K. Shirts Caught Plagiarizing on Sciforums

[_EAllusion]

Shirts was not presenting another's work as his own. He did not fail to give proper attribution. What he failed to do is give proper attribution in the customary fashion, leading to some confusion on the part of others. But if you go over his work, you can tell he was attempting to give credit to the originator of the material in question. It would be extremely uncharitable to call this plagarism.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Shirts was not presenting another's work as his own. He did not fail to give proper attribution. What he failed to do is give proper attribution in the customary fashion, leading to some confusion on the part of others. But if you go over his work, you can tell he was attempting to give credit to the originator of the material in question. It would be extremely uncharitable to call this plagarism.

Exactly. This is utterly ridiculous. I am completely dumbfounded.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Here is Kerry's original post in full:

[1]
Linguistic Puzzles Still Unresolved
Review of Mapping the Book of Mormon: A Comprehensive Geography of Nephite America by Robert A. Pate
Reviewed By: Allen J. Christenson
Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2004. Pp. 107–12

[2]
This from Allen J. Christensen, an expert in three of the Mayan languages in the New World. Notice the important view that we *still* have no idea what the actual name of the ancient city is, but the name we have right now stems from our own era, 1936. This is the nature of the names for the cities all over Mesoamerica. WIthout knowing what their names are, and since so much was destroyed, how are we to tell *when* we have found something significant for the Book of Mormon? This is just one of the serious differences with the Book of Mormon as opposed to the Biblical names. It is just the fundamental nature of the situation that is so vastly different. We have to take into account the differences like what we read below before we can pronounce much of anything concerning either the finding, or the lack of archaeology for or against the Book of Mormon.

[3]
My own limited field of work is in the area of highland Maya languages, of which there are at least thirty-two. Each of these is really a separate language within the larger family of Maya languages—something like Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian, which are somewhat related based on common roots but are certainly not mutually intelligible. I work with three highland Maya languages (K'iche', Kaqchikel, and Tz'utujil). This does not, however, qualify me to work seriously in any of the other twenty-nine Maya dialects.

The ruins of Kaminaljuyú are certainly of the proper date to qualify as a Book of Mormon community, its major occupation dating from approximately 400 BC–AD 400. But the identification based on the name itself is wholly improper. Kaminaljuyú is a straightforward K'iche'-Maya language name meaning "hill of the dead." However, we do not know what the city's name was anciently. The name Kaminaljuyú was coined by a Guatemalan archaeologist and scholar, J. Antonio Villacorta C., in 1936 when the first mounds were excavated and it became obvious that the remains of a major city lay beneath them. The major mound was previously known as Quita Sombrero (Spanish for "take off the hat"), or by one of the Spanish names of the farms on which the ruins stood—Finca La Majada, Las Charcas, or La Esperanza. Although one complex text inscribed on a stone altar from ancient Kaminaljuyú has been uncovered, it is impossible at this point to read it because of the paucity of related texts and the absence of a Rosetta Stone–like key to its structure and language. It is therefore impossible to know until further texts are uncovered what the ancient inhabitants of this site called themselves or their city.

Note that the thread begins by citing the source, (I labeled this [1]). This citation represents the reason behind the entire thread; namely: to call attention to the particular review.

In the second paragraph (which I marked with [2]) Kerry explains why he feels the review is relevant, and the points with which he agreed.

In the third part of the post (which I marked [3]) he quotes selections from the review. (Which is a very brief review, by the way.) The review can be read online here:
http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/display ... iew&id=549

It seems Kerry's fault is that he simply did not place the cited portions in a quote box. As he explained after being asked for clarification:

No, no, I'm sorry for the confusion. It is Allen Christensen who is familiar with three Mesaomaerican lnaguages, not myself. And yes I am Kerry Shirts, not Allen Christensen. Sorry to confuse you, that's my fault. I shall put quotes around stuff next time. I am learning how to work this board, so please forgive the gaffe!

If you want to call this "careless plagiarism," I still think that is stretching it. Kerry's original post was short enough (and online, not presented as some treatise or school assignment) to lead me to believe Kerry simply forgot to (or failed to, or whatever) place the quoted portions in a quote box. That's pretty much it. I'm glad there are several people (Guy, Scottie, EAllusion) who recognize this for what it is.

[_Trevor]

This was a message on a board. I don't see what the big deal is.

[_cksalmon]

I just can't see that Shirts here was intentionally taking credit for another's work. Given the informal nature of BB posts, I would completely overlook the lapse of formatting protocol (especially in light of Kerry's clarification).

Not so much in this case, but in other cases I have had problems with Kerry's use of sources. For example, he once used a quotation from Nibley that was worth following up on. The quotation was clearly attributed to Nibley, so no problem there. I emailed him about Nibley's primary source for that particular quotation. He kindly emailed me back.

In that case, it turned out that Nibley hadn't footnoted his source, and so Kerry had no idea from where Nibley had drawn his information.

Ultimately, that's Nibley's problem. But, I don't think it is at all beneficial to mutual discourse to cite a secondary source that fails to cite its primary source.

Whatever Kerry's point was with that citation, I took it with a grain of salt since it was ultimately unable to be checked--even by Kerry, who made use of it.

But that's a completely different matter than plagiarism, which, again, I don't see here.

Chris

[_LifeOnaPlate]

It's like Scratch started out really confident, and then...



Fail.

[_guy sajer]

I'm glad there are several people (Guy, Scottie, EAllusion) who recognize this for what it is.

You like me, you really, really like me.

Does that mean you'll take my word on everything from here on out?

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I'm glad there are several people (Guy, Scottie, EAllusion) who recognize this for what it is.

You like me, you really, really like me.

Does that mean you'll take my word on everything from here on out?

[_Sethbag]

Come on, this is a post on a message board, not a doctoral dissertation. To claim he plagiarized because he didn't rigidly hold to every requirement of some manual of style is kind of absurd.

[_guy sajer]

I'm glad there are several people (Guy, Scottie, EAllusion) who recognize this for what it is.

You like me, you really, really like me.

Does that mean you'll take my word on everything from here on out?

[img]http://www.examiner.com/images/newsroom/89D327BA-3048-2F0A-CA490A3A77D2E499.jpg[/quote]