Kaavya Viswanathan
Innocent or Guilty?
What Happened?
But...It Was An Accident
She Didn't Mean It
She is an "immature and misguided teenager who got swept up in a race she wasn't ready for" (Strauss). This is not her fault. After all, there is a lot of pressure at Harvard because everyone is so smart, so she only wanted to do well.
She's Innocent!
Although passages were admittedly similar between Viswanathan and McCafferty's books, the words were not copied verbatim. Yes, the general ideas were the same but Kaavya did not mean to copy it. Any copying was "unintentional and unconscious" (America, The Perils of Plagiarism).
Bibliography
Cohen, Paula Marantz. "Creative Plagiarism." The Chronicle of Higher Education 59.09 (2012). Biography in Context. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.
"Harvard Student Accused of Plagiarizing Novel." All Things Considered 25 Apr. 2006. Academic OneFile. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.
Strauss, Gary. "How 'Opal Mehta' got shelved." USA Today 8 May 2006: 01D. Biography in Context. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.
"The perils of plagiarism." America 22 May 2006: 4. Biography in Context. Web. 24 Dec. 2013.
"Opal Mehta." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 May 2009. Web. 24 Dec. 2013.
Plagiarism. By David Karp. YouTube. YouTube, 25 Mar. 2013. Web. 24 Dec. 2013.