Fwd: Re: Weekly Standard on Laurence Tribe

[Volokh, Eugene]

    There are two questions here:  The verbatim copying of the 19 words,
and the apparent paraphrasing of other sentences.  The former is clearly
wrong, though a minor wrong, given its small magnitude; and I take it
this is part of what Tribe promptly and graciously apologized for (when
he spoke of the "failure to attribute some of the material The Weekly
Standard identified").  I'm not sure, though, that the paraphrasing
calls for an apology (or perhaps it depends on each particular
paraphrase); some or all of it might be legitimate use of pretty basic
facts that one learned from other works, but that aren't normally
individually attributed in a non-footnoted work aimed at the general
public.
 
    Eugene
 

-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Matthew J.
Franck
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 3:16 PM
To: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Weekly Standard on Laurence Tribe


My last word on the matter (unless sufficiently provoked!): Laurence
Tribe has apologized, and I applaud him for doing so.  He, like me, must
believe that he had something to apologize for.  I think we are both
right.  If Professor Cross or anyone else can find culpable verbatim or
near-verbatim liftings of others' work in my work, I will be happy to
follow Laurence Tribe's example.

Matt
***************************
Matthew J. Franck
Professor and Chairman
Department of Political Science
Radford University
P.O. Box 6945
Radford, VA 24142-6945
phone 540-831-5854
fax 540-831-6075
e-mail mfranck at radford.edu
www.radford.edu/~mfranck
*************************** 
At 05:52 PM 9/28/2004, Frank Cross wrote:



Professor Franck, could you explain which you find objectionable.  Is it
using the phrase "vagaries of the electoral college"; "Holmes mold";
"crony appointment"?

I don't dispute that there are a couple of examples of apparent lifting.
Though when the article refers to a single sentence that is "almost
verbatim", are you really certain that one couldn't scour your writings
and find a single sentence that is "almost verbatim" when compared to
something someone once wrote before?

My claim is not to exonerate Tribe, it is to suggest that the article
was unfair to the point of inaccuracy and to suggest that Tribe should
not be singled out as a transgressor, as I would wager that you could
find something similar in a huge number of books.

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