Words Words Words

Major media figure says sorry:

Time magazine and CNN suspended Fareed Zakaria, the writer and television host, on Friday after he apologized for plagiarizing sections of his column on gun control in the Aug. 20 issue of Time.

If you need to cut and paste,
paraphrase so it can't be traced!

Apparently he did paraphrase somewhat, but not enough. Some paragraphs were still recognizable borrowings. Uncredited, of course.

I do think the "cut and paste" feature is partly responsible for all these famous writers getting caught. Writers paste in a paragraph they like - with the intention of rewording it. But, they're in a hurry, they lose track of which parts they reworded, and they let it slip through in recognizable form.

In the old days, when we worked on typewriters, there was no cut and paste. You looked at the original author's prose, and you paraphrased on the fly. That was safer. His exact words never made it into your document.

I think Word needs a "paste reworded" option.

Students doing papers would find it invaluable.

My friend William Dale tells me that Twitter is abuzz with reports that an assistant of Zakaria is the one who really made the mistake, and that Zakaria failed to catch it.

But... if my assistant is careful, and makes sure to write original prose, and then I put MY name on it... is that okay? Well it's ghostwriting, not plagiarism.

But it's still a bit misleading
as to whose prose you are reading.

"This is a certified all-original post."
Signed - My Ghost.