K. Shirts Caught Plagiarizing on Sciforums

[_antishock8]

He made the proper attribution. He just forgot to add quotes. If you are familiar with Kerry and his writing on message boards, that wouldn't be shocking. Scratch is grasping at straws here.

So he plagiarizes enough that it's not shocking to you? Mr. Shirts says the following:

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!

What does that mean? He's "learning to work this board"?? That doesn't make any sense. That cat has been on the Internet forever and a day, and he's "learning to work this board"??? Jesus, he plagiarized, someone called him on it, and he made up some ridiculous excuse like, "I am learning to work this board...".

Who learns how to hit the quote button? Who learns how to press " " "? Who learns how to properly attribute a specific piece of information, in a quote, with a specific reference?? This guy has been around long enough to know how to attribute someone's intellectual property so as to not make it look like his thoughts. He's full of crap.

[_EAllusion]

He made the proper attribution. He just forgot to add quotes. If you are familiar with Kerry and his writing on message boards, that wouldn't be shocking. Scratch is grasping at straws here.

So he plagiarizes enough that it's not shocking to you?

No, his posts have always had sketchy formating and style. He didn't plagiarize. The attribution is there. His style is just poor.

[_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.

As to the question of plagiarism, the venue is irrelevant. Does the fact that this act was performed by Mr. Kerry Shirts, a well-known loose cannon and all-around Mopologetic wonk, on a messageboard, apparently in haste, help to assuage the "seriousness" of the act? Yes, of course.

If you're insinuating that I'm giving him a break because he's an apologist and on "my side" or whatever, then that's hilarious. I regard Shirts' bizarre attempts at mopologetics as laughable, tedious, and absurd. I just don't see the value in piling on him because he only mentioned the name of the guy whose words he was pasting in, and didn't surround the entire quote with quotation marks. I don't mean to be obtuse about it, I just don't see much value in it.

[_Jersey Girl]

Scratch,

I just feel compelled to respond to your OP. You begin with this line:

The Mopologetic front continues to crumble. As much as you may like his goofy persona, Kerry Shirts is really showing himself to be a bumbling oaf this time around:

Then you link to a post that was made approx. 3 years ago. Later you link to something that was posted 2 years ago. How does that constitute "this time around"?

Anyway, you are off base regarding Kerry and plagiarism. While I do not agree with his apologetics, he would never intentionally plagiarize anything. If you were familiar with is essays, you would see pages upon pages of end notes and citations. Kerry takes pride in citing his sources. He respects the literary works of others, is an avid reader and maintains his own personal library of hundreds of books, if not thousands by now.

As others have pointed out, he made the appropriate attribution including page numbers.

This was a post on a message board, not an essay for publication. If you were familiar with his essays, you would see carefully cited end notes. If you view his DVD's/ You tubes, you will see him speaking with book in hand carefully naming title/author and typically page numbers as well.

Kerry has a love of books and reading. There is no way he would intentionally plagiarize another author's work.

You're wrong here, Scratch.

Jersey Girl

[_Bond...James Bond]

At least he didn't post some of crappola of his own creation.

[_antishock8]

Kerry Shirts may have attributed the work, but he started the piece in the first person voice, and never bothered to distinguish between himself and the author. He deliberately was posting this piece as his own thoughts. Only when he was called on it did he admit his "gaffe".

Whether you want to believe it was intentional or just a "gaffe" it was plagiarism. That's not in dispute. Just because you reference the work you're not absolved of clearly crediting the intellectual property to the original author with specific quotes or a specific page reference. Otherwise, people might be misled to believe everything you're writing is yours and the reference is just the topic you're covering.

[_guy sajer]

I had to copy/paste it, but I got it.

How do you paste pictures in?

Enquiring minds want to know.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I think a better title to this thread would have been "Mopologist fails to put a quote in a quote box, though he cited the actual reference."

Maybe all the academic types know about proper citations, but for us lay folk saying it is from so and so is adequate. Isn't Kerry actually a Mountain Man who is more at home doing crafts in his cabin and skinning bears, than someone who worries about such stuff?

Give us a hug.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

There are things genuinely deserving of critique in Shirts's apologetics, but not his citations on an internet message board, in my opinion.

KA

Especially given that he cited his source completely and merely failed to put in a quote block.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

There are things genuinely deserving of critique in Shirts's apologetics, but not his citations on an internet message board, in my opinion.

KA

And yet, oddly, the TBMs responding to the OP avoided the those "things" (I.e., the argument against his theories) as if they were the plague. Instead, they found it more interesting/provocative/productive to focus on the en passant mention of Shirts's minor "plagiarism."

On a sidenote, it seems there is a 2nd Sciforum thread in which KS embarrassed himself (special thanks to the "little birdy" who alerted me to these two links):

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=51144

I don't really care to get into the other aspects right now, but merely wanted to point out your dig at "plagiarism" was unwarranted and actually damages your credibility.