The Unforgivable
May. 14th, 2003 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserSo I've been reading a series of fics about Filch as time allows. Lots of reading on the weekend, much less on the weekdays. The stories aren't perfect (the writer is a tad grammatically challenged and in one of the stories the dialog sounds totally wrong), but I'm enjoying them anyway. I've been debating adding them to my recs page or not, and had pretty much settled on 'yes but with a grammar warning' until I reached the story I'm reading now.
She describes Moody:
"I looked up into a face that appeared to have been carved out of wood by a sculptor who had very little idea what human faces were supposed to look like."
Unless I miss my guess (I'm at work so can't check the book), that is lifted straight from his description in the book. If 'face ... appeared to have been carved out of wood by a sculptor who had very little idea what human faces were supposed to look like' is indeed from the book, even though it's just one sentence, I personally would call that plagiarism. I'm not sure if there's some minimum length rule to plagiarism, but to me a sentence is enough to make you in the wrong.
So sorry, Ozma, no rec for you. It's really too bad, as I am enjoying these stories.
Edit: I found the description online:
"(His face) looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel."
So... it's not exactly dead-on. I think it's probably perhaps the mark of a poor writer (couldn't come up with her own description) instead of intentional stealing...
She describes Moody:
"I looked up into a face that appeared to have been carved out of wood by a sculptor who had very little idea what human faces were supposed to look like."
Unless I miss my guess (I'm at work so can't check the book), that is lifted straight from his description in the book. If 'face ... appeared to have been carved out of wood by a sculptor who had very little idea what human faces were supposed to look like' is indeed from the book, even though it's just one sentence, I personally would call that plagiarism. I'm not sure if there's some minimum length rule to plagiarism, but to me a sentence is enough to make you in the wrong.
So sorry, Ozma, no rec for you. It's really too bad, as I am enjoying these stories.
Edit: I found the description online:
"(His face) looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel."
So... it's not exactly dead-on. I think it's probably perhaps the mark of a poor writer (couldn't come up with her own description) instead of intentional stealing...
