Found Guilty for Plagiarism

Analyzing Authorial Misconduct in Zakaria, Lehrer, and Anderson’s Writings

Plagiarism has been ingrained in my brain from an early age as something very unacceptable; going against the honor code was means for major consequences. Taking someone else’s work as your own and not giving proper credit or just flat out pretending it’s your own is unethical and unfair. However, there is always going to be a bit of plagiarism with popular topics or when writing about common knowledge. But when it’s a person’s job to create original content and they fail to comply, what does that do their credibility?

In my opinion, Jonah Lehrer’s case is the most offensive. Not only did he reuse older works and not address them, but he made up quotes from Bob Dylan that did not exist. His material was not authentic and it was very easy for people to uncover his mistakes. This case was also mentioned in the NY Times article about Fareed Zakaria, so it’s apparent that the severity of Leher’s mistakes were prevalent. I do find the idea of self-plagiarizing interesting, however, because why would the original author feel the need to quote themselves? 

On the other hand, the least objectionable offense would be the Chris Anderson controversy. I still believe that the amount of plagiarism that occurred was completely unprofessional but I don’t believe all the blame should be placed on the writer in this scenario. The team behind his book did not follow procedures in the most effective way possible. Waiting till the last minute to add things such as footnotes or a final edit are definitely cause for authorial mistakes. Could these have just been excuses to be lazy and plagiarize? Possibly, but multiple parties still remain at fault in this case.