How To Save Your Reputation With A Citation

August 10, 2012

HuffPo reports that Fareed Zakaria is set to apologize after being accused of plagiarizing a paragraph from an article written by Jill LePore for the New Yorker. After comparing the two, it seems pretty clear that Zakaria screwed up, and screwed up big.

Below are the two paragraphs in question from LePore’s and Zakaria’s pieces respectively, as reproduced on HuffPo at the link above.

LePore’s:

As Adam Winkler, a constitutional-law scholar at U.C.L.A., demonstrates in a remarkably nuanced new book, “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” firearms have been regulated in the United States from the start. Laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, and other states soon followed: Indiana (1820), Tennessee and Virginia (1838), Alabama (1839), and Ohio (1859). Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.”

Zakaria’s:

Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. Laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed: Indiana in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839 and Ohio in 1859. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.”

This is pretty compelling evidence of plagiarism. It’s understandable if Zakaria wanted to avoid a large block quote of LePore’s work for style reasons, but even so, Zakaria could have saved himself some embarrassment by simply modifying the paragraph slighly to give LePore credit, like so:

[Jill LePore notes that] Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. [LePore notes further that] [l]aws [which] banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed: Indiana in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839 and Ohio in 1859. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. [LePore also noted that] [“]the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.”[“]

This paragraph is admittedly a little awkward. Yet if Zakaria had inserted those references, his piece would hardly have suffered much for it on substance. And he certainly wouldn’t be in the world of hurt he’s in now.

I think the lesson here is that there’s no shame in relying on another journalist’s work to get your point across if it’s a message worth spreading. This is a pretty easy thing to avoid, so long as you’re not afraid to name-drop. Better an awkwardly-phrased paragraph than discrediting yourself by ripping someone else’s work off, whether intentional or accidentally.

4:20pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxR93NJf

(Notes: 16)