http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512948
THIS PISSES ME OFF!!!
I have some HUGE issues with this story. I saw this young girl on the Today Show this morning, apologizing for the gaffe of having similar passages in her book as established writer Megan McCafferty. I've read the passages that were compared, and, yes, they are indeed similar. The girl, 19 year old Kaavya Viswanathan, admits to having read the McCafferty books in high school, but that they had no conscious influence on her word choices. Now, as much as I understand miss McCafferty's unhappiness at this seeming lack of originality, but Viswanathan has insisted that she didn't intentionally copy anything, but, unless you're James Joyce or Anthony Burgess, there are only a finite number of words in the English language, and they can only be combined in certain ways. It is only natural that certain styles of writing that one is most familiar with will stick in the subconscious.
It has been said that if you put infinite monkeys in a room with infinite typewriters for long enough that they will eventually, through finite extraction, type Hamlet. Now, this is much more specific than that, but Viswanathan states that she didn't even use the McCafferty novels as a reference when writing, instead, they sat on her shelf at home while she sat at Harvard, typing away.
This unfortunate incident also harbors the distinct possibility of hurting this girl's college career. While the Harvard honor code applies in its penalties only to academic work, a certain degree of moral conduct is expected of all Harvard students. Now, it's not my decision what happens to Kaavya Viswanathan, but it seems to me that she did nothing wrong, she's already apologized, and stated that she will make changes to the novel to remedy the similarities.
Here come the thought police, because I thought something that someone else thought during the Crusades!
THIS PISSES ME OFF!!!
I have some HUGE issues with this story. I saw this young girl on the Today Show this morning, apologizing for the gaffe of having similar passages in her book as established writer Megan McCafferty. I've read the passages that were compared, and, yes, they are indeed similar. The girl, 19 year old Kaavya Viswanathan, admits to having read the McCafferty books in high school, but that they had no conscious influence on her word choices. Now, as much as I understand miss McCafferty's unhappiness at this seeming lack of originality, but Viswanathan has insisted that she didn't intentionally copy anything, but, unless you're James Joyce or Anthony Burgess, there are only a finite number of words in the English language, and they can only be combined in certain ways. It is only natural that certain styles of writing that one is most familiar with will stick in the subconscious.
It has been said that if you put infinite monkeys in a room with infinite typewriters for long enough that they will eventually, through finite extraction, type Hamlet. Now, this is much more specific than that, but Viswanathan states that she didn't even use the McCafferty novels as a reference when writing, instead, they sat on her shelf at home while she sat at Harvard, typing away.
This unfortunate incident also harbors the distinct possibility of hurting this girl's college career. While the Harvard honor code applies in its penalties only to academic work, a certain degree of moral conduct is expected of all Harvard students. Now, it's not my decision what happens to Kaavya Viswanathan, but it seems to me that she did nothing wrong, she's already apologized, and stated that she will make changes to the novel to remedy the similarities.
Here come the thought police, because I thought something that someone else thought during the Crusades!
 | Currently watching: Crash (Widescreen Edition) Release date: 06 September, 2005 |
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