Fareed Zakaria gets even more plagiarism accusations

[jakeXT]

Enigmatic media critics @crushingbort and @blippoblappo say they’ve found more examples of Fareed Zakaria lifting material from other texts. The purportedly purloined passages, they say, appear in Zakaria’s 2008 book “The Post-American World” and in Newsweek and Foreign Affairs cover stories.

“On more than a number of occasions, Zakaria has taken entire paragraphs from the authors and shifted them around in an apparent attempt to avoid detection,” they write.

Here’s one of their examples, of stuff they say Zakaria stole from Fawaz Gerges



Zakaria responded to @crushingbort and @blippoblappo’s first post about his work, saying their previous examples “are all facts, not someone else’s writing or opinions or expressions.” Washington Post Editorial Editor Fred Hiatt told Poynter the allegations were “reckless.” Time, for which Zakaria last wrote a column in March, told Poynter it planned to re-review Zakaria’s work. (He joined Atlantic Media as a contributing editor last month.)

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/265229/fareed-zakaria-gets-even-more-plagiarism-accusations/

[Bjorn Against]

1. Well it looks like his career is over

It is pretty hard to spin that as a mistake, I don't see any major news outlet publishing his work after this especially considering it is not a first offense.

[libdem4life]

2. Even a college student can read and rewrite in their own words. Sorry to lose him for stupidity n/t

[enlightenment]

3. I honestly don't understand why

people do this.

Is it a total misunderstanding of what constitutes plagiarism? Do these writers really not grasp that if copy what someone else wrote, then changing a single word does not make it your writing? That paraphrasing requires more than a single word shift - and that it still needs proper attribution? That direct quotes must be placed in quotation marks and properly attributed?

That anything less is intellectual theft?

I realize that many young people are not being taught what plagiarism is, much less how to avoid it - and they need to be taught. Every semester I have at least one student tell me (in some fashion) that if they did the research of looking it up, it's not plagiarism to copy it. Or that it doesn't matter because it was an old book or article. Or that everything on the internet is free to use.

I get that they don't get it - so I spend time teaching them why they should care. What I don't get is how older, more highly educated, professionals don't seem to grasp what they are doing and why it is wrong.