Hey, Sean! You're absolutely right that no editor can know every work in the genre, and I didn't mean to give the impression that such was my thought. Heck, I know as a teacher that catching plagiarism is a hit-and-miss thing: I either have to suspect plagiarism (usually because the paper's better-written than I'd expect for that student), in which case I search for a few key phrases on the internet, or I have to have read the source work recently enough that the similarities jar me.
But one might reasonably expect an editor to have read the 'canonical' and most popular works in their genre, if for no other reason than to stay abreast of the competition and the state of the field. I don't read the type of work in question here, but my understanding is that Megan McCafferty's books are highly-popular. I don't read the genre, so anything I say has to be taken with a large box of salt, but the cited similarities were enough that readers reading Ms. Viswanathan's novel who were familiar with Ms. McCafferty's work twigged quickly to the plagiarism. I'm not entirely unsurpised that the editor at Little, Brown didn't catch it... but it does make me wonder if someone at the packager wasn't aware of it -- after all, it seems from all I've read on this that this genre is their speciality...
I don't think it's the role of the editor to catch plagiarism. It can't be. The editor, in the end, has to trust the writer's assertion that the work is original. And that's why the contract language is the way it is, right?
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Date: 2006-05-03 02:18 pm (UTC)But one might reasonably expect an editor to have read the 'canonical' and most popular works in their genre, if for no other reason than to stay abreast of the competition and the state of the field. I don't read the type of work in question here, but my understanding is that Megan McCafferty's books are highly-popular. I don't read the genre, so anything I say has to be taken with a large box of salt, but the cited similarities were enough that readers reading Ms. Viswanathan's novel who were familiar with Ms. McCafferty's work twigged quickly to the plagiarism. I'm not entirely unsurpised that the editor at Little, Brown didn't catch it... but it does make me wonder if someone at the packager wasn't aware of it -- after all, it seems from all I've read on this that this genre is their speciality...
And from the most recent article I've read (http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9941), it seems the packager was involved in previous plagiarism situations...
I don't think it's the role of the editor to catch plagiarism. It can't be. The editor, in the end, has to trust the writer's assertion that the work is original. And that's why the contract language is the way it is, right?