Why Don't Editors Always Catch Plagiarism?

Allegations of plagiarism leveled against romance novelist Cassie Edwards have been in the news lately, causing those unfamiliar with book publishing to wonder why editors don't catch plagiarism.

For one thing, there are different kinds of editors (including acquisition editors, managing editors, production editors, and freelance copyeditors [such as I am]), each with different job responsibilities. For another, even if every editor of every stripe read 24 hours a day, none of them would be able to read everything in print everywhere, much less remember it all, to be able to compare new manuscripts against it.

Columnist Anne Marble, moderator of All About Romance, explains why completely stopping plagiarism is an impossible task for editors, though technology is making it easier to find it sometimes.



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