Harvard Student Plagiarizes in her Novel
 

Wow, and i was looking forward to reading this...

"Rarely has an author succeeded, then failed, so quickly as Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard University sophomore who acknowledged lifting material from another author's work for her debut novel, 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life.'"

Harvard Teens Book Pulled From Shelves

And this is why I don't try to write fiction - I've read so much and absorbed some of it so deeply, I'm afraid I'd plagiarize unconciously.

Apparently though, if you put her book and her "inspiration" book next to each other, there are identical paragraphs and settings. The "Harvard Crimson" actually had the most extensive coverage of this case, as the Boston Globe seemed to gloss over details (despite their frequent attention to the case).

She's full of it. She should get kicked out of Harvard just for the sheer stupidity.

-Rudey

I felt the same way until I actually read the passages. It's pretty freaking uncanny, really.

Harvard will let her finish the semester, but I don't see her going back.

I don't see how this is a "coincidence,"" as she claims. She outright plagiarized, and now she's been caught for it.

I'm wondering how much more difficult these cases (this, the James Frey situation) will make it for new authors to get book deals.

I think every writer is in some way influenced by what they read, and in many cases, they will share style with those other writers. This isn't a case like that though, this is someone copying word for word and assuming she wouldn't get caught.

Why she didn't think she'd get caught is beyond me. I know that her book and the one from which she plagiarized target the same audience. If she had been ripping off Tom Wolfe or Joan Didion, maybe she could have gotten away with it just a little bit longer...

Apparently, from what I've read somewhere (maybe MSNBC this morning?), she didn't realize she was doing it, until someone pointed it out. She had read the books when in high school, and they just stuck with her.

Honestly, though, if you're a teen book editor, wouldn't you be fairly up-to-date on what books are out/popular, so you can catch this stuff?

Here's the link to the story:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512948

A 14 word passage she wrote in this book was exactly the same as in the other book. That's not just sticking with someone - that's straight copying.

It's not just one passage. I'm willing to admit that one sentence could have been an accident, if she had read the books enough.

This does not look like an accident. By the way, McCafferty looks like a much better writer in these excerpts.

ETA:
Example:
From page 68 of McCafferty’s second novel: “‘Omigod!’ shrieked Sara, taking a pink tube top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny out of her shopping bag.”

From page 51 of Viswanathan’s novel: “...I was sick of listening to her hum along to Alicia Keys, and worn out from resisting her efforts to buy me a pink tube top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny.”

Extremely specific.

I admit that I know nothing about the book publishing world, but aren't there editors and fact-checkers to prevent situations like this?

That's my point though - no way this could have been an accident. This woman is trying to cover her tracks, and she's not doing a very good job of it.

A Second Ripple in Plagiarism Scandal

By DINITIA SMITH and MOTOKO RICH
Published: May 2, 2006

Fresh passages in the novel by a Harvard sophomore, whose book was pulled from stores last week after she acknowledged plagiarizing portions of it, appear to be copied from a second author.

At least three portions in the book, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life," by Kaavya Viswanathan, bear striking similarities to writing in "Can You Keep a Secret?," a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella.

-Rudey

I asked my little sister (who is 14) if she or her friend had read this book, and what they thought about it. She hadn't read it, but her one friend who did said it was "pretty average." She also said there were some similarities to the Princess Diaries in there, but I don't remember what they were.