| About
Plagiary's "Hall of Shame"
No
slight to Halls of Fame (Baseball, Rock-n-Roll
. . . ) intended! With apologies to Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron,
Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and so on, this "Hall of
Shame" space is reserved for the worst plagiarists, dedicated
to naming and profiling the
most egregious plagiaristic offenders.
Barring
some new revelation or evidence which reduces their culpability,
Inductees will be given a permanent spot in “Plagiary’s
Hall of Shame”. Their listing here is an interment of
sorts, for once a Plagiarist is discovered, his claims
to authorship have effectively expired. With each discovery
of plagiaristic misdeeds, the death of another plagiarist
has occurred. Discovery is really only a matter of time .
. . the clock is ticking . . . nearer and nearer to the moment
when another Author will resurrect and rightfully
claim the life and livelihood which a Plagiarist
has usurped.
Next
to their photos within the other main pages of this website,
these major-league plagiaristic offenders are designated by
the following “Hall of Shame Plagiarist” logo
which will appear with their photos:
Reserved for the most serious cases of plagiarism, this designation
will reflect the need for a “mark” to be applied
to plagiarists as called for by Thomas Mallon in his excellent
treatise on Stolen Words. These “Hall of Shame”
plagiarists are the worst of the worst. The
lowest form of plagiarists who have shamelessly benefited
from their selfish actions at the expense of others, they
have gotten ahead in life through the perpetration of their
plagiarisms and lies. Quite unfortunately, at the very least
these plagiaries overshadow--or even eclipse in some cases--any
other notable accomplishments which these famous plagiarists
may have made to society and the improving of conditions for
their fellow men and women. It's an uncomfortable feeling
being in the presence of plagiarists knowing that they've
lied, cheated, stolen, manipulated, threatened, and even murdered
the Authors of the texts which they stole . . .
Plagiarists Anonymous (don't
they wish their plagiary were still anonymous!)
I'm _____________, and I'm a Plagiarist.
Jayson Blair has gone through
rehab, so perhaps he's doing better these days:
"I'm Jayson, and I'm a, a, . . . a Plagiarist
."[head hung low--always hard the first few times].
Biden puts his arm around
the young, ex-New York Times reporter, "That's
OK, man. Easy does it. One day at a time, you'll get thru
this like I did." [He doesn't mention how many times
he's 'picked up' again].
Ward Churchill sits in
the corner, gloweringly, darting threatening glances at others
in the room. No one sits anywhere near this scary lookin'
dude. He's just outta detox.
Goodwin sobs out her story
once more as Plagiarists Anonymous special speaker
for the evening: "If only I hadn't criticized Joe
McGinniss, everyone wouldn't have been so hard on me.
I just get so jammed up about it all when I think of what
I said to Joe . . . sob . . . sob."
Tim
Barrus is still saying "Ya'at'eeh" to folks
at the meeting (Don't even introduce yourself as 'Nasdijj'!).
But strangely, he says it with a nasalized Michigan accent,
and the glottal stops aren't there, kind of like the movies
where it comes across as yatahay instead of an authentic
Navajo pronunciation.
Reiner Protsch von
Zieten doesn't even bother coming to these meetings .
. . he's off vacationing in Florida smokin' Cuban cigars and
racing his Porsche with all the money from selling those University
of Frankfurt ape skulls on the blackmarket. He's also '13th
stepping' a young hottie-chick he met in these "Halls",
so the rumour goes.
Jack Kelley recommends
to Goodwin and others the same sort of counselling which helped
him pull through the Russian translator hoax and plagiarism
affair at the USA Today. His "Higher Power"
isn't Al Neuharth anymore.
The late Johnny
Cash's advice to struggling addicts and plagiarists, after
a "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash!": :"You build on
failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on
the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't
dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or
any of your time, or any of your space."
Osama bin Laden
demonstrates to these rehabilitating plagiarists the worst
examples of what might become of them if they 'pick up' again--"There,
but for the grace of the Author, go I. Jails, institutions,
and death . . .easy does it. One day at a time . . . don't
pick up again, man. Don't pick up ! " [a pen, a
pencil, anything to write with--please, don't
pick up anything to write with whatever you do].
As folks leave the hall that night after the meeting, Jorge
Bucay sets up his book display--self help texts for the
weak and vulnerable, "More than one million copies sold
in Spain alone! Buy now--special discount for my new book,
Shimriti: De La
Ingnorancia a la Sabiduria".
Hall
of Shame
(pictures linked to profiles)
War
on Plagiarism Threat Level for all Plagiarazzi:
    
Red: Severe Risk
Timothy
Barrus, AKA Nasdijj
A
struggling white writer of gay pornography re-invents
himself as a Navajo without a clan, Nasdijj. Three fabricated
memoirs later, readers realize they've been duped by
this 'Navahoax' (Fleischer, M. LA Weekly).
Click picture for link to 'Nasdijj' profile.
...
...
Nada
Behziz
In
what regrettheerror.com
said just might be "the worst case of plagiarism
since Jayson Blair" ("California Paper Reports
Finding Mass Plagiarism"), a health writer with
The Bakersfield Californian was found to have
been "frequently" plagiarizing, fabricating,
and "presenting other reporters' work as her own"
(Wenner, G.). Click picture for more information on
Jayson Blair's Pacific Coast protégée.
...
...
Joe
Biden
A
repeat offender and the "Poster Boy" of
anti-plagiarism pedagogy, Joe Biden plagiarized in
his college days, continuing his derivative ways until
the presidential campaign of 1987 when the "Dukakis
Attack Video" torpedoed his presidential hopes.
(click picture to read more)
...
...
Jayson
Blair
The
plagiarist who turned the Times upside-down.
Blair's outrageous plagiaries graced the front pages
of The New York Times. (click picture for
further information)
...
...
Jorge
Bucay
Bestselling
Argentinan author and psychotherapist Jorge Bucay
was discovered to have "inadvertently" plagiarized
more than 60 pages verbatim from
Cavallé's Wisdom Recovered [La
Sabiduría Recobrada] thereby
causing quite the sensation in the Spanish media (click
picture for more details)
...
...
Ward
Churchhill
This
plagiarist allegedly called another professor in the
middle of the night to threaten, "I'll get you
for this!" This happened in 1997 when Dalhousie
University Professor Fay G. Cohen criticized Churchill
for plagiarizing her work. Cohen subsequently dropped
the issue for fear of compromising her personal safety.
(click picture to read more about the plagiarism allegations
in the Churchill case)
...
...
Bindu
Ganga
When
a student
at Argosy University-Chicago made allegations against
faculty/administrator Bindu Ganga, "confid[ing]
to a professor that she believed Ganga's thesis might
have been plagiarized", she was accused of ethics
violations herself! These allegations against the
student whistleblower supposedly involved "a
pattern of unprofessional comportment . . . including
disrespect toward those in authority" ! (click
picture to read more).
...
...
Doris
Kearns Goodwin
One
of a rash of plagiarism cases by historians--and Harvard
scholars--the Kearns Goodwin case is notable for an
undisclosed monetary settlement as well as a previous
charge of plagiarism which Kearns Goodwin leveled
against a fellow historian. (click picture to read
more)
...
...
Vishwa
Jit Gupta
Plagiarism
and fabrication(of the fossil images of other researchers)
spanning an entire career of geological research in
the Himalayas (Kasmir to Butan) marks this case in
paleaontology as one of the most serious hoaxes ever,
on a par with the Piltdown Hoax in the estimation
of many fossil experts (click image to read the Gupta
profile)
...
...
Andrzej
Jendryczko
Over
thirteen years, Andrzej Jendryczko published 125 papers
. . . over 50 of them were identified as having been
pasted together from other scientific articles with
data fabricated when necessary to suit the topics
of these faux research reports!
(click picture for further details)
...
...
Jack Kelley
Fabrications
and plagiarism spelled the end of this foreign correspondent's
career with USA Today. (click picture for
details on the Jack Kelley case)
...
...
"Dr."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
and
King's thesis advisor L.H.De Wolff--did he possibly
condone King's plagiarism? Possibly think that a "black
man destined to be a preacher . . . [shouldn't] be held to
a rigorous scholarly standard"? (B. Gross)
An
icon of the American Civil Rights Movement, Martin
Luther King was discovered by a team of scholars to
have plagiarized extensively in his doctoral dissertation,
speeches, and other texts. (click picture to read
profile)
...
...
Osama
bin Laden
After
the 9-11 attacks, Osama bin Laden eulogized himself
and his Al-Qaeda attackers in a poem which he had
evidently plagiarized from a Jordanian poet by the
name of Yusuf Abu Hilalah. (click picture for bin
Laden profile)
...
...
Joseph
Smith
Allegedly
plagiarized the King James Version of the Bible
and other texts while composing/translating the Book
of Mormon from golden tablets purportedly received
from the angel Moroni. (click picture for further
information on plagiarism in the Book of Mormon)
...
...
Vijay Soman
The
scientific fraudster who "shook the world of
science" (Morton Hunt, New York Times).
As peer reviewers for The New England Journal
of Medicine, Vijay Soman and his supervisor Philip
Felig rejected an article by Helena Wachslicht-Rodbard
for publication. Soman (with Felig as co-author) then
stole this paper and submitted it for publication
in The American Journal of Medicine ! Guess
who ended up being asked to review this lifted paper?
(click picture to find out)
...
...
H.G.
Wells
Wells
made his fortune by plagiarizing a lengthy manuscript
belonging to would-be-author Florence Deeks. He seems
to have engaged in numerous other instances of plagiarism
throughout his career as a prolific "writer"
(term used somewhat loosely--click picture for further
information).
...
...
Reiner
Protsch von Zieten
Skulduggerer
extraordinaire! Caught in the act of trying to sell
the University of Frankfurt's ape skull collection
to buyers in the US . . . involved
in other underhanded dealings as well, including plagiarism
and data falsification/fabrication. (click picture
for von Zieten profile details).
New
Journal Release--Plagiary--Call for Papers
(more
inductions coming soon!)
War on Plagiarism
Threat Level for all Plagiarazzi:
Red: Severe Risk
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Disclaimer:
All of the famous plagiarists featured in this webspace remain
“alleged plagiarists”, the documented allegations
having been made by others in the professional literature
and/or the popular media. Further details relating to these
allegations will be forthcoming in the book edition of Famous
Plagiarists. Although Dr. Lesko is a professor at Saginaw Valley State University, the Famous Plagiarists Research Project represents the individual research of John P. Lesko, plagiarologist, and SVSU accepts no responsibility for the content of these pages. Comments or questions should be directed to
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