Thanks to Nikki, who posted the following in the comments of our previous entry, we have the text of what is allegedly a response from Cassie Edwards issued via her MySpace account:
Original Message
From: Cassie Edwards
Date: Jan 11, 2008 11:58 AMHi, Lisa,
I just got on My Space and I found your wonderful encouraging letter. Thank you for believing in me, for I have done nothing wrong. My publisher is standing behind me 100%, for they know my work better than anyone, and they know that all romance authors who use research for historicals have to use reference books to do this. My readers love this accurate material about the Indians. And if I couldn’t use this material my books would not be worth anything to my readers who depend on me.The sad thing is that I am writing these books now in a way to honor our Native Americans, past, present and in the future. And I am honoring my great grandmother who was a full blood Cheyenne. She would be so proud of me if she could read what I am writing about the Indians who have been so maligned for so long. And do you know? I feel picked on now as our Native American Indians have always been picked on throughout history. I am trying to spread the word about them and what do I get? Spiteful women who have found a way to bring attention to themselves, by getting in the media in this horrible way.
Right now I am getting hit from all sides….CNN, The New York Times, AP, everyone who those women could think of to contact. And what is also sad is that a fellow author, has spoken up and condemned me.
Thanks again for your support. When I am feeling stronger I plan to write a bulletin on My Space, but right now I am totally drained of energy from what has been done to me. I hope that you will tell your friends, who are so much also mine, the wrong that has been done to me, and tell them that I will get through this. I will be found innocent and vendicated of any wrong.
For now, it's all too raw and horrible, but I will be alright.
Love, Cassie
Katherine, After I wrote that, I knew someone might take it the wrong way. I didn’t intend that at all, honestly. I know there are writers out there who are fully capable of producing lots of manuscripts during a one year period – the correct and honest way. And yes, I have heard of grind house authors. But I didn’t mean that it couldn’t be done -producing lots of books during a one year period. I just meant that all that has been brought to light (about CE) explains how she was able to do it. I was only referring to her, no one else.
When did the pursuit of excellence become “snobberyâ€
The pursuit of excellence for yourself isn’t snobbery. Looking down your nose at other people is. (And let me be clear that none of my remarks have been about Ms. Edwards’ ability to write or not. Just generalizations.) I’m fascinated with the evolution of language, and also fascinated with the idea that the evolution must stop right here! So “all right” shouldn’t become “alright” even though “already” is fine because that happened before my time. Likewise “a lot” shouldn’t become “alot” because it’s just lazy and only ignorant people use it. Hell, spelling of most words was a fluid art until the twentieth-century! It evolves more slowly now, but it still evolves, much to some people’s chagrin.
But I digress. Spelling is a tool, as you said. Frankly, I have no problem with spelling or grammar issues. It’s a relatively strong tool for me. My plotting tool? Errr… it needs constant sharpening. I have to work at it and I do. So I don’t throw stones at people who have to work at the spelling part or the dialogue part, etc. Now once it’s in print, I expect to not be able to tell which writer has which weakness, if you know what I mean. But as for posting on blogs or writing letters or sending emails… None of my beeswax.
(None of this having anything to do with my opinion about plagiarism. Nobody should have a tool labeled “copy and paste!”.)
Myself, I prefer ‘alright’. Why? Because to my strangely-wired mind ‘all right’ is merely the opposite of ‘all left’.
Dyslexic, and an EnTP logophile.
Just to be sure my daughter knew better I asked her two questions.
1) Can you copy, or copy and paste from any source (book, encyclopedia or on-line)?
Her answer: NO
2) What is that called?
Her Answer: Plagiarism
She’s 12 and in 6th grade.
What CE did was wrong. She has no excuse. I don’t know what punishment is appropriate. I would think pulling all books off the shelf and then letting the lawyers hash it out is going to be as far as it goes.
She’s already been held up to public scrutiny and found lacking. I am sure this is all mortifying for her (as it should be).
I’m sorry if this follows the questions being asked in one of the other threads. I keep seeing 165 or 190 or whatever comments and don’t know which one I saw the ‘what punishment do you think is right?’ question.
SamG
I think I can answer the question of how long CE has been plagiarising: More than 20 years.
20 minutes and two windows open to GoogleBooks found the following from Savage Heart, originally printed in 1985.
Savage Heart (original c/r 1985, reprinted 2007, Zebra)
pg 33: She had also read that the descendants of those ancestors inherited the right to display symbols of the supernatural being to demonstrate their noble descent and that the painted or carved motifs were referred to as “crests,” a brand of sorts, which established legal ownership.
Indians of the Northwest Coast by Philip Drucker, 1955, reissued 1963, Published for the American Museum of Natural History [by] The Natural History Press, Original from the University of Michigan;
pg. 181 […] of that ancestor, in the proper line, inherited the right to display symbols of the supernatural being to demonstrate their noble descent. Whether painted or carved, the motifs are often referred to as “crests” […]
Savage Heart
pg 44: “Berries,” he said, leaning over to take a squarely wrapped skunk-cabbage leaf from the basket. “An assortment of berries. They have been cooked together to a pulpy mass, poured into rectangular wooden frames lined with these leaves, and dried into cakes.”
Indians of the Northwest Coast
pg 54: For storing, the berries were cooked to a pulpy mass, poured into rectangular wooden frames lined with skunk-cabbage leaves, and dried into cakes.
I’m sure there are more—there are quite a few passages which are highly suspicious, but I didn’t have any luck finding their source.
I’m with you, Arlene. Thanks for your passionate and eloquent defence* of spelling and grammar!
*English spelling – I’m not being ironic.
I never thought the discussion would get so heated about ‘alright’ and lead to accusations of snobbery. Ok, I admit it. I can be a snob about spelling.
But if you look in the on-line dictionary you’ll find this:
Already and all ready, as well as all together and altogether have separate meanings.
Copied from dictionary.com –
—Usage note Although already and all ready are often indistinguishable in speech, the written forms have distinct meanings and uses. The phrase all ready means “entirely ready†or “prepared†(I was all ready to leave on vacation). Already means “previously†(The plane had already left the airport) or “so soon†(Is it lunchtime already?).
—Usage note The forms altogether and all together, though often indistinguishable in speech, are distinct in meaning. The adverb altogether means “wholly, entirely, completelyâ€: an altogether confused scene. The phrase all together means “in a groupâ€: The children were all together in the kitchen. This all can be omitted without seriously affecting the meaning: The children were together in the kitchen.
Alright and all right mean the same thing. There has been a suggestion – at http://www.word-detective.com/back-q.html – that if alright is used strictly as an adverb that means ‘satisfactory’, and all right as an adjective where it means ‘completely correct’ it could follow the same pattern and the formal usage could change. But that has not yet happened. If you use it that way, you may be able to convince me that you are in the vanguard of a grammatical revolution, but I’d probably still cringe. The nuns who taught me that all right is the only correct version thwacked me too often, I guess.
If alright is used interchangeably with all right, where would you draw a line? Would you be comfortable with alstar (Tiger Woods is a golf alstar)? or alaround (I need to do cleaning alaround the house.)?
Besides, if English didn’t have weird rules and constructions, would it still be English?
And you’ll note from the exact same source: “already, c.1300, compound of all + ready. Colloquial use in U.S. as a terminal emphatic (e.g. enough, already!) is attested from 1903”
Which was exactly my point.
And to make my point again, it doesn’t matter to me how any one person feels about the word “alright”. (
<= Note that I feel strongly about not putting punctuation in a quoted phrase even though that's not the American style of doing it.) The
snobby (dare I say rude) part is publicly mocking someone for any misspelling. I have no idea who the original poster was. I don’t have enough concern to go back and look. I wasn’t accusing Arlene of it; she just asked me for clarification of my thoughts.
After finding out about this in the NYT I was laughing so hard, because I just had to give seven of my students in one of my classes zeros for plagairising. Four of them used the same exact quote, and one used words like empirically, congruent, and philosophically (words they couldn’t spell much less define) Mind you they are juniors, and they claimed they didn’t know copying and pasting were considereed plagiarism (yea, ok, I’ll believe that) but they didn’t even understand what was so wrong with it. Now I’m going to show them… Thank you, Ms. Edwards for being so lazy and so smug that you used others’ work, passed it off as your own, and did it for so long.
As a current teacher of Freshmen composition, the rules are as follows:
1) It is plagiarism to use more than 3 words from another source without proper citation or attribution.
2) Those 3 words (or less) must be cited or attributed if they constitute the original author’s unique wording, word choice, or phrasing. If the author uses such unique wording without attribution, then he or she has plagiarized.
3) It is DEFINITELY plagiarism to take large chunks of texts from another source, change a word or two, and then pass said work off as original. There is a difference between the words “paraphrase” and “plagiarize” – a distinction that CE has willfully and willingly ignored. And, really, even paraphrases require attribution.
In light of everything, I would say that her “research methods” are inexcusable. I would automatically fail a student for doing what she has done. It is only right and fair that she face public outrage and condemnation. I’m not saying she should be stoned, but this is far more serious than a mere slap on the wrist warrants.
To the other Joanna who posted above, you could drive a mack-truck through the teeth on the comb people are using on CE’s work! If you can find the copied passages in less than 10 minutes on Google, then there is no “fine tooth combing” involved. It’s as bad as my students who try to deny that they have plagiarized from an online source when they failed to change the color of the hyperlinks!
And, finally, for that letter—with its self-pitying drivel as well as its disgusting attempt to equate the same torment, degradation, and centuries of mistreatment that Native Peoples have suffered simply because they had the audacity to want to live on land someone else wanted to a situation she quite knowingly brought upon herself AND profited from—well, Ms. Edwards, if you actually did write that whiney tripe, then SHAME ON YOU!
Someone commented that the asked their 12 year old whether you could copy and paste something from the internet into a paper of your own. The 12 year old knew the answer was “no” and it was called plagiarism.
On the other end of the spectrum, earlier I asked my 73 year old mother the same question. (For the record, my mother did not graduate high school, she dropped out.) Even still, she knew it was wrong, telling me you would go to jail for doing something like that. I asked her what it was called, she answered “plagiarism”.
So see? Even a 73 year old high school dropout knows it is illegal.
Okay, I mean JESUS, now it’s Hiawatha?
SAVAGE OBSESSION
Page 284
The odors of the forest, the dew and damp meadow, and the curling smoke from the wigwams were left behind as Lorinda […]
HIAWATHA by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
Lines 3-5 of the Introduction
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams
Afraid so, Nora.
I’d found a couple of passages that, in my opinion, crossed the line. This was the third one I found—and most damning—and therefore informed the SBs and Jane.
There are a few oddly lyrical sections I still need to check so there may be more evidence to come.
I really didn’t think it would get any more bizarre. Obviously, I was wrong.
I found a shitload of stuff tonight (four hours in the library looking at the *actual* texts)—and all of it’s copyrighted.
She plagiarized from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, people. National Geographic!!
What was she ON?
Anyway, I am actually commenting to say that I e-mailed one of the publishers (U of Penn Press) of one of the most egregious examples, and I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything.
Also? I found the source of the raccoon penis bone toothpick. Go me!
Hiawatha? Hiawatha?!
Words fail me.
I know what some are saying. It’s a pile-on, a witch hunt.
If any who are saying that are writers, I ask you to think. Think about this, and carefully.
Have respect for the work. The work of others, and your own. It isn’t right, and it sure isn’t writing, to lift and lift and lift, book after book, year after year and pass off the words and the work of others as your own.
Forget the personalities, the messengers and think about the message. Can we ask for respect for our craft from the readers, from the media, from anyone if we don’t respect it ourselves?
Snarkhunter: what was the source of the “raccoon penic bone toothpick”? I tried to track that one and never found it.
Swift Horse (2005) has at least five pages in a row of material plagiarized from a book published in 1993, and I’m only up to page 70. Have emailed the original author and need to lie down for a while.
Okay, my first reaction to Hiawatha was similar to Nora’s.
My second reaction, after a few moments, was, well, if Hiawatha was drummed into American people’s upbringing like, say, Banjo Patterson’s The Man From Snowy River* was drummed into my Australian upbringing, then maybe, maybe, you could imagine that somebody might have unconsciously used similar phrasing…
My third reaction? Nope. Highly unlikely. Especially in the light of all the hundreds of other instances.
Like many of you, I’m shaking my head in sadness.
OMG! I was joking people!
The old bitch ripped off By the shores of Gitche Gumee…
Damn! Just DAMN!
Have you ever gotten the feeling something has gone beyond the capability to even snark anymore.
I think we just hit the Twilight Zone of idiocy beyond measure.
Oh, God. I thought I’d finally burned out on the plagiarism discussion. (And I’ve definitely burned out on the spelling discussion… part of my last post made no sense. Sorry.) But when I read that Hiawatha had been brought into it, I actually gasped. Loudly. I’m still able to be shocked, I guess.
This is gonna hit a front page NYT article in 5 4 3 2…
Kate, it’s from Penobscot Man, by Frank G. Speck. It’s the primary ethnographic study of the Penobscot, and the copyright is held by U Penn.
Tragically, that particular line wasn’t actually plagiarised…but I left it in the table anyway, b/c RACCOON PENIS BONE TOOTHPICK!
Even students in the 6th grade are taught how to cite works.
Her excuses are ridiculous and immature for someone who makes a living in the publishing world.
I’m not defending her, exactly, but I do think the Hiawatha thing *could* be accidental. Because a woman of her age would have had Longfellow drilled into her head in school, so it’s possible she internalized the quote, or even put the lines in there as a deliberate homage.
Doesn’t excuse any of the other examples, though.
OMG! She ripped off Hiawatha! Can this get anymore unbelievable? I’m with Victoria Dahl. I thought I was over being shocked by all this. I was wrong! Dear God! Has the woman no shame?
I think I already sent this to one of the TOPbitches, but evidently Cassie Edwards loves the Encylopaedia Britannica! I got these
examples easily, on line, by simply pulling up excerpts of one of her books
on Amazon, and then Googling it. Britannica tends to reprint the same
entries year after year unless there is new information to warrant an
update.
Encyclopedia Britannica: Wild dingoes, although bold and suspicious, can be
tamed, and those raised from puppies may become affectionate pets.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9030501
1991: Page 9, Touch the Wild Wind: Ashton had no trouble convincing Sasha
that wild dingoes, although bold and suspicious, could be tamed, and those
raised from puppies could become affectionate pets.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/050552211X/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-5461250-2806328#reader-link
Encylopedia Britannica Online: Its colour varies between yellowish and
reddish brown, often with white underparts, paws, and tail tip.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9030501/dingo
Page 9, Touch the Wild Wind: Its color varied between yellowish and reddish
brown, with white underparts, feet, and tail tip.
Not only did she start doing this over 20 years ago, as someone else pointed out, but she liked to do it early on in her story. I mean, Page 9?
~I’m not defending her, exactly, but I do think the Hiawatha thing *could* be accidental. Because a woman of her age would have had Longfellow drilled into her head in school, so it’s possible she internalized the quote, or even put the lines in there as a deliberate homage.~
I don’t buy it. I might, maybe, without all the rest. But I don’t buy it.
If it’s drilled into you in school, you know where it comes from. And you know it’s not yours. If it’s homage, it’s very poorly done.
And so easy to change. First, use active voice:
Lucinda left behind the scents of forest and meadow, and the haze of the smoke spiraling from the wigwams.
Still not really yours, but at least you worked at it a little.
I’m not defending her, exactly, but I do think the Hiawatha thing *could* be accidental. Because a woman of her age would have had Longfellow drilled into her head in school, so it’s possible she internalized the quote, or even put the lines in there as a deliberate homage.
Snarkhunter: While I might buy the “deliberate homage” claim if there hadn’t been so much prior evidence, this Slate article that someone upthread linked to kind of ruins the statistical argument. Also, a search for the terms [odors of forest dew damp meadow curling smoke wigwams] on Google Books gets only 6 results, 5 of which are from or referring to Longfellow. The last, of course, is Cassie Edwards.
Snarkhunter—
I get what you’re saying about the familiarity = accidental plagiarism thing and, at first, that was my reaction when I stumbled across the sections in question.
HOWEVER, this is not the only example of “borrowing” from HIAWATHA—it’s just the most damning. There are also phrases/wording lifted from Section XIII: Blessing the Cornfields.
Here’s a test—recite a section from Hiawatha about magic circles and the spirit of sleep. Can’t do it? Yeah, me either.
But Cassie Edwards sure can.
In my opinion, there is NO way this was an accident.
I could be wrong, though. Please, God, let me be wrong.
I swear, this is actually better than keeping up with Britney Spears on TMZ!
That was a joke and meant to be funny. Don’t want to offend anyone.
I know this is serious and I’m grateful that people have volunteered their time to research and find proof for these allegations against CE.
Okay, I don’t know if anyone posted on this, because it’s such a little quibble I didn’t read through all the posts, but here goes…
A lot of early posters commented on Edwards’s use of “alright.” Alright is a controversial spelling, but it is pretty widely accepted, especially in journalism and fiction.
Besides, there are about a million things to pick on in the letter other than a maybe questionable spelling variation.
For example, how she’s crazy. But that’s pretty much been said already (actually, the letter speaks for itself)
No, I’m sure you’re all right about “Hiawatha.” I periodically suffer from what I like to think of as Jane Bennet syndrome—I find it hard to believe the worst of anyone, even in situations like this, where the wrong is so blatant and so egregious. So I try to find some alleviating factor…even just one, tiny little nuance of hope that in one case she might not have been stealing…
::sigh:: Actually, this does feel very Britney-like—trainwrecky and just so very, very sad.
RE: Cassie Edwards loving the Encyclopedia Brittanica
I was just reading some of the reviews of CE’s books over at AR and came across this in the review (by Candy Tan!) for Desire’s Blossom:
“There are a couple of accurate facts in the book, such as the discovery and application of iodine, but then those passages sounded like they were lifted straight from the encyclopedia.”
Eight years and a massive Google database later, we’ll probably find out that they were.
HOWUWANNA by Pigfellow
By the scores of Catch-me Sue-you,
By the sinning Native-American-Writer,
Stood the excuse of NoComment,
In it for the money, NoComment.
Dark behind it rose the bitches,
Rose the black and gloomy evidence,
Rose the victims with copyrights upon them;
Right before they sue the writer,
Sue the stupid and plagiarist writer,
Sue the sinning Native-American-Writer.
Okay, I don’t know if anyone posted on this, because it’s such a little quibble I didn’t read through all the posts, but here goes… A lot of early posters commented on Edwards’s use of “alright.†Alright is a controversial spelling, but it is pretty widely accepted, especially in journalism and fiction.
Noooooo, Alice! Don’t go there! *g* (See previous posts.) Seriously, it was fun to touch on the subject.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I copied weak and weary
Prose from many a quaint and curious volume of (I hope) forgotten lore,
While I copied, neatly pasting, suddenly there came lambasting
As of someone Googling, Googling my stolen prose galore.
‘No comment,’ I muttered, ‘those Bitches are on Ignore –
Only this, and nothing more.’
Ah, distinctly I remember that it was post-December,
And each seperate dying Savage brought its own fresh war.
Eagerly I wished the morrow – vainly I had sought to borrow
Others books, for to my sorrow, my own prose I abhor –
For the rare and radiant wordage that angels would adore –
I have not; so I’ll take yours.
This is all my own work, I swear. If it sounds like
Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven
anyone else’s, they’re just jealous and demeaning to my Irish/Norwegian/mutt heritage.
As noted, would anyone of either Native American heritage OR someone who apparently studied their customs and history in such depth refer to them as Indians? (And I only accept ‘Native Americans’ because it’s not always easy to think of a widely recognised alternative for the collective.) And then the switching from one to the other … and not even naming her own claimed ancestors consistently from their own tribe … Interesting.