Just a brief entry: Margaret Soltan today discussed the plagiarism by Judith Kelly in her “memoir” Rock Me Gently:
Again with the uncontrollable memory! What shall we call this? Incontinent mnemonism?
Ah, yes, the “I wasn’t aware I was copying words” excuse I’ve heard a few times from some of my enrollees (which is different from the “I wasn’t aware that copying words was plagiarism” excuse). (I wouldn’t call a plagiarist a student.) I think I have a slightly better term: eideticitis.
- Hint to the budding enrolled plagiarist: you might get away with explaining that half a sentence just stuck in your memory. Half a page? Nah…
- Hint to the budding professional plagiarist: If your excuse wouldn’t pass muster with a college professor, don’t think it’ll sound better coming from you.
- Hint to the caught-red-handed professional plagiarist named Judith Kelly: Getting your representative to say that you are “rewriting those passages for the next edition of the book” sort of puts the lie to the claim that the book is a memoir, doesn’t it?