Here is a scholarly book about "modern Black America" whose section on Malcolm X is drawn, with a few word changes and an inadequate citation or two, from the online encyclopedia blackpast.org. Jonathan Bailey, writing in PlagiarismToday.com, perfectly captures this kind of plagiarism. Alas, his assumption is that people committing it are students, rather than Foundation Professors. Here is Bailey's description of this kind of plagiarism -- which is both a crime and a blunder -- followed by some examples from Peace Be Still:
Jesse Jackson has been characterized as bold, defiant, and controversial by supporters and critics alike, and he has elicited praise for inspiring the black masses and the poor with acute rhetorical skills and addresses interspersed by slogans such as, ‘I am somebody’ and ‘Keep hope alive.’ Critics, however, denounced him as bullish, self-aggrandizing, hypocritical, and an instigator of racial conflict. Jackson’s reputation was sullied by a revelation in 2001 that, although he was married, he had fathered a child out of wedlock with Rainbow Coalition staffer Karin Stanford. His public image, as a moral leader, which still suffered form his infamous antisemitic comments in 1988, deteriorated. Jackson, however, remained a highly sought-after public figure and wielded a tremendous amount of power within and beyond African American communities. [footnote reads “Viscount, Jesse Jackson, unpaginated.”]
"Where some try to game the technology and tools that detect plagiarism, others try to game the very notion of plagiarism itself. The idea is very simple, many plagiarists feel that they can get away with plagiarism by not plagiarizing. However, rather than citing sources and using quotes correctly, it often means trying to find ways of providing grossly inadequate citation, such as ignoring quote marks and citing incorrect sources.Much of this stems from confusion about exactly what is and is not plagiarism. Many students, in particular, fall into this trap of doing something that they think is adequate to avoid a plagiarism allegation but, in reality, is an unethical shortcut. Often times though, it stems form a desire to gain all of the benefits of committing a plagiarism without risking the repercussions."
1.Here is the description of The Jeffersons from the Archive of American Television website:
The Jeffersons, which appeared on CBS television from 1975 to 1985, focused on the lives of a nouveau riche African-American couple, George and Louise Jefferson. George Jefferson was a successful businessman, millionaire and owner of seven dry cleaning stores. He lived with his wife in a ritzy penthouse apartment on Manhattan's fashionable and moneyed East Side. "We're movin' on up!" intoned the musical theme of the show opener that featured George, Louise and a moving van in front of "their de-luxe apartment in the sky."....The Jeffersons was the first television program to feature an interracial married couple, and it offered an uncommon, albeit comic, portrayal of a successful African American family. Lastly, The Jeffersons is one of several programs of the period to rely heavily on confrontational humor.
Here is Whitaker’s "scholarly" description of the Jeffersons:
The Jeffersons focused on the lives of a noveau-riche African American couple, George and Louise Jefferson (Isabel Sanford). George Jefferson was a successful businessman, millionare, and owner of seven dry-cleaning stores. He lived with his wife in a ritzy penthouse apartment on Manhattan's fashionable and moneyed East Side. "We're movin' on up!" intoned the musical theme of the show opener that featured George, Louise and a moving van in front of ‘their deluxe apartment in the sky. The Jeffersons was the first television program to feature an interracial married couple, the Jefferson’s upstairs neighbors in their tony apartment building, and it offered an uncommon, albeit comic, portrayal of a successful African American family. Lastly, The Jeffersons is one of several programs of the period to rely heavily on confrontational humor. 152
Whitaker cites to the “Archive of American Television, unpaginated,” no quotation marks to indicate the passage is lifted.
2.Here is Blackpast.org's analysis of Toni Morrison:
Born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio to parents George and Ella Ramah Wofford, novelist Toni Morrison grew up in a working class family. She received a B.A. degree from Howard University after majoring in English and minoring in the classics. Wofford earned an M.A. degree in English from Cornell University and then taught at Howard University and Texas Southern University, before entering the publishing world as an editor at Random House. She married (and later divorced) Harold Morrison and gave birth to sons Ford and Slade Kevin. Morrison taught at Yale, Bard College, Rutgers University and the State University of New York at Albany. She later held the Robert F. Goheen Professorship in the Humanities at Princeton University.
Recognized internationally as a major American writer, Morrison is the author of eight novels, including The Bluest Eye (1973)—the story of a little black girl’s quest for identity and acceptance in a world that privileged whiteness; Sula (1973), which celebrates friendship between women and the complexity of black womanhood; Song of Solomon (1977), which follows its male protagonist, Milkman Dead, on his quest for cultural heritage; and Tar Baby (1981), which explores a love affair between a couple from radically different socio-economic backgrounds. Morrison’s early works received critical acclaim, including National Book Awards nominations and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Song of Solomon.
Morrison’s fifth novel, Beloved (1987), a haunting story about the atrocities of slavery and a black slave mother’s effort to protect her children against its dehumanizing effect through infanticide, won the Pulitzer Prize, and was instrumental in her receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. In 2006, Beloved, made into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey, was named the greatest work of American fiction in the past twenty five years by The New York Times Book Review.
Recognized internationally as a major American writer, Morrison is the author of eight novels, including The Bluest Eye (1973)—the story of a little black girl’s quest for identity and acceptance in a world that privileged whiteness; Sula (1973), which celebrates friendship between women and the complexity of black womanhood; Song of Solomon (1977), which follows its male protagonist, Milkman Dead, on his quest for cultural heritage; and Tar Baby (1981), which explores a love affair between a couple from radically different socio-economic backgrounds. Morrison’s early works received critical acclaim, including National Book Awards nominations and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Song of Solomon.
Morrison’s fifth novel, Beloved (1987), a haunting story about the atrocities of slavery and a black slave mother’s effort to protect her children against its dehumanizing effect through infanticide, won the Pulitzer Prize, and was instrumental in her receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. In 2006, Beloved, made into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey, was named the greatest work of American fiction in the past twenty five years by The New York Times Book Review.
Here is Peace Be Still's scholarly analysis of Toni Morrison; there is no citation:
Toni Morrison (1931-fig. 31) was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in Lorain, Ohio and reared in a working-class family. She earned a BA degree in English from Howard University and an MA degree in English from Cornell University. She taught at Howard University, Texas Southern University, Yale University, Bard College, Rutgers University, The State University of New York at Albany, and Princeton University, where she continues to hold the Robert F. Goheen Professorship in the Humanities. Now an internationally known writer and the recipient of many awards, Morrison is the author of eight novels, including The Bluest Eye (1973), the story of a black girl's quest for identity and acceptance in a world of white privilege; Sula (1973), which explored the complexity of friendship and black womanhood; Song of Solomon (1977), which followed Milkman Dead, the narrative's male protagonist, on his search for heritage and identity; and Tar Baby (1981), which explored a love affair between a couple from distinct socioeconomic backgrounds. Morrison's fifth novel, entitled Beloved (1987), was a chilling story about the horrors of slavery and an enslaved mother's desperate effort to shield her children (through infanticide) from the dehumanizing effect of bondage. Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize and paved the way for Morrison to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. In 2006 Beloved, which was earlier made into a major motion picture starring Oprah Winfrey,w as identified as the greatest work of American fiction in the past twenty-five years by The New York Times Book Review.
3. Foundation Professor of History Whitaker's account of Jesse Jackson -- a figure in whom a scholar writing about "modern Black America" might be presumed to take some real interest -- is drawn almost entirely from Politico.com and blackpast.org. It is too tedious -- disheartening, really -- to reproduce all of the scavenging. But the paragraphs below, in which Professor Whitaker offers none of the original, deep scholarship a university press book might be expected to provide, while grossly underciting the semi-scholarly website whose free information he is repackaging and selling, gives a sense of his method:
Here is blackpast.org on Jackson:
…Jesse Jackson mounted the second major effort by an African American (after Shirley Chisholm in 1972) to seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. He and his followers adopted the term “Rainbow Coalition” to describe the broad coalition of groups of color, working poor, gays and lesbians, and white progressives that Jackson hoped would propel him to the nomination and eventually the White House. Despite controversial anti-Semitic remarks made during the campaign, Jackson ran a surprisingly strong race, winning primaries in five states including Michigan. Jackson garnered 21% of the primary vote but gained only 8% of the delegates and ultimately lost the nomination to former Vice President Walter Mondale.
Jackson mounted another effort in 1988, this time winning more than seven million primary votes across the nation in another failed attempt to win the nomination. After winning the South Carolina primary, finishing second in the Illinois primary and winning the Democratic caucus in Michigan, Jackson became the Democratic frontrunner. Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis recaptured the lead with wins in the Colorado and Wisconsin primaries forcing Jackson to drop out of the race.
Jesse Jackson did not make another bid for the presidential nomination and since 1992 has functioned as a power broker within the Democratic Party. In 1990 he won the largely ceremonial position of District of Columbia’s statehood senator, a platform from which he argued for statehood for the nation’s capital. In 1997 Jackson launched the Wall Street Project which encouraged African Americans to become stockholders to use their leverage to force changes in corporate culture and behavior. Two years later Jackson engaged in personal diplomacy once again when during the Kosovo War he traveled to Belgrade to meet with then Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic where he secured the release of three U.S. prisoners of war. In the same year, 1999, he brokered a cease-fire in war-ravaged Sierra Leone.
Jackson mounted another effort in 1988, this time winning more than seven million primary votes across the nation in another failed attempt to win the nomination. After winning the South Carolina primary, finishing second in the Illinois primary and winning the Democratic caucus in Michigan, Jackson became the Democratic frontrunner. Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis recaptured the lead with wins in the Colorado and Wisconsin primaries forcing Jackson to drop out of the race.
Jesse Jackson did not make another bid for the presidential nomination and since 1992 has functioned as a power broker within the Democratic Party. In 1990 he won the largely ceremonial position of District of Columbia’s statehood senator, a platform from which he argued for statehood for the nation’s capital. In 1997 Jackson launched the Wall Street Project which encouraged African Americans to become stockholders to use their leverage to force changes in corporate culture and behavior. Two years later Jackson engaged in personal diplomacy once again when during the Kosovo War he traveled to Belgrade to meet with then Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic where he secured the release of three U.S. prisoners of war. In the same year, 1999, he brokered a cease-fire in war-ravaged Sierra Leone.
Both his supporters and critics describe Jackson as bold, defiant, and controversial. He has elicited praise for inspiring the poor with speeches punctuated by catchword phrases such as “I am somebody” and “keep hope alive.” Critics, however, blamed Jackson for mounting blatantly self-promoting campaigns that exploited racial grievances and inflamed racial outrage. The revelation that Jackson, married since 1962, fathered a child in 2001 with Rainbow Coalition staffer Karin Stanford, sullied his well-crafted public image as a moral leader. Nevertheless, Jesse Jackson remains enormously popular both in the United States and abroad.
Here is Professor Whitaker's scholarly account of Jackson:
…Jackson launched the second major effort by an African American to gain the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. His supporters formed a board [sic] coalition of the working power, gays and lesbians, white progressives, and people of color, which Jackson described as his ‘rainbow’ coalition.’ He hoped that this widespread and diverse support would catapult him to the nomination and the White House. [footnote reads “Viscount, Jesse Jackson, unpaginated.” ]
Despite his antisemitic and highly controversial reference to New York as ‘Hymietown,’ Jackson ran an astonishingly competitive campaign, winning primaries in five states, including Michigan. Ultimately, Jackson garnered 21 percent of the primary vote but gained only 8 percent of the party’s delegates, and consequently lost the nomination to former Vice President Walter Mondale. Jackson mounted another presidential campaign in 1988. During this one he won more than 7 million primary votes. After winning the South Carolina primary, finishing second in the Illinois primary, and winning the Democratic caucus in Michigan, Jackson became the Democratic frontrunner. Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis recaptured the lead, however, with wins in the Colorado and Wisconsin primaries. Having lost his momentum and early lead, Jackson decided, for the sake of party unity, to drop out of the race. [footnote reads “Viscount, Jesse Jackson, unpaginated.”]
Jackson has not run for president again, but since 1992 he has functioned as a power broker within the Democratic Party. In 1990 he won the largely symbolic position of the District of Columbia’s senator, a platform from which he lobbied for statehood for the nation’s capital. In 1997 he founded the Wall Street Project, which has endeavored to increase African American influence on the behaviors and cultural competency of corporate America. Jackson returned to the international state in 1999, this time traveling to Belgrade during the war in Kosovo to meet with Slobodan Milosevic, who was the Yugoslav president at the time. Jackson skillfully obtained the release of three U.S. prisoners of war. Later that year he helped broker a cease-fire in war-ravaged Sierra Leone. [footnote reads “Viscount, Jesse Jackson, unpaginated.”]
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