If your grandma or grandpa are fond of writing letters to the editor of their local paper, do them a favor and tell them about this thing called the Internet. Tell them that their letter will be posted online and that it is all too easy to determine if gramps wrote his own letter or copied it.
A June 30, 2008 letter to the editor in the News & Record (Greensboro, NC) from Warren Nash is identical in its majority to one from a different author published five days prior in the Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL).
Given the delay in getting a letter to print, it is possible, I suppose, that Mr. Nash wrote his letter first, shared it privately with a friend in Florida who copied it and had hers published first. Clearly though, one copied the other and if you sign your name to someone else's writings, you have plagiarized.
Of course, the letters editor at the N&R could have caught this and saved her paper and Mr. Nash this embarrassment, but, sadly, there appears to be little regard for fact-checking by the N&R on the letters they publish as noted here and here,
roch,
ReplyDeleteit could be just a sample letter trying to get people to try to get into their local paper. From what organization who knows. I know for now on there isn't anything getting by you. I need to give you a copy of anything I write before I press post or the wrath of roch will come down hard.Great to see your pickups on all of this.
roch I did lift the phone number to call a person at nc state on the mary easley bump in salary story, sorry forgot to give credit, don't give me a hard time.
ReplyDelete