[Clips] Copycatty Coulter Pilfers Prose: Pro

[R.A. Hettinga]

...Another addition to the "concordance is a bitch" file

Apparently it was neither the cigarettes nor the chardonnay, but Ms.
Coulter's Lexis/Nexis habit that finally caught up with her.

Cheers,
RAH
Still a fan of great satire, nonetheless. Agree with the notion that
"Godless", et al., are the moral equivalent of "A Modest Proposal".
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  Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 10:36:43 -0400
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  From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
  Subject: [Clips] Copycatty Coulter Pilfers Prose: Pro
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<http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/copycatty_coulter_pilfers_prose__pro_nationalnews_philip_recchia.htm>

  The New York Post



  COPYCATTY COULTER PILFERS PROSE: PRO

  By PHILIP RECCHIA
  ANN COULTER

  July 2, 2006 -- Conservative scribe Ann Coulter cribbed liberally in her
  latest book, "Godless," according to a plagiarism expert.

  John Barrie, the creator of a leading plagiarism-recognition system,
  claimed he found at least three instances of what he calls "textbook
  plagiarism" in the leggy blond pundit's "Godless: the Church of Liberalism"
  after he ran the book's text through the company's digital iThenticate
  program.

  He also says he discovered verbatim lifts in Coulter's weekly column, which
  is syndicated to more than 100 newspapers, including the Fort Lauderdale
  (Fla.) Sun-Sentinel and Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

  Barrie, CEO of iParadigms, told The Post that one 25-word passage from the
  "Godless" chapter titled "The Holiest Sacrament: Abortion" appears to have
  been lifted nearly word for word from Planned Parenthood literature
  published at least 18 months before Coulter's 281-page book was released.

  A separate, 24-word string from the chapter "The Creation Myth" appeared
  about a year earlier in the San Francisco Chronicle with just one word
  change - "stacked" was changed to "piled."

  Another 33-word passage that appears five pages into "Godless" allegedly
  comes from a 1999 article in the Portland (Maine) Press Herald.

  Meanwhile, many of the 344 citations Coulter includes in "Godless" "are
  very misleading," said Barrie, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of
  California at Berkeley, where he specialized in pattern recognition.

  "They're used purely to try and give the book a higher level of credibility
  - as if it's an academic work. But her sloppiness in failing to properly
  attribute many other passages strips it of nearly all its academic merits,"
  he told The Post.

  Barrie says he also ran Coulter's Universal Press columns from the past 12
  months through iThenticate and found similar patterns of cribbing.

  Her Aug. 3, 2005, column, "Read My Lips: No New Liberals," about U.S.
  Supreme Court Justice David Souter, includes six passages, ranging from 10
  to 48 words each, that appeared 15 years earlier in the same order in an
  L.A. Times article, headlined "Liberals Leery as New Clues Surface on
  Souter's Views."

  But nowhere in that column does she mention the L.A. Times or the story's
  writer, David G. Savage.

  Her June 29, 2005, column, "Thou Shalt Not Commit Religion," incorporates
  10 facts on National Endowment for the Arts-funded work that originally
  appeared in the same order in a 1991 Heritage Foundation report, "The
  National Endowment for the Arts: Misusing Taxpayers' Money." But again, the
  Heritage Foundation isn't credited.

  "Just as Coulter plays free and loose with her citations in 'Godless,' she
  obviously does the same in her columns," Barrie said.

  Coulter did not respond to requests for comment.

  --
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  R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
  The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
  44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
  "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
  [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
  experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'