A well-known historian was involved in a big plagiarism scandal. After receiving her PhD from Harvard University, she enjoyed a successful career teaching, publishing, making regular television appearances, and more. She even won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995. So what happened? It was discovered that large passages of her book were taken from an earlier work by someone else—with no attributions to the original source. Faced with accusations of plagiarism, the publisher settled with the author of the original work out of court.
Her excuse? Oops—she says she got her notes mixed up and confused direct quotes from outside sources for her own thoughts.
Her reputation as an historian and award-winning author was tarnished forever.
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("Plagiarism in the News")