How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and ... Got Accused of Plagiarism??

<p>fame, notoriety, and its price...</p>

<p>"Probably because they calculated they'd make big money on the deal."</p>

<p>maybe, but couldn't they have secured her services with a substantially smaller advance, say $50,000? i just can't imagine there was a huge bidding war for her services, considering she was just an unpublished high schooler and her book still existed largely in outline form at the time of her "signing" by the publisher.</p>

<p>At worse her financial gains from the marketing and selling of this book should be seized because I just don't feel like a lawsuit should ruin the life of this Harvard sophmore who granted did act stupidly this time, but also has a bright future career that could be shattered because of this scandal.</p>

<p>sue her!!!!!!!</p>

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I also agree with Gracie that it is quite despicable behavior and I do hope that she does not benefit monetarily from her acts (although the cynical side of me thinks that this story will probably lead to more books being sold and that she'll make millions on the movie).

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<p>Unfortunately, this has already occured; her book went from #209 to #177 on Amazon in a mere two hour span. </p>

<p>Another aspect of this that's particularly galling is the stupidity involved. Did Viswanathan really think she could get away with copying a major magazine editor's works that came out a few years ago in the exact same genre and language?</p>

<p>Moreover, just so that everyone's clear on where her material came from, she went ahead and copied passages from those books verbatim. Brilliant. </p>

<p>Look, if you're going to plagirize, at least choose some obscure European work in a different language, and don't directly lift obscure numbers and descriptions. </p>

<p>You can add the adjectives "moron" and "idiot" to "despicable", "malicious", "greedy", and "cheater" in a description of this woman.</p>

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...couldn't they have secured her services with a substantially smaller advance, say $50,000? i just can't imagine there was a huge bidding war for her services, considering she was just an unpublished high schooler and her book still existed largely in outline form at the time of her "signing" by the publisher.

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I believe quite a few publishers were eager to sign her and the fact that she was so young (and a Harvard freshman to boot) was viewed as a tremendous publicity hook--which indeed it turned out to be. That's showbiz, folks.</p>

<p>Yes, her book's selling better than ever now--as are, more deservedly, Megan McCafferty's. (Showbiz again: All publicity is good publicity.) I wouldn't lose any sleep, however, for fear she won't get her comeuppance. I predict that the second book in her two-book contract will be canceled, she'll have legal nightmares for a long time to come, and no reputable publisher will ever go near her again. And I'd be very surprised if she stays at Harvard.</p>

<p>OR she could go on Oprah, either plead to be a hard working Harvard sophomore that made a little mistake OR to be under so much pressure that she did it on "purpose" because she was sick of people thinking that she was perfect, and write a best selling autobiography or an expose about why she did it, all while her book sells more than ever now because people are curious. I really hope that this doesn't happen, but I really don't think she's THAT stupid, and I feel like this is almost more of a brilliant PR scam. Someone please tell me I'm wrong....I hate it when people are rewarded for bad things.</p>

<p>Viswanathan was on the Today Show this morning, interviewed by Katie Couric. She apologized a lot and kept explaining how she had "internalized" McCaffrey's books so much that when she sat down to write her book she completely unconsciously and inadvertantly wrote down the same or similar language. I didn't buy it for a minute and I'm not sure that Couric did either--at the very end, Couric asked "Why did you want to come on this show" and Viswanathan said that she wanted to explain her actions and Couric said something like "I'm not sure that you gave much of an explanation".</p>

<p>Of course, given her appearance on tv, I'm sure that the book will leapfrog even higher on the best seller lists. I doubt that Harvard will do anything, but I really hope that the publishing company cancels the contract for the second book and that she has to give over much of her advance to McCaffrey.</p>

<p>I'd be interested to see how Harvard reacts to all this. Will it be a PROACTIVE approach, or a WAIT-n-SEE?</p>

<p>lastbastion:</p>

<p>Her book deal came before her application to Harvard. She was a high school junior when she secured the publishing contract, and it was the primary accomplishment that led to her acceptance. </p>

<p>She wouldn't be at the school if it weren't for her plagirism.</p>

<p>midatlmom: What hour slot was she on? I can't believe I missed it. This whole situation has gotten a lot of coverage online, but I haven't seen that much in the MSM.</p>

<p>EDIT: GracieLegend: I don't believe your statement is entirely accurate, although the book deal definately aided in her application, she was also editor the school paper, and she had some awards, in addition to apparently taking a great number APs. From the teachers that I have talked to, she was a very good student in spite of the book deal.</p>

<p>Boxesarefun--She was on Today at about 7:40 EST</p>

<p>Edited because I didn't know that the book deal happened while the author was still in high school.</p>

<p>FWIW, I didn't see the Today show, but from the little I know about cognitive psych, it's not impossible that someone could plagiarize by mistake. As a rule, people are much better at recalling information ("content memory") than they are at recalling how they learned that information ("source memory"). It happens all the time that we have a very clear memory of a fact or event (the North won the Battle of Gettysburg), but we have no idea where or how we encountered that fact for the first time (textbook? Ken Burns documentary? eighth grade history class?).</p>

<p>This page gives an explanation of source memory and how source memory errors can lead to big mistakes of memory -- like whether an event was real or imagined:</p>

<p><a href="http://skepdic.com/memory.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://skepdic.com/memory.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I'm not saying this is what happened with the Opal Mehta book -- just that it isn't as far-fetched as it may sound that someone could read a book, remember some phrases, and later forget the context where the phrases were learned.</p>

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EDIT: GracieLegend: I don't believe your statement is entirely accurate, although the book deal definately aided in her application, she was also editor the school paper, and she had some awards, in addition to apparently taking a great number APs. From the teachers that I have talked to, she was a very good student in spite of the book deal.

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<p>Yes, my statement is accurate, and your's is clueless. How many "very good students" or "high school paper editors" get into Harvard? About 10%? More, less? The book deal got her in. </p>

<p>Hanna-</p>

<p>Are you kidding me? Remembering 40 paragraph-long passages verbatim after reading these books two years ago? To the extent of copying the exact same number of stores ("170") and the exact same multiple-word obscure descriptions ("glittery Playboy Bunny shirt")? That's ludicrous. </p>

<p>Even someone with photographic memory wouldn't be able to subconciously do that. (And by sheer percentages, she probably doesn't have this type of memory anyways)</p>

<p>Did you read any of the links I posted on page 3?</p>

<p>How can you intelligently defend this student? </p>

<p>I love the disclaimer everyone uses;</p>

<p>"I'm not saying this is what happened with the Opal Mehta book..."</p>

<p>That's exactly what you're saying, and it is preposterous considering the author's repeated lies ("nothing influenced me") and the specific passages she copied word-by-word. </p>

<p>Some people will believe anything, no matter how unlikely or how much overwhelming evidence there is against it.</p>

<p>Gracie, you need to calm down a little bit, imho. You feel strongly about the subject - we get it.</p>

<p>Gracie, whoa, relax... i mean it is cool to voice your opinion and everything, but you are completely putting down everyone else's ideas in favor of your own...</p>

<p>people have the right to believe what they want to believe.</p>

<p>For goodness' sake, calm down.</p>

<p>You don't know for sure what got any individual student into Harvard, and neither do I. At best, we can make educated guesses.</p>

<p>Please don't presume to tell me what I'm saying. I'm quite capable of expressing myself in my own posts. There was obviously plagiarism here. But I repeat, it isn't as far-fetched as it may sound that plagiarism can result from negligence rather than intentional acts. Legally, that doesn't make any difference, but it does make a difference as far as understanding how these things happen. Did you read the link I posted? Wouldn't you have thought it was "preposterous" that a president would recall lines from a movie in the genuine belief that they were spoken by a real-life war hero? I DO NOT claim that that's what happened here; I'm merely saying that the theory doesn't sound so ridiculous if you've read some cognitive psychology research about the frailty of memory.</p>

<p>everyone seems to really be getting very attached to this issue! however the only thing any of us can do is speculate and i agree with hotpiece, everyone is entitled to their opinions, but i can also see how gracie can be upset over this. all in all, none of us knows what harvard was thinking when they accepted Viswanathan and what she herself Actually was thinking. although in my opinion it is also that she most likely did a little plagiarizing, it's also unlikely because you would think a harvard student would know the consequences and how easily her passages would have been detected. the arguments are both sides are strong; all any of us can do is wait and see how both harvard and the companies react (although the companies are going to be more predictable than harvard XD)!</p>

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<p>Again, DID YOU ACTUALLY TAKE THE TROUBLE OF READING ANY OF THE RELEVANT LINKS??</p>

<p>Last week, when asked whether anything inspired her novel, she responded, "no, nothing influenced me."</p>

<p>This week her story changed to "there were two books which I absolutely adored and worshipped two years ago and which I internalized to a great degree."</p>

<p>If that isn't an example of plain dishonesty, I don't know what is. </p>

<p>On the one hand, you want me to believe that her memory is so amazing that she remembers verbatim passages from two books read two years ago. </p>

<p>On the other hand, you want me to belive that her memory is so awful that she can't remember those two books. </p>

<p>DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE TO ANYONE??</p>

<p>Also, try this little experiment; read two books, and then, a week later (as opposed to two years later), see how many specific paragraphs you can cite perfectly.</p>

<p>Try it. </p>

<p>Tell us how you do.</p>

<p>Look people, here's the deal;</p>

<p>If something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, has duck feathers, and resembles a duck from every piece of evidence about it, then you know what?</p>

<p>It's probably not an eagle.</p>

<p>Edit:</p>

<p>yubi, are you one of those people that would like to "weigh all the evidence" when considering what two plus two equals in base 10?</p>

<p>Look people, sitting back and not making judgements is warranted when we're talking about something like the Duke Lacrosse Case, WHERE WE DON'T KNOW ALL THE EVIDENCE INVOLVED. </p>

<p>However, in this case, the evidence is right before us. There's nothing to investigate. </p>

<p>If you ignore it, you're simply blind.</p>

<p>"Yes, my statement is accurate, and your's is clueless. How many "very good students" or "high school paper editors" get into Harvard? About 10%? More, less? The book deal got her in. "</p>

<p>The book deal is NOT what got this girl into Harvard. As far as I'm aware of, the book deal did not even come until after she submitted her applications. Take it from someone who graduated from the same high school as Kaavya did- it is a very competetive magnet school that has, every year without fail, had numerous acceptances to Harvard. Kaavya was one of the top students in her class and she had a string of stellar extracurriculars. She didn't need a book deal to get accepted into Harvard.</p>

<p>While I certainly am not condoning her plaigarism (intentional or not), I don't think the validity of her Harvard acceptance should come into play.</p>

<p>And just as a side note, classmates I've spoken to that knew Kaavya all agree that she was an incredibly honest person. Whether that changed since she's graduated, I don't know.</p>