Plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey said Vice President Harris' 2009 book showed signs of “sloppy writing habits” but said the Democratic nominee engaged in “massive fraud.” The claim was denied.
in Article published on Tuesday Bailey, in Plagiarism Today, accused Harris of plagiarizing conservative author Christopher Rufo's book, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Keep Us Safe.” expanded on his initial remarks to the New York Times in response to the article.
Mr. Rufo's article included five sections of the book, which Mr. Bailey said had “strong similarities to previous work.” Mr Bailey said he had the opportunity to examine a more complete document by Austrian plagiarism expert Stefan Weber.
“With this new information, I believe this case is more serious than my comments to the New York Times indicated, but the important point remains,” Bailey said in Tuesday's article. “While this work is problematic, this pattern indicates sloppy writing habits rather than malicious intent to deceive.”
“Does that matter? Yes. But this is not the massive fraud that many are claiming. It falls somewhere in the middle of what both sides want,” Bailey said. spoke.
Bailey's latest analysis comes as Rufo's plagiarism accusations against the Democratic presidential candidate are gaining attention online and in conservative media circles.
Mr. Rufo reported five of the approximately 18 plagiarism charges that Mr. Weber's dossier makes against Harris' 2009 book. Late last year, Rufo accused then-Harvard University President Claudine Gay, who was under intense scrutiny at the time for comments she made during a Congressional hearing on anti-Semitism, of plagiarism. She resigned from her position shortly thereafter.
The Harris campaign dismissed the accusations as a concerted effort by “right-wing operatives.” Statement reported by USA Today.
“Seeing the bipartisan coalition of support that Vice President Harris is building to win this election, right-wing operatives are It's getting hopeless.”
“This is a book published 15 years ago, and the Vice President clearly cited sources and statistics throughout in footnotes and endnotes,” he added in a statement.
The Hill has reached out to Harris' campaign for comment.
In an essay this week, Mr. Bailey said the most serious allegation was one example in which Harris's book “contains approximately two paragraphs that were copied without quoting from Wikipedia.”
“Let me be clear: it is plagiarism,” Bailey continued.
He said the remaining examples are instances where the book allegedly did not use quotation marks around words that were quoted verbatim. Mr. Bailey said that the sources were “largely cited, and in some cases quoted, although not all are included verbatim.”
He said suspicions of failing to cite sources from the time the book was written were relatively common, adding: “We've seen this problem repeatedly, especially in works from this period.”
“This was a common problem, especially before the 2010s, due to poor writing skills and no accessible plagiarism detection tools. Not that it's acceptable, but it's more a sign of sloppy writing than fraudulent intent. It comes down to your writing habits,” he wrote.
