Another Plagiarist in the News

In our recent post Plagiarism in the real world we listed a number of famous people who had been accused of plagiarism. Well, we can add Ann Coulter to the list.

The New York Post, in a Philip Recchia July 2nd article entitled "Copycatty Coulter Pilfers Prose: Pro" (one of the more alliterative titles we've run across of late), reports that "Conservative scribe Ann Coulter cribbed liberally in her latest book, 'Godless,' according to a plagiarism expert."

The article is based on the work of John Barrie, creator and CEO of the plagiarism recognition software company iThenticate. Barrie ran Coulter's recent work Godless through his software, as well as many of her weekly columns.

Barrie reports three instances of plagiarism in Godless. While brief--each instance ran between 20 and 30 words--they would have been enough to condemn a student who committed the same act. Barrie also notes that many of the hundreds of citations in Godless were "misleading" and designed to give the impression of a level of academic credibility which simply isn't there.

In addition to Godless, Barrie also ran many of Coulter's columns though iThenticate and found the same pattern: sentences lifted from other sources and inserted into her work.