Why do plagiarists do it?

Has any plagiarist ever owned up to stealing 8220;deliberately8221; another writer8217;s words? None that I can recall. Mostly they peddle apologies and excuses like the ones offered by Harvard student and novelist Kaavya Viswanathan, whom the Harvard Crimson busted this week for word thievery. Viswanathan tellsthe New York Times that the 29 cited instances in which she lifted from another novelist8217;s language for her novel were 8220;unintentional and unconscious.8221; Please! Pinching one or two phrases from another book in the course of writing a 320-page novel might be accidental. But by the time a novelist does it 29 times, the effort is transparently intentional and conscious8230;

Ambition Often Exceeds Talent: I know of very few examples in which an exceptional writer got caught plagiarizing. Sometimes writers accept jobs or assignments beyond their talents. When the deadline whistle blows, they find themselves facing this cost-benefit quandary: Shall I tell the truth and bail, damaging my career for sure, or shall I steal copy and only risk damaging my career? Writing Is Hard Work: A corollary to ambition exceeding talent. Even prolific writers, who can toss off a thousand words an hour, complain about the difficulty of writing. Writing well is a difficult enterprise. So is writing poorly. With so many examples of good writing out there to 8220;borrow,8221; why suffer only to write poorly? The Thrill Factor: As anybody who has ever shoplifted a pack of Bazooka bubble gum can tell you, people steal not only for material gain but for psychic gain. It8217;s a gas to pad the company expense account, leave a restaurant without paying, or rifle though a friend8217;s medicine cabinet to steal his most potent medications. Evening the Score: If you hate your boss at the car factory, you might express your fury by sabotaging every tenth car on the line. If you hate your editor or your publication, perhaps you stick it to him by plagiarizing. It doesn8217;t make sense, but neither does sabotaging every tenth car. Force of Habit: If nobody catches you running stop lights in college or tickets you for doing the same at your first newspaper job, you eventually stop paying attention. One day, red, yellow, and green all mean 8220;go.8221;8230; Even If You Get Caught, You8217;ll Probably Get Away With It: Trudy Lieberman reported in the July/August 1995 Columbia Journalism Review that many journalists caught plagiarizing paid little or no price for their transgressions8230;

How severely will the book industry punish Kaavya Viswanathan? I predict that she8217;ll weather the storm with all the grace and denial of Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Excerpted from a piece carried in the online magazine, Slate, April 26