careers of good people who have no adequate forum in which to vindicate themselves." For an example, see the Perri Klass article.
Tennyson's "Enoch Arden" compared with Adelaide Anne Proctor's "Homeword Bound"
He claims that Ellen G. White "copied entire paragraphs, word for word" and yet when repeatedly asked for even one example he couldn't do it.
"Only parallels demonstrating a clear verbal connection, including paraphrasing, were marked; that is to say, mere thought parallels were not marked because of the impossibility of proving literary dependency in this area."
Two different ad agencies came up with similar concepts in developing ads for their respective products. A case of "creative coincidence."
"The question is not, whether the materials which are used are entirely new, and have never been used before; or even that they have never been used before for the same purpose. The true question is, whether the same plan, arrangement and combination of materials have been used before for the same purpose or for any other purpose. If they have not, then the plaintiff is entitled to a copy-right, although he may have gathered hints for his plan and arrangement, or parts of his plan and arrangement, from existing and known sources. He may have borrowed much of his materials from others, but if they are combined in a different manner from what was in use before, and a fortiori, if his plan and arrangement are real improvements upon the existing modes, he is entitled to a copy-right in the book embodying such improvement. ... In truth, in literature, in science and in art, there are, and can be, few, if any, things, which, in an abstract sense, are strictly new and original throughout. Every book in literature, science and art, borrows, and must necessarily borrow, and use much which was well known and used before. No man creates a new language for himself, at least if he be a wise man, in writing a book. He contents himself with the use of language already known and used and understood by others. No man writes exclusively from his own thoughts, unaided and uninstructed by the thoughts of others. The thoughts of every man are, more or less, a combination of what other men have thought and expressed, although they may be modified, exalted, or improved by his own genius or reflection. ... where the differences between different works are of such a nature, that one is somewhat at a loss to say, whether the differences are formal or substantial; whether they indicate a resort to the same common sources to compile and compose them, or one is (as it were) uno flatu borrowed from the other, without the employment of any research or skill, with the disguised but still apparent intention to appropriate to one what in truth belongs exclusively to the other, and with no other labor than that of mere transcription, with such omissions or additions as may serve merely to veil the piracy. ... It is not sufficient to show, that it may have been suggested by Emerson's, or that some parts and pages of it have resemblances, in method and details and illustrations, to Emerson's. It must be further shown, that the resemblances in those parts and pages are so close, so full, so uniform, so striking, as fairly to lead to the conclusion that the one is a substantial copy of the other, or mainly borrowed from it. In short, that there is substantial identity between them. A copy is one thing, an imitation or resemblance another. There are many imitations of Homer in the Aeneid; but no one would say that the one was a copy from the other."
"... where the alleged violation consists in excerpts from the plaintiff, the court is bound to consider not only the quantity and quality of the matter appropriated, but the intention with which such appropriation is made, the extent to which the plaintiff is injured by it, and the damage to the defendant by an injunction. With reference to the quantity and quality taken, of course no general rule can be laid down, [that is] applicable to all cases. ... It is not only quantity, but value and quality, that are to be regarded in determining the question of piracy."
Pals (page 60) says that Farrar's book "set a pattern followed by most Victorian Lives throughout the quarter-century after its publication." On page 98, Pals states that this book sold 100,000 copies.
Pals cites A. M. Fairburn's (Place of Christ in Modern Theology, 1911), description of Fleetwood's book: "was everywhere, especially in the homes of the people, but seldom read, scarcely worth reading, certainly not worth a place amid the books of a serious theologian" (pages 51-2, note 11).
"... in cases of copyright, it is often exceedingly obvious, that the whole substance of one work has been copied from another, with slight omissions and formal differences only, which can be treated in no other way than as studied evasions; whereas, in other cases, the identity of the two works ... often depend upon a nice balance of the comparative use made in one of the materials of the other; the nature, extent, and value of the materials thus used; the objects of each work; and the degree to which each writer may be fairly presumed to have resorted to the same common sources of information, or to have exercised the same common diligence in the selection and arrangement of the materials."
"In this parallel study of Ellen White's Sketches from the Life of Paul and Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul we find evidences that Ellen White did get some materials from these two authors. However, we must recognize that her borrowing was not done in a mindless manner. She borrowed geographical, archaeological and historical information to supplement her thoughts and descriptions of the events she was describing. Sometimes she loosely paraphrased what she borrowed, other times the paraphrases are more substantial, still sometimes the passages borrowed are almost word for word, or following the same line of thought. Yet, it also seems evident that she borrowed what she needed and left out what did not fit her thought. One draw back of this comparative study is the fact that long sections of Ellen White's chapters are not mentioned because there is no parallel with Conybeare and Howson. Furthermore, one should note that Ellen White often rearranged Conybeare and Howson's outline and thoughts, she took materials from different pages or chapters and lined them up in her own way. Most students doing research today do not take the time to rework someone's thoughts and outline to that extent. This study shows that Ellen White knew what she was borrowing and did not borrow material mindlessly, simply to fill a page. She interacted with the material which to me indicates she was not plagiarizing."
Presents details on the flaws of a biography on Coleridge by Richard Holmes. "Truth, however disenchanting, is better than falsehood, however comforting." Albert Schweitzer
"The deliberate and knowing presentation of another person's original ideas or creative expressions as one's own."
On page 79, Pals states that this book sold 100,000 copies in over 30 editions.
"Under copyright law, what matters is not that you copied someone else’s work. What matters is what you copied, and how much you copied. Intellectual-property doctrine isn’t a straightforward application of the ethical principle “Thou shalt not steal.” At its core is the notion that there are certain situations where you can steal. ... The final dishonesty of the plagiarism fundamentalists is to encourage us to pretend that these chains of influence and evolution do not exist, and that a writer's words have a virgin birth and an eternal life."
A study to determine if "the cloze procedure might provide an objective, reliable, and practical method for detecting plagiarism." Unfortunately, this procedure only works when applied to a living plagiarist!
Hurd's "main point is that not all resemblances are thefts (Bosker 202). "Borrowing" may be shown by excessive "correspondency" in the manner of the imitation; but it requires an identity of phrase and diction before Hurd will call it a "surer note of plagiarism" ("Discourse" 204). (page 11) "Warton goes to the heart of the problem: "I am sensible of the difficulty of distinguishing resembalnces from thefts ..." (page 12)
On the plagiarism claim he notes that "Source criticism of her work remains in its early stages, focussing [sic] more more on the collection of apparent parallels than on analysis of how the borrowed material w2as used in its new setting." (page 207)
"But to notice similarities is only the first step in the study of literary relationships. [We should point out that the critics never advance beyond this point.] One must also catalogue the differences, and then, even more importantly, ask what use the second author made of the first author's work. In spite of the fact that she used Melvill, her writings are far more than a replay of his teachings." (page iii)
"To a person who is fairly well read and who writes much it is often a serious question whether something he has written is as purely original as anything can well be, or whether it is the aid of the subjective mind [what we would call the subconscious mind] that suddenly interposes with its stored up knowledge and furnishes just the words and thoughts needed from the unconscious (to the objective mind) memory of the subjective mind. And the more he tries to discriminate and remember, the less he knows about it."And the very state of the absorbed and earnest writer aids the unconscious plagiarism [what we to day call cryptomnesia] and subconscious action, because he becomes so absorbed in his work that the objective mind is almost unconscious of its surroundings, thus making it an easy matter for the subjective mind to interpose its ready memory aid without regarding the storm of criticism or cry of plagiarism that the act may entail."
Above this Greenleaf quotes someone (John Talman?) without giving their name: "It is fortunate for our self-esteem that we do not know how nearly we think and act and speak and write just like thousands of other people."
Contains three examples
In the preface he sates that "A long list, indeed, would they furnish, if I were to supply the names of the authors and the books which I have freely drawn upon, and all other means employed by me, in writing this book. To make such an acknowledgment in the form of a catalogue, would expose me justly to the charge of pedantry. ... he who was seriously determined to make any account of Jesus Christ must have previously acquainted himself with the results of the exploration, exegetical inquiry, thinking and faith of many of the ablest men who have ever toiled with the greatest of subjects."
The committee spent a grand total of two days listening to Rea make his case; I've spent three years looking at the evidence that he and Dr. Veltman have produced. Hackelman notes the Cottrell and Specht study of DA in which they find a 2.6% literary indebtedness to Hanna. We note that while Hackelman critiques Cottrell for a blunder he does not critique Rea for overstating his alleged percentages of 80-90%. On page 13 he reports that Rea "displayed a color-coded copy of The Desire of Ages showing parallels with six different non-Adventist books"--why wasn't this published?
When we examine this issue are we "emphasizing the impact that divine revelation has on the receptive human heart rather than dealing with the avenues through which revelation make that impact"? Which aspect are we emphasizing? And, why? (page 56
"In two novels published by two different publishing houses and issued on or almost the same date, there are two paragraphs which are not only in meaning but in phraseology and in reference almost precisely identical." one example is given
On pages 172-207 he discusses the plagiarisms of Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Howard provides examples of how Goudiss copied from his 1904 work on Edgar Allan Poe.
Very inadequate footnoting of sources used. Not one indisputable example of EGW''s alleged plagiarism is presented--simply assumed. Uses Canright quote (page 7--"an outside journal"--outside of what?!?) with no reference--didn't consider that Canright was stating what he did in mi-using Hull's work in his condemnation of EGW. Uses today's standards to condemn EGW of plagiarism! Closes with the American Historical Association's definition of plagiarism, without noting that they aren't going to pursue such cases again--see Bartlett.
Neat quip: "T. S. Elliot once suggested that bad poets borrow; good poets steal. (actually he said: "Good writers borrow, great writers steal.")" She suggests that "Literary criticism has been somewhat slower than literary theory to acknowledge the role of these other players." But, in the case of claiming EGW is a plagiarist it seems to be the other way around.
"... plagiarism is a relative, not absolute matter. Whether something is plagiarism depends on context, circumstance, the audience's expectations, the writer's intentions, and perhaps most importantly, the genre or subgenre into which the piece of writing fits." (page 18)
"... it is insinuated by critics that large protions of all her writings were the product of the minds and pens of others." (page 420)
See the remark on docetic heresy view of inspired writings
Presents details surrounding someone's whisper campaign against her.
"The discovery that your discovery has already been discovered is surprisingly common, said Stephen Stigler ..." "... there is the oft-told story about Larry Shepp, a famous mathematician at Rutgers University. Dr. Shepp, when told that a piece of work he thought was his discovery actually duplicated another mathematician's breakthrough, replied: "Yes, but when I discovered it, it stayed discovered.""
Cites a typical dictionary definition of plagiarism and then notes that it "stretches around a mountain of sins. Is plagiarism the theft of an idea, one word, two words, three words, four sentences, five paragraphs, long passages, or simply the research of others boiled down to yours?"
Presents evidence that the article to which this was attached has literary similarity with a book that was published 2 years earlier--luckily, their paper was based on drafts going back to 1990. The author whom Lipson and her colleague supposedly "copied" also gave info about a similar case involving him. "To the extent that our work echoes one another's, it is because in our work can be heard echoes of the world around us. We are resonating to the same events, the same realities in our environment, rather than to one another's words or observations."
On pages 60-1 he lists 9 reasons why one should not do a double-column analysis such as we see in Rea's book -- it tends to over-emphasize the similarities and the dissimilarities are either under-stated or ignored outright. On page 6 he lists 5 basic questions that have to answered in the affirmative in order for a claim of copyright infringement [we should note that EGW was not only never sued she wasn't even threatened with suit] to succeed: 1) Is there any similarity between the two works?, 2) assuming the first is answered yes then is the similarity the result of copying? [the critics typically assume this], 3) has a material or substantial part of the original been copied? [again, on this point the claim against EGW fails], 4) was the original duly copyrighted? and 5) Was the portion copied copyrightable? [again this is simply assumed by the critics].
"Information is only as reliable as the source from which it springs." (page 273) "... cryptomnesia extends beyond the theft of witty anecdotes from their owners--indeed, science, literature, and the music industry are littered with cases of inadvertant plagiarism." (page 274) "... intentional plagiarism occurs when perceivers misconstrue their memories as original thoughts." (page 275)
Deena Weinstein: "Ideas are not property so they cannot be stolen."
They cite a study which shows (page 887) that "recollection of information and the ascription of its original source can be separate cognitive acts." They also note that "people under time pressure presumably had less conscious recollection to oppose ideas that came to mind and, as a consequence, inadvertently plagiarized more." (page 895)
The authors note, on page 673, that for intentional plagiarism "motives, mechanisms, and tools for detection are fairly well defined" and then cites 3 sources. We can point out that none of the critics have taken advantage of these sources to prove their case; they simply assume that they are capable of determining it without having undergone any training or gaining experience in the field.
Contains 6 examples
Interestingly he cites Neal Wilson: "Whenever we recognize similarities we must also see the dissimilarities." This is one of the points made by Lindey when he pointed out the flaws of doing a double-column analysis such as we see in Rea's book. A previous point made by Wilson is also important, although ignored: "The prophet's use of existing materials does not necessarily mean that the prophet is dependent upon these sources".
Presents a study in which the authors used Google to find plagiarism in Master's theses: used 7 words as the search phrase.
"... the value of copied words lies in their meaning." (pages 48-9) "The principle that copying creates a witness to crime, but is not necessarily a crime itself, eliminates arguments about how many words can be copied before sin is committed. Instead, alerted by copied words, one looks to see if something of value has been taken, and if so, how large the value was. The weird arbitrariness of defining as plagiarism the copying of a sentence, a paragraph, or more than some other threshold, reflects the illogic of the conventional view." (page 49)
After running a number of experiments testing the ability to write about well-known subjects without recalling material that was given in notes (the results of which bear a striking similarity to what we see in EGW's text(s)) McIver and Carroll determined that: "Any sequence of exactly the same 16 or more words that is not an aphorism, poetry, or words to a song is almost certain to have been copied from a written document." (page 680)
"Defining just where influence ends and plagiarism begins can be a difficult question. Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wanted the American scholar to live in a state of radical originality, ended up conceding that "all my best ideas were stolen by the ancients." ... If Smith copies a chapter from a book by Jones without permission, then the rights of the copyright holder have been violated. But suppose Smith paraphrases the chapter, argument by argument. In that case, Smith will have copied the ideas, but not the expression, of a copyrighted work. If no credit is given, then Jones has every reason to complain about being plagiarized. Still, assuming that Smith has been careful not to borrow any of the language of the original, it will not be an infringement of copyright."
Contains 5 examples; "No lie can live forever." Thomas Carlyle
Morris presents some very detailed and quite convincing evidence that Forner copied verbatim about 25% of his book (The Case of a Joe Hill) from a Master's thesis submitted by Morris some 16 years earlier. On pages 109-114, Forner attempts a rather weak defence. Merely claiming that his book was nearly finished before he saw Forner's book is not proof that it was. In a number of instances he says that he wrote to so-and-so about the case but, no evidence is presented, nor are dates given.
"The points in which real plagiarism consists--treatment, atmosphere, character, observation--the points which make each man's work his own ... It is perfectly easy to tally certain likenesses; impossible, without quoting whole chapters, to illustrate the complete difference. ... it is great luck, nowadays, if a celebrated writer be not treated, at least once a year, as a thief of ideas." Mentions several cases of plagiarism; recalls an incident of her own (her plot for a farce comedy was the same as in Anatole France's "Apologie pour le Plagiat" which she had not seen! "a world situation open alike to Daudet and me!"). France quotes: "The truth is that situations belong to all the world." "A plagiarist is the man who pillages without taste or discernment. ... But as to the writer who only takes what is suitable and profitable for him, and who knows how to choose, he is an honest man." La Mothe Le Vayer: "You may steal in the manner of bees, without wronging any one, but the theft of ants, who carry off a whole grain, should never be imitated." Moss: "But as for stealing the bare bones of a plot or situation, a thing almost impossible to avoid, who would not rather be pilloried with all the illustrious thieves who have consciously appropriated and embellished any idea which came their way, than rest undisturbed with the critical punsters (it is the same mental habit) who excel in ferreting out unimportant likenesses!"
"Conventions for giving credit vary from field to field. ... In order to know what should be credited to others, one has to know the practices of that field. And even then it may not be clear."
My point, raised by the work Neff did, would be that just because a book was in EGW's library at the time of her death that does not establish when she first had the book in her possession. Further, based on personal experience, just because she had the book in her library does not mean that she had to have copied directly from it to have "snippets" of its material in her writings. One could easily use specific and similar if not exact words without realizing that one had read them in a book. As Leonard E. Read observed: "When someone verbally quotes to you something that you wrote long ago, and he doesn't know where it came from, you've been successful. Your idea has penetrated other people's thinking."
Neff concludes that since EGW had written "most of the ideas which are common to her and Dr. Stowe at a time prior to the writing of" MS 24, 1886 and because "there are significant differences between the theories of revelation presented by Dr. Stowe and Mrs. White" she was not, as William S. Peterson claims, "appropriating the ideas of another man".
In one section of 39 pages he discusses the literary similarities found in Alonso de Oropesa's Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloria plebis Dei Israel and Alonso de Cartegena's Defensorium Unitatis Christianae. Netanyahu states that we cannot agree with Diaz that there is "extraordinary parallelism" "in the sources they use, the arguments they employ, and the points of view that these arguments reveal." Sound familiar?
"The American weeklys stole from both the French and the English. The English, in their turn, stole from the French and the Americans." (page 6) The book presents us with some of the details of writing, publishing and plagiarism in the period of 1830's to 1890's. Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth is called "the best selling novelist on the nineteenth century". (page 39)
Oates correctly points out that "there are no guidelines for what is sufficient acknowledgment of sources in popular biographies and histories." However, he incorrectly claims that the "area of historical writing" is "devoid of any recognized standard." He then notes plagiarism "as it is "conventionally" defined." Which is it? He claims that "According to Stewart and Feder, the copying of a single word or phrase, without quotation marks and attribution, is plagiarism no matter how commonplace the words may be." (emphasis added) Correctly notes that the AHA's definition of plagiarism "the expropriation of another author's text and the presentation of it as one's own" is flawed because it does not define what constitutes an author's text--is it a "phrase? a sentence? a paragraph?" ""the dimension of length" ... "can be construed as only "one word!"" "Wollan argued that the repetition of a single "distinctive" word was plagiarism." Unfortunately, in the example examined by Oates the word was "gullied"--he also shows how the critics didn't do enough research.
According to Outler, Wesley's publication of an abridgement of another's work was seen by Wesley and his 18th century colleagues as a form of endorsement not plagiarism. See pages 85-6. Found online at http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/thoughtsuponslavery.stm
Pals notes (page 18, notes #35) that Samuel Ayres made a compilation (albeit incomplete) of "over 5,000 English titles" on the life of Christ. To compare each of them with each other to determine how much material was "borrowed" from each other would involve some 12.5 million comparisons! Because of his low view of Scripture I do not recommend the reading of this book to anyone.
On pages 28-9 he lists 17 people who have been accused of plagiarism in recent years. On pages 32-47 he details more cases of plagiarism. See page 48 for the quote by George Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times. (Univ. of N.C., 1980), "classical writing and oratory were": "to a considerable extent a pastiche, or piecing together of commonplaces, long or short. ... The student memorized passages as he would letters and made up a speech out of these elements as he would words out of letters. ... In the Middle Ages handbooks of letter-writing often contained formulae, such as openings and closes, which the student could insert into a letter, and a whole series of formulary rhetorics existed in the Renaissance."
"Tennyson was appalled by the "prosaic set growing up among us -- editors of booklets, bookworms, index-hunters, or men of great memories ... [that] will not allow one to say,"Ring the bell" without finding that we have taken it from Sir P. Sidney, or even to use such a simple expression as the ocean 'roars' without finding the precise verse in Homer or Horace from which we have plagiarized it." This "prosaic set" that Tennyson, Pope, and others railed against was the new breed of scholar -- the "pendants without insight, intellectuals without love" -- who trivialized literature, distorted aesthetics, and sought prestige and honor not through originality but by impugning the originality of writers of proven talent." (page 49)
"Lists" a number of examples. He notes that the late 18th and early 19th century was an age in which "the first detailed discussions and definitions of plagiarism issue from this period and from the likes of Johnson, Pope, Goldsmith, and De Quincey." (page 31)
Contains 9 examples of plagiarism in King's dissertation on pages 50-7.
Contains 5 examples of plagiarism from King's papers on pages 89-92. In one paper "only 14 of 38 paragraphs are free of verbatim plagiarisms." In another "Only three of the remaining 22 paragraphs in the essay are not replete with verbatim plagiarisms, often of entire paragraphs." (page 92)
Presents an account in which he was accused of plagiarism through an editor's error. It would be interesting to know how many of those who made the accusation apologized.
"Plagiarism is a narrow, technical term which simply does not apply in the case of Mrs. White, because I am not accusing her of dishonest motives or of violating the copyright law. [See Black's Law] ... Any literary scholar can tell us that "source studies" are among the most treacherous tasks to undertake, for merely establishing a similarity -- even a marked similarity -- between two literary texts is not sufficient evidence of borrowing. One must also demonstrate (a) that text B was written after the publication of text A (the presumed "source"), (b) that the author of text B could be reasonably supposed to have had access to text A, and (c) that the ideas or even the language of text A have not become sufficiently dispersed so as to be, in effect, the common literary property of the age." (page 78)
"The idea that people should "own" sequences of 14 words or four musical notes or words pronounced the same as googol is not only ridiculous, it runs counter to the entire history of human civilization." Compare with Pullum.
Notes the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism, explains "fair use," provides examples of Shakespeare's plagiarism of Plutarch and an example of how T. S. Eliot "stole" from Shakespeare and mentions other claims of plagiarism. "If these are examples of plagiarism, then we want more plagiarism. They show that not all unacknowledged copying is "plagiarism" in the pejorative sense. Although there is no formal acknowledgement of copying in my examples, neither is there any likelihood of deception. And the copier has added value to the original--this is not slavish copying. Plagiarism is also innocent when no value is attached to originality ..."
"Dullards whose dearth of originality is only excelled by their consuming mania to be thought literary, become omnivorous readers and self-called critics. To advertise their own names they accuse such writers as Caine, Kipling and even Shakespeare of plagiarism. If "the immortal bard" be the poor man whom we believe, in those days when books were scarce and dear; if, with all his comprehensive writings, and other labors attributed to him, he yet found time to con the libraries of antiquated lore, then he must needs have been not only "the literary Hercules of the world," but the physical as well, whom we might expect to meet today walking the banks of the peaceful Avon. Myths, plots, traditions are open to us all, but to adapt them, to dramatize them,--"aye! there's the rub." "the little girl's definition of memory--"the thing you forget with." ... Who that writes for publication can recollect all that he has read? (see my own wording of the very same idea)" "... but for accidental resemblance, with possibility an improvement on the prototype, who wants to be branded as a thief? ... Writers of established fame are impervious to the shots of these picayunish quotation mark hunters; but this rash, careless arresting of suspected thieves who, however innocent, may not be able to prove it, is working infinite harm. ... "next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.""
Points out that according to probability theory for 14 words in a sequence to appear in two sources independently is 1 * 1028. Compare with Poser.
Claims that EGW paraphrased Daniel March's book Night Scenes in the Bible in making various chapters in various books. The analysis of his work, relative to EGW's Desire of Ages, can be seen at http://dedication.www3.50megs.com/David/index.html (find specific chapter links). It is interesting to note that in 2005 Dr's. Brand and McMahon published a book in which an analysis of his work relative EGW's Prophets and Kings appears.
As an indicator of how "honest" (or maybe just plain sloppy?) the critics are with the evidence, consider this example:"With whom, think you," he finally said, "are ye contending? With an old man on the brink of the grave? No! With Truth - Truth which is stronger than you, and will overcome you." ... So saying, he withdrew from the assembly, and not one of his adversaries attempted to prevent him. Wicliff must bear testimony at Rome also ... a summons from the Pontiff to go to Rome, and answer for his heresy before the Papal. [<--the period should be after the word "See" which was dropped.] See ... a shock of palsy. But though he could not go to Rome as a person, he could go by letter, and thus by the hand of Providence ... Wicliffe sat down in his rectory to speak ... been more Christian and faithful. Wylie's History of Protestantism. Page 123.
[All of the material in bold is from EGW! That is, she is being accused of copying her own material!]
This one is interesting because in examining it I found that I could not find the alleged quotes that are supposed to be on pages 530-2 in J. N. Andrews book History of the Sabbath. A letter to Rea failed to resolve the difficulty.
“The amount of borrowing is not the most important question however. An instructive parallel is found in the relationship of the Gospels. More than 90 percent of the Gospel of Mark is paralleled by passages in Matthew and Luke. Even so, contemporary critical Biblical scholars are coming more and more to the conclusion that although Matthew, Mark and Luke used common materials, each was a distinct author in his own right. ...At one time in the infancy of ‘source criticism’ the gospel writers were thought by higher critics to be little more than ‘scissors and paste’ plagiarizers. {Maybe we are at the same stage with those making the claim that EGW plagiarized?} Now critical scholars realize that literary studies are not complete until they move beyond cataloging parallel passages to the more significant question of how the borrowed material was used by each author to make his own unique statement.”
“Thus even ‘higher critics’ have a more analytical approach to the study of literary sources than does The White Lie.” -- from “The Truth About the White Lie,” Ministry 55 (August 1982): 2; (pages 15-6)
Points out that Voltaire discovered that Milton's poem "Paradise Lost" has 200 lines which "lent heavily on a barely known poem by the Jesuit Masenius" and asks if we would convict Milton of plagiarism?
In one test professors were asked to paraphrase a paragraph -- 30% "appropriated some text from the original." In another test, 26% "appropriated text from the original version," while only 3% did so from the text that was easier to read.
Looks at the development of the concepts of "proprietary author" and "literary work" in British law.
"All texts involve repetition of earlier texts. ... Randal approaches plagiarism as a pragmatic rather than absolute category--that is something that can only be studied in terms of actual practices." (page 270)
Notes that when it was discovered that Melville copied his "Benito Cereno" from an earlier publication by Amasa Delano no one called him a plagiarist. He further notes that George Chapman, John Webster, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce and William Shakespeare all copied from their sources in various degrees. He goes on to note that the conventions regarding source use differ based on the genre of literature in question.
"Plagiarism, she contends, 'is in the eye of the beholder': the words and ideas of one work may echo those of an earlier one, but it's up to an interpretive community to decide whether such repetition constitutes theft, allusion, negligence, homage, imitation, or unoriginality." (page 344)
"The existence of a class of people, some plagiarists themselves, who spread false charges of plagiarism enormously complicates the problem, for the fear of being associated with false accusers often makes those whose work has actually been plagiarized from hesitate to say so." (page 333) Notes that Coleridge was accused of plagiarism "immediately after his death in 1834"--see Charvat book. Also, on page 335, Shaw notes that "Coleridge's contemporary, Thomas De Quincey, ... had followed exactly the same pattern."
"Probably the most accurate, and at the same time concise, statement of the test of piracy is that laid down by Mr. Circuit Justice Story in Emerson v. Davies, 3 Story, 768, Fed. Cas. No. 4,436, a leading case in this country on the law of copyright. He says:"It may be laid down as the clear result of the authorities in cases of this nature that the true test of piracy or not is to ascertain whether the defendant has, in fact, used the plan, arrangements, and illustrations of the plaintiff, as the model of his own book, with colorable alterations and variations, only to disguise the use thereof; or whether his work is the result of his own labor, skill, and use of common materials and common sources of knowledge, open to all men, and the resemblances are either accidental or arising from the nature of the subject. In other words, whether the defendant's book is, quoad hoc, a servile or evasive imitation of the plaintiff's work, or a bona fide original compilation from other common or independent sources."
Drone, in his work on Copyright (page 385), says:
"The true test of piracy, then, is not whether a composition is copied in the same language or the exact words of the original, but whether, in substance, it is reproduced; not whether the whole, but whether a material part, is taken." "...an author may resort with full liberty to the common sources of information, and make use of the common materials open to all. But his work must be the result of his own independent labor. ... A copyright gives no exclusive property in the ideas of an author. These are public property, and any one may use them as such."
What constitutes a "fair use" is often a very difficult question to answer. What would be a "fair use" in one case might not be in another. In determining this question, courts often look more to the value of the matter pirated than to the quantity.
Drone gives the following statement of what constitutes a "fair use." He says (page 394):
"The fair uses, other than those of legitimate quotation, which an author is privileged to make of a copyrighted work in the preparation of a rival or other publication, are restricted by recent English decisions to very narrow limits. ... his composition must be the product of his own labor. If, to a material extent, he copies from the protected work, or appropriates the results there found, it is piracy."
And on page 427 he [Drone] says further:
"But there is nothing in the law of copyright to prevent any person who has obtained common materials from the original sources from using them in substantially the same manner, and for the same purpose, as they have been previously used, provided the arrangement is his own, and is not servilely copied from the work of another. Two authors, writing on the same subject, citing the same authorities, and taking the same illustrations and quotations from common sources, will naturally use such common materials for like purposes and in a similar manner. As far as citations of authorities, quotations, etc., are concerned, there may be a striking resemblance, amounting in some instances to substantial identity. This, however, does not amount to piracy, unless it appears that there has been servile copying from the preceding work."
Holly Newman: "The fact is, concepts and ideas are freely available for everybody to use and develop however they desire. The U.S. Supreme Court, in what is called the "Feist case," has said that ideas are freely available but that the expression of the idea can be protected." (page D6)
"... the typical concept of plagiarism is almost totally devoid of intellectual foundation."
"The obvious response is our obligation to protect our original scholarship from the envious siphoning of lesser scribes. However vital that protection is deemed, neither the academy nor the law has managed to establish a syntactical minimum offense. A classic instance on the record is that of an otherwise sane professor of criminology who publicly claimed his surprising gift for identifying one word plagiarism! It is the academy that is responsible for this sad state of affairs."
"What is plagiarism? ... And whom do we trust to certify it, whatever it is?" (page 8) "a dearth on analytical tools" "... both ethical and intellectual concerns would suggest that the presumption of innocence should apply with special force in all plagiarism cases ..." "I am enough of an expert to state that there are no living experts on plagiarism." (page 9) See especially the analysis on pages 14 and 16-7. "Not having copied a section, a paragraph, or even a sentence, how much of Thomas did Oates allegedly copy?" "We must remind ourselves that rephrasing phrases is the fundamental mode of all exposition." "common syntax negotiations" (page 21}
On page 99, Pals states that this book sold 100,000 copies.
Cryptomnesia can "occur even when people are warned about plagiarism and are consciously trying to avoid it." (page 572)
Presents a number of examples from Oates. Tries to defend the claim that "cobblestones of Pennsylvania Avenue" was copied! In 1992, WWS developed the first(?) computer program to recognize and display identical passages. They admit that "Whether or not a particular duplication of words represents plagiarism is a judgment that must be made by in every instance by a person." And, in a further response to Oates they say "it is not possible to be certain that plagiarism is the explanation for every instance of copying without adequate attribution." In practice, however, it seems that they have abdicated that responsibility to the computer program.
"... one proves plagiarism by offering as evidence parallel texts that resemble each other so unmistakably that no disinterested reader could believe they occurred by accident." "... more than simply expropriating the exact wording of another author without attribution. Another person's distinctive voice ... may not be borrowed ... even if 'disguised in newly crafted sentences ...'." (AHA Assoc. Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct, page 11)
Reports that Stewart and Feder's accusation of plagiarism by Oates was based on a "simple matching of 30-character strings" which they acknowledged is not enough. "On the other hand, Oates and his supporters are correct in their assertion that many of the word choices are similar or identical because of limitations in the vocabulary available for many descriptions ..." (page 45) But, if that is so then how come I can't find that same phenomena in my examination of multiple authors describing the same event(s)? "... there is a storing intertextual relationship between all Lincoln texts." (page 46) But, there isn't when Life of Christ texts are examined?!?
I am not rashly shouting "plagiarism!" for that charge has proved groundless in as many cases as it has been justified."
Reports that previous studies have shown that "information can remain highly accessible in memory even if the participant does not--or cannot--consciously recollect the earlier presentation." "... an old idea may occasionally come to mind unaccompanied by any information about its external source. Under these circumstances, one may honestly believe that the idea is one's own, hence inadvertently committing plagiarism." Previous studies have also shown an increase in inadvertent plagiarism when there was a delay of as little as a week. Previous studies have also suggested that inadvertent plagiarism "is more prevalent when the goal is very general [vs. problem-solving], as when one attempts to write a story."
"The black pulpit supplied King "with the rhetorical assumption that language is common treasure--not private property," argued Miller." (page 16)
Thomas cites (on page 279) Mark Rose who argued that the "distinguishing characteristic of the modern author . . . is that he is a proprietor, that he is conceived as the originator and therefore the owner of a special kind of commodity, the 'work'." This is relevant to our concern because it was during Ellen G. White's writing career that this was being hammered out and defined.
"The logic [of the book] is transparent: if the "inspired" authors of Scripture could "borrow," how can Ellen White's borrowing be an argument against her inspiration?" This question is never answered by the critics; they simply assume it as a proven fact.
"... biblical scholars will observe fascinating parallels between Rea’s reaction to his data and the nineteenth century reaction to the "critical" study of the Bible. In the nineteenth century, initial reaction to the discovery that the biblical writers used sources was violent [note that Rea's attack on EGW and the SDA church is "deliberately harsh" (p. x/16)]. Only after many decades did it become possible for mainstream scholarship to emphasize the finished product as being more meaningful than the bits and pieces. As part of that concern with the finished product, biblical scholars today emphasize the importance of what the author added and deleted (redaction criticism). Rea betrays his lack of awareness of modern research methods when he exclaims in evident disbelief that the defenders of Ellen White are finding it significant to study "that which she didn't include when she copied" (p. 70)."
How similar must two literary phenomena be in order to qualify as parallels, and what more is demanded if one is to argue that the two are historically related?
"HEADNOTES: [**1] A copyright is not infringed where the extracts are trifling, or where the resemblance does not amount to substantial identity." ... "Where the extracts are trifling, the Court will not interfere." Bell vs. Whitehead, 17 L. J. 141, and Curtis on Copyright, 324.
Relates a current incident in which a priest asked a daughter to submit her remarks before the eulogy, "to make sure they were "appropriate"," and then "used the exact words and phrases" in his eulogy.
Opening sentences betray the influence of the theory of verbal inspiration. Cites a typical dictionary definition of plagiarism.
Bushman notes that "Pulling out a phrase here and a phrase there ends up proving no more than that people shared a common culture, not that one drew explicitly from the other."
"One can detect a proliferating concern with plagiarism in the mid-nineteenth century. Along with [Mrs. E.D.E.N.] Southworth, other prominent American writers involved in allegations of literary theft were Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Richard Henry Dana[*], Nathaniel Parker Willis, Fanny Fern, Harriet Beecher Stowe, James Russell Lowell, and Rose Terry Cooke. ... American writers of the antebellum period were attempting to work out the limitations and the possibilities of proprietary authorship ..." (pages 700, 712) *The suit against Dana was successful.
(Chapter 1: Toward a Factual Concept of Inspiration) When EGW was in vision what did God show her? Reality or what was known at that time? How would you know the difference, if there was any?
Whiteman points out that "plagiarism is not, nor ever has been, uniformly scorned or reviled in any predictable way." (page 333)
He shows 8 cases in which EGW was correct in her description of the Waldenses and Albigenses.
An interesting quote occurs in endnote #21, page 30, that is applicable today with EGW and the SDA church: Albert Reville stated "we are reduced to descriptions given by adversaries, by some apostates, and to depositions gathered by the tribunals of the inquisition. Some are disparaging, others suspect, so that we have to beware especially of the tendency of these judges or of these historians, equally biased, to present as direct dogmas or as beliefs positively professed by the Cathari, many ridiculous or repulsive eccentricities which are only the real or assumed consequences of principles admitted by them. Nothing is more deceptive than a method like this." Revue des Deux-Mondes, May 1, 1874, quoted by Deodet Roche, Le Catharisme, Vol. 1, 1973.
1 One critic sent me two very short bibliographies (which contained a total of 24 sources (11 of which are available in one source--see the second Arthur White item. This yields an actual total of 13 items.)) and in one the "bibliographies" claimed that "to prepare a complete bibliographic listing is time consuming". First of all, who said it had to be "complete"? How would one even decide which bibliography was "complete"? Secondly, how long does it really take to create a bibliography? Finally, the fact that his bibliographies tended to be one-sided should really raise one's eyebrows!
© David J. Conklin (January 2, 2006)