Plagiarist or Fraud?
The weekly Harvard Independent points out that Kaavya Viswanathan’s recent novel may have been ghostwritten. Therefore the ghostwriter, rather than the purported author, may have committed the original plagiarism. Viswanathan maintains that she herself wrote the novel, and said that “any phrasing similarities… were completely unintentional and unconscious.” (Harvard Crimson, April 24) (The use of ghostwriters is not generally called plagiarism, although one definition says plagiarism is “passing off someone else’s work as your own.” This would of course make all recent U.S. presidents guilty of the crime.)
Related material:
- ABC News Nightline:
Harvard Writer Not First to
Strike a Similar Pose - The Harvard Plagiarism Archive