<p>Story on CNN.com about the school's paper suspending a couple of its journalists for alleged plagerism. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/31/harvard.paper.reut/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/31/harvard.paper.reut/index.html</a></p>
<p>Maybe the pressure to be so great makes students more likely to resort to this. But of course, there is no justification ....</p>
<p>It's good that the Crimson is going after plagiarism among its own writers--and astonishing that any Crimson writers would try plagiarizing after David Zhou's renowned stories about Kaavya Viswanathan. It's too bad that this story reaches our attention via CNN rather than via the Crimson itself.</p>
<p>Actually, the Crimson has reported on the story, printing the letter announcing why the student was being suspended (how do you think CNN knew about it?). It also printed an article yesterday in which the allegedly plagiarized cartoonist came to the defense of the allegedly plagiarizing student. You should go to the Crimson for more details.</p>
<p>Quote: "It's too bad that this story reaches our attention via CNN rather than via the Crimson itself."</p>
<p>I have to say that this type of response is so typical whenever the name Harvard comes up...there is an immediate tendency to make negative assumptions without even checking the facts.</p>
<p>
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It's too bad that this story reaches our attention via CNN rather than via the Crimson itself.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In addition to the information given (that the Crimson did indeed publish it) this concern surprises me on another level. CNN reaches many more Americans than does the Crimson, and there are countless examples where higher education news--both flattering and unflattering--reaches the public before (or instead of) campus-based news sources. Hearing such news from CNN does not strike me as unfortunate or unusual at all. Can you amplify what you meant? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding why you feel it is too bad.</p>
<p>I misunderstood what day the story broke on the Crimson. Before I posted my reply to Donemom, I browsed over to the home page of the Crimson (which sometimes includes links to previous days' news, as I recall), but I didn't see anything about it there. Does anyone have a link to the permanent posting of the relevant stories?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515368%5B/url%5D">http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515368</a> (10-30-2006)
<a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515394%5B/url%5D">http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515394</a> (10-31-2006)</p>
<p>Stories are usually posted some time around 3 AM. The Crimson maintains an archive that you can link to easily.</p>
<p>I have to say I am very impressed with the Crimson. Students working under deadline can easily fall prey to the temptation to copy (plagiarize) the work of others whether at Harvard or elsewhere. Newspapers work under tight deadlines and are not able to check on articles before publication, so they put their trust on their contributors. What impresses me about the Crimson is its willingness to check after the fact and to come clean with instances of plagiarism instead of ignoring them or sweeping them under the rug. Some national newspapers have proven far less diligent than the Crimson.</p>
<p>Yes, that is what I meant. Props to the Crimson for taking a hard line on such issues, and I meant to say that it was regrettable that I saw CNN's reporting of the issue before seeing the issue explored in the Crimson, which I surf over to from time to time, but happened to miss on the day these stories broke.</p>