Jun 10
23
Some folks have asked us for more details about Beyond the Third Eye, in particularly our plagiarism findings. So we decided to post some of our discoveries and let you decide for yourself.
Here is one passage from the submitted manuscript and as it appeared in the book on page 218.
…gruesome discovery of heaps of human bones on the floor of the wailed-up dungeon or oubliette, and of hooks (used for execution or hangings) in an adjacent field, known locally as “Hangman’s Acre”, have given added credence to the tales of these manifestations.
Compared to this we found in Ireland’s Most Haunted Castles by Gearóid Ó Bróin in Ireland’s Own Summer Annual 1988…that’s right 1988. Over ten years prior to the book. There is no atribution for this article in the book.
“The gruesome discovery of heaps of human bones on the floor of the wailed-up dungeon or oubliette, and of hooks (used for executions or hangings) in an adjacent field, known locally as “Hangman’s Acre”, have given added credence to the tales of these manifestations.”
Here is the link we where found Ó Bróin’s work. You can find it in paragraph seven:
So what do you think? Leave your comments below…be nice.
Unfortunately, it is. To use the exact same words an author must use quotes, cite the author and book or venue it was in, and put the info in the Bibliography. Under 40-50 words of an EXACT and DIRECT quote is part of the “fair use act” and can be used without permission from the author provided that those 40-50 words are NOT a majority or the whole of the piece being quoted (for example, using 40 words of a 50-word poem).
Unless the typo was created in this post…the fact that both books have “wailed-up” and not “walled-up” implies that the author cut-and-pasted from O’ Broin’s work on the internet or from a PDF file.
The correct way would be a passage like this:
O Broin describes it well in his ‘Ireland’s Most Haunted Castles’ when he says “The gruesome discovery of heaps of human bones on the floor of the wailed-up dungeon or oubliette, and of hooks (used for executions or hangings) in an adjacent field, known locally as “Hangman’s Acre”, have given added credence to the tales of these manifestations.”
Then in the Bibliography it needs to state the author, book, publisher, year published and city published.
Or…the entire passage could have been re-written/paraphrased in the author’s own words (but its still safe to give credit to the author) such as:
“The discovery of bones on the floor of the walled-up oubillette were made even more gruesome when it was determined they were human…” etc.
Or…they could have just used their own words to begin with.
FYI: As an author I have studied extensively into copyright information from writing sources and the copyright government website (www.copyright.gov) and from my correspondence studies with Penn Foster (in which I hold a degree in Freelance Writing).
In the 1st paragraph, let me clairfy…that the Fair Use Act can be used without permission from the author, but the first part of that paragraph still applies…an author must cite the person and venue being quoted and put the info in the Bibliography as well.