IT'S A FINE LINE...

I've been following this plagiarism business a while now. Today it was announced that Cassie Edwards and her publisher have parted ways over the allegations. Obviously, they are of a different mind regarding fair use. It's brought up the question for us writers: What constitutes plagiarism? A court in England found Dan Brown not guilty in the case of The Davinci Code; and as far as I can tell, these two cases differ only in the fact that Cassie Edwards didn't include a bibliography giving credit for her nonfiction references.

I read everything written by the late Eugenia Price, and she went into exhausting detail in her afterwords about the sources of her material. Sometimes she included entire texts of actual letters in her novels. I certainly didn't think of Eugenia Price as a plagiarist, just a historical writer thorough in her research.

Cassie Edwards, whom I've never met and don't know, has written lots of books depicting the native American people in a sympathetic and realistic light. I suspect she sincerely thought she could use the research materials in her fiction. I hate that her writing is now tainted by this charge of plagiarism. I guess the lesson here is to cite all your sources. Then be sure your publisher includes your remarks in the finished product.

A sweet Valentine Day's post

I am irritated with the press right now. Don't they know the harm they do when they quote sensational headlines without giving us the whole story? This week's misleading news story is "Artificial sweeteners may make you gain weight."

I say they're confused. Fooling your body with a zero calorie sweetener is not the problem. I drank tons of diet sodas when I weighed 120, so don't tell me they made me eat more! The problem is artificial sweeteners that are not recognized by your body that do have calories, i.e. high fructose corn syrup, which is an engineered sweetener that has tons of calories. It's in everything because it's cheaper than granulated sugar.

Here's the problem the media have now created: Woman stops drinking diet sodas because she hears on the news they will lead to weight gain. Woman loves sodas, so she drinks regular Pepsi, Coke, Dr. Pepper, whatever--all of which are loaded with high fructose corn syrup. Woman has same problem as before except now she gains weight from the added calories. Plus, her dentist notices she has developed dental decay.

I caution you to avoid HFCS. It's artificial, it's sweet, and it's high calorie--not to be confused with calorie-free artificial sweeteners (i.e. Splenda®).

Have a sweet day!

Cheryl

Happy New Year!

I wish everyone many blessings in the new year. I'm thankful to be published with a terrific company, Medallion Press, who has amazing cover artists. Here is the new cover for my next book:


Cheryl