Taegan Goddard is getting a lot of attention from the leftosphere right now for posting allegations that John McCain’s campaign lifted text from the Wikipedia article about Georgia (the nation-state, not the U.S. state). But as a writer and former professional journalist, I know from plagiarism, and I think McCain’s detractors are jumping on this one a little too quickly.
I think the only reason there is any controversy is because the first quoted passages, about Georgia and Christianity, are obviously very similar. They are also very short. And in all three examples, the text is purely expository: none of it expresses any thoughts, feelings, emotions or other content that would be an obvious case of intentional plagiarism. Additionally, it’s worth noting that historical facts cannot be plagiarized, only their expression. If there is any here, it’s probably inadvertent.
Meanwhile, consider that plagiarized text is almost always longer than original text. This is because the original writer is likely to state things in as few words as possible while the plagiarizer is trying to hide the origin, which means more words. But here, the McCain speech text is shorter in the second and third examples. The second example is the most alike, as ThinkProgress highlights, but the phrases in common are themselves quite pedestrian, and the other word choices are rather different.
The biggest blow to the plagiarism charge, however, is that the third McCain section actually contains information not in the Wikipedia version. The McCain version notes that Mikheil Saakashvili is a “U.S.-educated lawyer”, but this is not in the Wikipedia passage. Sure, this information is available from Saakashvili’s article, but if that’s the charge, I think the McCain campaign can rest easy. Pretty soon they’ll be accused of doing actual research.
I think that about covers it. Of course, if the campaign did plagiarize it, at least Wikipedia is released under a free public license. And as one Wikipedia editor puts it on the Georgia talk page:
Well, at least we’re being useful to lay readers, rather than specialists; and the extracts appear to be factual…
Update: Keith Olbermann just mentioned the “plagiarism” accusations on Countdown a moment ago, so this just might be the next “100 years” claim (which, curiously, I never seem to hear about anymore).
How do you plagiarize from the Borg, which is what essentially Wikipedia is. If the collective formed the entry, then shouldn’t the collective own it?
Well, even though I said that Wikipedia is released under a free public license — and it is — one would still technically be in violation of the license if you didn’t give credit back to Wikipedia. So it is in fact possible to plagiarize Wikipedia. I just don’t think a substantial case can be made that it happened here.
THeh left has nothing, so they’ll resort to lying and stretching definitions and raising bars. It’s what they do.
Looks like the Senator can use the internet after all!
“The Sun rises in the East.”
I know that, you know that, everyone knows that. If fact, I’m sure SOMEONE used those exact words to express the same thought.
So what? There is no “originality of thought.” Not even any “originality” in the expression. It is unfortunate for authors that only about 2% of any writing contains any original thought and maybe 4% contains any original expression (and that’s a generous estimate).
When one is twelve, one knows for yourself very little. After 4 years of college and 6 years of grad school, you have made much more of the great store of knowledge YOURS. It’s also in the knowledge bag of thousands of others.
You can use what you know and so can everyone else. Plagiarism charges are vastly overblown.
This was already debunked on my website earlier today. Unfortunately I have had to argue back and forth with other professors about it.
votingwhileintoxicated.wordpress.com
I find it interesting that both sides are resorting to stretching. I find it more interesting that it is working as I found out after talking to a friend of mine this past week. They had only heard the snippets and had changed their position. This election should not be based on this crap but real positions. Not attacks no matter what course of action a candidate takes. I am talking to both sides.
I kinda hope Obama names Joe Biden as his VP choice. Then Biden can be the attack dog on McCain’s supposed plagiarism …f
Wikipedia: “regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis.”
McCain: “regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises.”
I think you’re deluding yourself if you think this slice just happened to contain so many similar words in so similar an order. Pedestrian though they may be, there are 100 other ways to convey this information and the word choices are NOT “rather different.” The only real change in this slice is replacing “civil unrest” with “instability” and adding “corruption,” which were probably just to make the diction sexier.
You tell us to, “consider that plagiarized text is almost always longer than original text.” Stastically, you may be right. But I don’t think that applies to speechwriting. I’ve only written speeches for my own itty-bitty student government elections, but even the smallest of those go through countless permutations. All by my one-man campaign staff (me). I can’t even imagine how many drafts a professional politician’s speach sees, let alone a Presidential-candidate on a multi-million dollar budget.
Also, you say, “The biggest blow to the plagiarism charge, however, is that the third McCain section actually contains information not in the Wikipedia version.” I don’t follow you. Maybe the third case just isn’t plagiarized. Doesn’t negate the first two.
@Mr. Owens: To me, it’s not a question of whether he is legally in the right. It’s a question of whether or not you want the leader of the free world getting his intel from “the collective.”
And no, sorry, I’m not from the leftosphere. I’m what we used to call conservative (e.g. small, solvent government, respect for personal freedoms, etc.) Who knew we still existed?
It was a bad idea to make this allegation, since now bloggers on the right will be digging up examples from obama. Since Obama hasn’t had an original idea since ‘invade Pakistan’ I expect there will be a boat load of them.
I’m glad the lefties have opened the subject of plagiarism. Hussein Obama has refused to release his undergraduate thesis. I know, I know, he can’t find it or has good and sufficient reasons for not releasing it. The good guys, however, are going to claiming that in not releasing his undergraduate thesis he is hiding something, much as Edwards has done over the past six or more months.
What could Hussein be hiding to risk the complaints? Easy! The only hypothesis that makes sense is that Hussein plagiarized his undergraduate thesis, a fact that will be proven if the paper becomes public. What’s more, questions regarding whether the Columbia faculty knew it was stolen and did nothing (probably!)will also raise issues of affirmative action and articulates blacks getting credentials they didn’t earn.
So, let’s open up the discussion of plagiarism!
I think that it’s rich that the Russian bear is roaming southeastern Europe, and this is what the Left chooses to fixate on.
Priorities, people.
Southern Comfort: Listing facts in a particular order, using a particular sequence of articles, is not a meaningful piece of intellectual work. It’s like saying that anyone who quotes “ROY G BIV” is plagarizing. Or suggesting that “do re mi” must always be followed by a trademark statement or brand symbol. (Which, I notice, you did not include when you appropriated a trademark of the Southern Comfort Company to form your username. Are we to believe that you just “happened” to pick those two words, in that order, with that capitalization? I think not, kind sir!)