Happy Fun Time: So How'd You Get Into Harvard?

Thursday, April 27, 2006

So How'd You Get Into Harvard?

posted by napehtrap at 3:34 AM

Because clearly, you're a fucking idiot.

AHAHAHA

15 Comments:

No...it's obvious plagiarism...almost word for word...about 10 times. The worst thing is when the accused author copied the passages, she reworded them badly, as if she used the Word thesaurus to cover up her tracks.

From page 213 of McCafferty’s first novel: “Marcus then leaned across me to open the passenger-side door. He was invading my personal space, as I had learned in Psych class, and I instinctively sank back into the seat. That just made him move in closer. I was practically one with the leather at this point, and unless I hopped into the backseat, there was nowhere else for me to go.”

From page 175 of Viswanathan’s novel: “Sean stood up and stepped toward me, ostensibly to show me the book. He was definitely invading my personal space, as I had learned in a Human Evolution class last summer, and I instinctively backed up till my legs hit the chair I had been sitting in. That just made him move in closer, until the grommets in the leather embossed the backs of my knees, and he finally tilted the book toward me.”

Ostensibly? Embossed the backs of my knees?

By David, at 4/27/2006 12:24 PM
I don't really think it's that incredible that the person got into Harvard. I know of more than a few people that got into schools that you could classify as incredible (ivy league, etc) that were smart...but not analytically smart. They did their homework and beyond, did that extra ounce of effort to get their >100% grade, chaired x amount of clubs, played y amount of instruments, but when it came to intellectualism, they weren't that hot. I'd rather talk to a bum with interesting ideas than a robot.

By Ron, at 4/27/2006 3:17 PM
Well, she has a New York Times bestselling book, and she might have copied a total of 2-3 pages of passages out of 200something. I think that's still quite an accomplishment for somebody that's younger than even we are.

By Tony, at 4/27/2006 10:31 PM
Re: Tony

I'll be blunt, but that's one of the stupidest remarks I've ever heard. You're defending her by saying what she did wasn't too bad? It's only a few passages? And she's accomplished more that we have so it's ok? I don't hate her. I'm not saying she's a bad person. But it takes some idiocy to copy almost word for word mundane passages and claim it as your own.

Yeah, I can't write a book. Doesn't mean I should respect all writers, especially ones not clever enough to write their own work.

By David, at 4/28/2006 3:05 AM
In music, lyrics are sampled and straight passages are taken out verbatim all the time.

That last Missy Elliot song has a hook taken from Juan Atkins' Cybotron project, one of the first techno songs ever. That one song that's out right now has the hook from Tainted Love.

These aren't great songs, but I can go further back to point out the roots of hip hop are directly from Kraftwerk (specifically the song "Trans Europe Express").

Have you seen Picasso's "Massacre in Korea"? The scene is directly lifted from Goya's "Fifth of May" painting.

People write off several works of art of which I just mentioned as genius moves. Morphing a simple trance line into the first hip hop hooks takes a leap of faith, and spawning a genre of music in its entirety is pretty significant.

So from this I will say that I don't think that these people are "idiots" who aren't bright enough to think of new things to create. Instead they've been influenced by/copied/sampled something they like and created something new.

I haven't read either of the books mentioned, so I can't say how much of the book is copied. But to answer Kumar's tone of voice, and these comments:

"No, I do not think she's a fucking idiot, and I think she deserved to get into Harvard. Not because she copied "a few passages" but because she received a $500,000 publishing contract when she was in high school... before she wrote this book. Harvard students tend to be pretty hardworking and this seems like the type of student I'd expect to see.

Her book is on the New York Times bestseller list, so it seems that people like her book, even with a few plagiarized paragraphs."

She did copy a few passages from the book, and yes, that is pretty lame of her to copy them so verbatim. But have you read her book? Is it exactly the same as the book she copied? Same plot lines, same characters, same endings?

If so then I think that would be a much bolder argument against her "fucking idiocy".

She tried to hide that she copied a few pages, that is something obviously foolish in my eyes and in my mind that's something no writer should do. But to go as far as to discredit her entire book because a few paragraphs were copied? That's too extreme for me to do.

So, to sum up my point of view, any college student who can write a lengthy novel that can be placed on the NYT Bestseller list is probably Harvard-worthy, and to discredit her ability as a writer from several plagiarized paragraphs within a whole novel is a bit too much.

By Tony, at 4/28/2006 4:30 AM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

By Tony, at 4/28/2006 4:37 AM
To further comment, I don't think we would ever see Hemingway or Tolkein do this. Viswanathan is obviously not going to be lauded as the next great writer by this inane move.

However, Tolkein and Hemingway also were not sophomores in college when they wrote their great works, and I doubt they had a publishing company contract to write for.

And after reading the article again, Dreamworks has purchased movie rights to Viswanathan's novel. It sure doesn't seem like a boring, badly written book, if a large movie company is investing their money into it.

(comment above deleted and re-edited here because of one really confusing typo)

By Tony, at 4/28/2006 4:38 AM
Also, I think this:

K-Fed samples Thomas Dolby

Is definitely worse than the above hooplah. K-Fed stole a sample from Mobb Deep, who got permission from Thomas Dolby, a pioneering electronic musician (famous for his song "She Blinded Me With Science" but is still creating/performing live electronic) to sample his famous song.

The novel above actually seems to be well-received by the public, press, and industry. This song, is obviously pretty commercial and bad.

Link to K-Fed's Myspace. I'm not too sure if the song on there is what he sampled from, because the MTV site says that "America's Most Hated" is the song that had the plagiarized sample, but on Thomas Dolby's blog it says Mr. Federline took the song off his MySpace.

By Tony, at 4/28/2006 5:05 AM
You know...there is a reason why you can potentially get an F in a college class for plagiarism.

By David, at 4/28/2006 12:46 PM
Ugh, I wrote out a post, but then I somehow lost it, so I'm just going to post my conversation with David which has the basic gist of what I was going to say. If you care, read it. If you don't, don't.

[12:59] MOO g l e I I: right, i read it all
[13:00] MOO g l e I I: what i meant was, isn't that true though? regarding the art anyway
[13:02] David: i don't know about visual art...but music does do a lot of borrowing from others, but 99% it's legit because they ask for permission
[13:02] David: and they don't claim it as work of their own
[13:02] MOO g l e I I: yeah i see that. that point was well argued in the comments, but the art part was conveniently ignored
[13:03] David: i know nothing about art
[13:03] MOO g l e I I: *david jumps out of plane*
[13:03] MOO g l e I I: ok
[13:03] MOO g l e I I: fine, no idea then. i'm apathetic
[13:05] David: i don't know if picasso paid tribute to goya
[13:06] David: if he said publicly, "yeah, i liked goyas idea and made it my own:
[13:06] MOO g l e I I: wouldn't that make it less shady?
[13:06] David: and goya said "yeah, i like picasso's rendition"
[13:06] David: yeah
[13:06] David: there's permission
[13:07] David: if picasso said "yeah, it's all my idea"
[13:07] David: then he's a douche
[13:07] MOO g l e I I: except... he isn't
[13:07] MOO g l e I I: that's the problem
[13:07] MOO g l e I I: and i just looked them up
[13:07] MOO g l e I I: their living dates are mutually exclusive of each other
[13:12] David: literature is different too
[13:12] David: authors don't borrow and do tributes like music
[13:12] David: or art
[13:13] MOO g l e I I: hmm...I think that's an entirely new giant topic to argue.
[13:13] David: with today's modern copyright laws and intellectual property laws, everything is sacredly protected
[13:14] David: what do you think?
[13:14] MOO g l e I I: yeah, i suppose
[13:14] David: about the harvard girl?
[13:14] MOO g l e I I: i think she's a smart person that fucked up big time
[13:14] David: yeah
[13:15] MOO g l e I I: i'm not sure literature is that different though. if a difference exists, it seems to only be a different degree of the same "problem"
[13:15] MOO g l e I I: if you can call it a problem. people influence each other all the time. most artists though intermingle their own ideas with others enough that it's not outright plagiarism
[13:16] MOO g l e I I: but to me, that's just a different degree of "copy." I guess there's an implied level of extreme copy
[13:16] MOO g l e I I: where it becomes bad
[13:16] MOO g l e I I: ie, 1:1
[13:16] David: influence is different than plagiarism
[13:16] David: your style of writing can be influenced
[13:16] MOO g l e I I: it is, yeah
[13:17] David: but those passages were almost word to word plagiarism
[13:17] David: and yeah, it wasn't an entire book
[13:18] David: but the plagiarism issue is serious enough in academia that one plagiarized sentence can result in a failure in the course
[13:19] MOO g l e I I: yeah that is true, but I think that's somewhat irrelevant here
[13:19] MOO g l e I I: the rules of academia do'nt rule the universe
[13:19] David: of course
[13:19] David: but it's where i'm coming from
[13:19] David: it's my standards
[13:19] David: i'm placing my opinion based on what i learned
[13:19] David: that plagiarism of any kind is stupid
[13:21] MOO g l e I I: well, that's kind of related to what i'm saying. influence is different than plagiarism, but only because they inject their own ideas enough into it to change it from "plagiarism" to "influence"
[13:21] David: i understand where tony is coming from...it wasn't a lot of plagiarism compared with the rest of the book
[13:21] MOO g l e I I: like in her example
[13:21] MOO g l e I I: if you just examine the subset
[13:21] MOO g l e I I: the specific passages
[13:21] MOO g l e I I: i'd give it a figure of, what , a copy ratio of like 1:2
[13:21] MOO g l e I I: like half of it was too similar, and we can tell
[13:21] MOO g l e I I: she's frigginc opying
[13:22] David: exactly
[13:22] David: she was smart enough to use a thesauras and adapt it for her plot
[13:22] MOO g l e I I: lol, yes, but overall, the similaries are like 1:10000 if you examine the whole book
[13:23] MOO g l e I I: but that's not what i'm getting at
[13:23] MOO g l e I I: i'm just trying to say that i'm probably more neutral than either you or tony because i believe influence and copy are strongly related
[13:23] MOO g l e I I: if she had reworked those paragraphs
[13:24] MOO g l e I I: to a certain socially accepted cut-off point, to like 1:10 or something such that people couldn't really tell
[13:24] MOO g l e I I: wishy washy, maybe it's the same, we're not sure, i see influence, yada yada
[13:24] MOO g l e I I: no one would give a shit
[13:24] MOO g l e I I: what do you think? no?
[13:25] MOO g l e I I: feedback please
[13:25] David: yeah, i understand where some people are coming from
[13:25] David: it's not that bad
[13:25] MOO g l e I I: well, it is bad
[13:26] David: but some people, they don't think it negates her intelligence
[13:26] MOO g l e I I: but i dont think it's "why are you in harvard" bad
[13:27] MOO g l e I I: do you think it does negate her intelligence?
[13:28] MOO g l e I I: i think it's a little extreme to start assuming she's plagiarized everything from her personal statement to all her schoolwork essays, but yeah it is a possibility
[13:29] David: no, i don't think that
[13:29] David: that she's a fake
[13:29] David: just that she's dumb to plagiarize a few mundane passages
[13:29] David: she couldn't take 10 minutes and use her brain?

By Ron, at 4/28/2006 2:00 PM
Ok, I have no defense that she plagiarized, I am just trying to sympathize with her for some accomplishments that, other than plagiarism, I think are pretty good for an 18-year-old (or 19) writer.

As for her plagiarism, I'm still unconvinced that what she did was a very bad thing either. There's cases of academic dishonesty, like the South Korean stem-cell controversy, that are really bad.

As for sampling, artists take a short clip (almost like a paragraph of a book) and copy it into their own music (often without permission; heck, I've even done it), creating something new, while keeping the old hook intact. I don't see how that is so vastly different than what Kaavya did, considering the passages she lifted were so mundane.

Why is this okay for music, art, and fashion, but not okay when you're writing a fictional "chick lit" novel?

Nobody knows if she sat at her writing desk, came to a mental block, opened up somebody else's book and copied a passage, or if she read McCafferty's book several times earlier and had certain poignant passages stick unconsciously in her mind. Either way it's plagiarism but doesn't one seem worse than the other?

Another example of something slightly related to this is Da Vinci Code author gets sued. Dan Brown apparently "stole" vast amounts of research and even the central theme from a previous book published in 1982. Dan Brown won the case because he properly cited the book. Brown did not copy any direct passages, and he did follow all the rules, but I think it's at least just as unoriginal, if not more so, to copy a whole theme and research from another book.

By Tony, at 4/28/2006 2:00 PM
I read Ron's post above (if you notice the timestamps, I posted mines a few second after his) and I agree with both premises, but I will say that nowhere near 99% of sampling is attributed to the original artist. I'd say it's even closer to 5 or 10%, even in the commercial realm (the only place it matters anyways).

And I totally think it's an immature move on her part; if she knew or cared more about the rules of academia she could have easily edited those passages out (which she's done, the publisher is releasing a new copy with those edited versions out).

By Tony, at 4/28/2006 2:09 PM
Btw to clarify my prior rambling, I don't think "real" works are just things someone found and "photochopped" into orginality. Personally, I think it's more of an unconscious process. You get an image or idea in your mind that you like, maybe you saw or heard something similar somewhere but you don't remember, don't want to remember, or don't care where you got it, and then you execute it.

I've brainstormed ideas with people, and I've noticed more than once that *my* ideas, become *our* ideas even though the other person did nothing other than be present at the time. Sometimes it even becomes *their* ideas. It's an amazing thing to observe.

In Viswanathan's case, it looks very possible she did it consciously, and poorly, which drops her into the "plagiarism" section. And maybe that reflects what the socially accepted cut-off is: A. You unconsciously rather than consciously alter an idea. B. And it's sufficiently different.

Ok, I'm rambling again. I didn't even really care about this shit. Great I just wasted like an hour discussing this.

By Ron, at 4/28/2006 2:11 PM
Eric is a friend from UCI btw, so he's not just some random internet bum that stumbled here.

By Ron, at 4/28/2006 2:27 PM
It wasn't a few lines, kiddos, it was dozens of passages, word for word. Now other similarities from other books are coming out. Not similar ideas or styles but beyond that, more verbatim shite. Click on the link in the original post and then click on the article writer's name for more stories about it. This is why she's an idiot. This wasn't done by some crackhead kid with one leg six inches longer than the other who's going to end up the rotating target in some insane knife thrower's rundown circus. This was done by a bright girl who fell into the trap of the college admissions competition. She's an idiot not because she did it, although that makes her pretty stupid at that moment, but because after she did it once, she didn't stop to think that it was wrong and she should do it her own way or scrap it altogether, but instead proceeded to continue to do it dozens of times, and then thought she could get away with it. The last point there is what makes her a fucktard. Internalization my ass. As for young writers, read White Teeth by Zadie Smith. My favorite author and my favorite book, this was her debut novel written at the age of nineteen. Highly original and rightfully praised.

By napehtrap, at 5/06/2006 3:14 AM

Thursday, April 27, 2006

So How'd You Get Into Harvard?

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