LSM's Plagiarism - An Initial Inquiry

[aron]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

And Lee several times rebukes believers in Christianity for passing his ministry off as their own. I can't find the portion at the moment, but I clearly remember them.

I remember watching a video where Lee talked about giving a confernce in Latin America and a preacher from that region attended. Later he (Lee) heard that the man was passing Lee's content out as his own.

Lee had some cheek, to tell us stuff like that, while he was simultaneously cribbing from others.

[Nell]

I'm bringing this "oldie" to the top as a reference for the "putting to test" thread. The first test of any Christian publication should be to test the integrity of the author/s.

Nell

[aron]

The major difference between Nee and Lee is probably this: Nee was willing to learn from others. Lee was not. Nee would at least reference other teachers and other works. Lee, because of his inability and/or unwillingness to recognize their validity, would have to co-opt their output, unattributed, and incorporate it into his teachings.

The "recovery" narrative of Lee was to position Nee such that he lined up with all other previous Great Leaders (one only per age, of course) of the past. Obviously Luther and his break with the RCC is paradigmatic; the others before and after Luther were a more problematic to definitively place (Darby, Wesley...?) But nonetheless the narrative structure was defined.

In this role in the narrative, Nee incorporated and subsumed all other teachers and teachings. As for Lee, naturally since he learned from Nee he couldn't possibly learn from anyone else. So if Lee leaned too heavily on any source it would have to be unattributed.

Also he had an output to keep up - had to present materials for the masses, so some of it may have been sloppy scholarship. Was it deliberate or inadvertent? I know that's what Stephen Ambrose said, when they found that his best-selling books were cribbed. He replied that he didn't really write his books, but had a team of ghost-writers churning out popular-level history. So his "assistants" and "staffers" inadvertently included the source material as his own.

Originally Posted by USA Today January 2002

NEW YORK (AP) — Stephen Ambrose is facing still more allegations of lifting material from other sources.

Forbes.com reported Wednesday that two more books by the best-selling historian, Citizen Soldiers and part three of his Richard Nixon trilogy, contain passages similar to those in other texts.

Four works by Ambrose are now under question.

The author's son and agent, Hugh Ambrose, declined to comment. Victoria Meyer, a spokeswoman for his publisher, Simon & Schuster, said any errors would be fixed.

"If there are indeed additional passages or sentences that are footnoted, but not in quotations marks when they should have been, we will work with our author to make the necessary corrections," she said.

Last weekend, Ambrose acknowledged that his current best seller, The Wild Blue, included passages from Thomas Childers' Wings of Morning. Ambrose footnoted Childers in the sections in question but did not acknowledge quoting directly from the book. Both books are about World War II bomber pilots.

On Tuesday, Forbes.com reported Ambrose's Crazy Horse and Custer included passages close to Jay Monaghan's Custer. In Wednesday's editions of The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, Ambrose said: "There are places where I used some of his words, and I should have put quote marks around them."

Ambrose was unsure if his other books had similar problems.

"I don't know. It's a lot of books," said Ambrose, author of more than 20 historical works, including Undaunted Courage and Nothing Like It in the World.

In Citizen Soldiers, a World War II book published in 1997, Ambrose includes an author's note that says he "stole material profitably if shamelessly" from Joseph Balkoski's Beyond the Beachhead, which came out in 1989. (Ambrose even wrote the foreword to the paperback edition.)

The actual text includes material, without quotation marks, that closely resembles the Balkoski book.

When queried on the particulars, Ambrose effectively shrugged and said, "I don't know; it's a lot of books."

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by aron

When queried on the particulars, Ambrose effectively shrugged and said, "I don't know; it's a lot of books."

This is probably the same answer that WL would have given had he been forced to give an honest answer regarding what was his own work.

The LC is the type of place where can you have volumes upon volumes of books with not so much as a single page devoted to listing any references. I just have to consider how absurd that it must seem from a scholarly perspective.

I have a few study Bibles. They all cite numerous sources, and on a frequent basis. None of the editors purport to have come up with everything on their own. By contrast, I don't think the RcV cites a single source except by passing reference, as in the cases that Nigel pointed out. Same with the Life-Studies.

Like you said at the beginning of your post, I think that WL couldn't handle anyone else besides himself being credited for anything. He even went as far to say "Lee must have the credit!"

[aron]

Originally Posted by Freedom

The LC is the type of place where can you have volumes upon volumes of books with not so much as a single page devoted to listing any references. I just have to consider how absurd that it must seem from a scholarly perspective.

Ah, but it's living! It's vital!

Says who?

Well, the author, who's his own reviewer and publicist.

And it's proper! It's adequate!

Again, whose judgment?

Again, the author's judgment of his own work.

The parallels between Ambrose and Lee are kind of interesting. Both churned out tome after tome of popular-level work, with quality-control issues, but the publishers didn't care because they were selling copies (in Lee's case he was the publisher). Neither author cared for primary sources, but but realized there was a good living to be had, working from secondary sources, but with fresh titles and glossy book-jackets.

If sales are good it can become a cottage industry: Ambrose's agent was his son. But he paled beside the MOTA, who was author, publisher, reviewer, agent, and publicist. And Ambrose never presumed to write the definitive version of anything - he knew people aren't that gullible! Are they?