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UD in the New Zealand Press

Tomorrow, the New Zealand Listener – in which reviewer Jolisa Gracewood broke the story two weeks ago with examples of plagiarised content – reveals more unattributed lines in The Trowenna Sea from other people’s work.

It is not clear whether these have been acknowledged by Ihimaera.

The latest Listener quotes Margaret Soltan, a professor of English at George Washington University in Washington DC, who criticises Ihimaera.

But she mostly criticises Auckland University, where Ihimaera is a distinguished professor and lecturer.

She says the university has too-readily accepted the author’s word that the plagiarism was inadvertent.

“Pretending it did not happen is the sort of thing a very provincial university will do,” she says.

I’ll link to The Listener when the issue appears. Not sure if you’ll be able to read the article online.

Oh, and — I told you plagiarists were lifers.

Margaret Soltan, November 19, 2009 11:44AM
Posted in: plagiarism

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3 Responses to “UD in the New Zealand Press”

  1. Craig Ranapia Says:

    Like drug cheats? I though the more appropriate analogy for plagiarists is that they’re like kleptomaniacs — you can pity them, appreciate that it’s a psychological disorder, but stealing still isn’t tolerable in any society with any pretensions towards civilization? 🙂

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Craig: Yes – I thought the drug cheats thing a little strange, too. Though I see the idea. The plagiarist gets books out faster than his competitors because he saves all sorts of writing time…

    From my study of the subject, I’ve come to think that there are two kinds of plagiarists, haughty and pathetic, with Witi the pathetic type.

    The haughty plagiarist is a brilliant and accomplished person who just hasn’t the time — is just too important and special — actually to WRITE any more books. Other people do that, and the haughty person puts his name on the cover.

    The pathetic plagiarist has no faith in his ability to write well. At his core is a deep self-doubt; and the more success the pathetic plagiarist enjoys, the deeper his self-doubt becomes, and the more he plagiarizes. In other words, he has always felt himself to be a hoax, a fraud, and turns to plagiarism because he sincerely believes himself incapable of valuable independent work.

  3. Craig Ranapia Says:

    Love it. The sub-type of the "haughty" plagairist I particularly adore are the Stephen Ambroses and Doris Kearns Goodwins who can’t be expected to micro-manage their research assistants. It’s like listening to some dowager out of Henry James or Edith Wharton complaining that when they were young servants knew their place and weren’t afraid of a little hard work.

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UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
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Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

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As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
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Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
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University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

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