Evidence of Plagiarism found in Author Stephen Ambrose's books.

Now IM depressed. All I know is I aint spending any of my money on HIS trivial trash.

 

A tidbit that you all may know about. He evidently was interviewed recently on national news and he did shed light on his mistakes during his research for his Normandy books, and wants to correct the errors and apoligize for his boo-boo's......possibly a forgiving mental attitude due to his lethal cancer ?

E

 

I've just had a thought. You recall someone mention we have a get together. maybe a group of us should book ourselves onto one of his tours. Imagine the amount of grief we could give him

 

Stevin :

Welcome back sir ! Hope all is well with you and the Mrs ?

Looked through Ambrose's B-24 book again at Barnes and Noble......what trash !

E

 

I must say I didn't realise the guy had cancer -and felt quite guilty about poking fun at his books. But they do 'suck' and as for flag-waving battlefield tours...
No, I shall save up my pennies for the Sommecourt/WWII Forums Tour !

 

I would not wish cancer on my worst enemy but he has brought this upon himself. I put him in the same boat as those who impersonate true heroes by wearing medals they did not earn and then go out and beg for money at the street corners calling themselves vets. Both using other's hard work for their own selfish fullfillment.

 

I too feel sorry that he has cancer--nobody deserves this disease. I can never forgive him for the money he has made by others blood and sweat. If he were to come out in the open and admit everything--I would then have respect for him.

Going on one of his tours eh? not unless it was a free deal. Im sure his tours are as biased as his books are--NOT.

 

Gentleman: I find it hard to think that someone would think that he "brought this on himself", not likey. If you dont like his writings thats fine but leave cancer out of it. I for one have read most of his books and enjoy them for what they are. One thing that you should notice, Ambrose portrays himself as a storyteller not an historian. The accusations against him are for trivial mistakes that plague a good share of the books now on the market. Example, not giving redit to someone elses work on the page where it is quoted but giving credit in the reference section at the end of the book. Second, the quotation marks are missing from direct quotes (I find this unacceptable), however the publisher has taken responsibilty for some of these. As far as the claim that he doesnt research anything, I have yet to find any group of vets that will totally agree on the actual events even when they were all there. Now if you interview all of these vets and expect to have them all agree unanimously on the same order and view of events you are in for a rude awakening. Now take all of your interviews and make a book about it, you will end up using the events that the majority agrre with. You will never be able to interview all the remaining vets so you use what info is available to you. As to still having books on the top ten sellers list, that just goes to show that not everyone believes what has been written about him. The best thing about the plagerism issue is that the press blew it up. It originally came up when a gentleman whom Ambrose had quoted mentioned to a friend the his work was not credited on the actual page but in the back in the reference section. This gentleman has also stated that he has not complained about it to Ambrose, he has acknowledged that not all authors give credit on the actual page. his friend mentioned it to a friend in the press and the rest as we say is history. I would be willing to bet that alot of you liked his some books until you read what the press put out.

 

Well said Steve. No one is forced to read his books or take his tours. His products might be shoddy, and he might be guilty of all he is accused of, but if he really does have a deadly cancer, why not do the decent thing and leave him alone? Its like kicking a man when he is down...

 

Well said, both.
Let's do the decent thing, and leave it at that...

 

On a side note; what are the 'accepted' practices when it comes to using someone else's work in your own? I read about credits on the page where the quotes are printed, reference sections,etc. Are there 'groundrules' for these kind of things for authors??

 

I apologize if my comments were misleading. I would never say such a thing in the context Stevin has presented. I can see the miscommunication. What I meant was that Stephen Ambrose brought upon himself all of the criticism because of his behavior. As for me holding back my criticism for the sake that he is now sick, I cannot because of all the vets he 'victimized' with his plagiarism . As Carl has mentioned before, if he would just admit it and make restitution, then I would leave it. I have even sent him well written professional emails from his web site asking for an explanation. That email address is now invalid. So that only tells me one thing, he does not care. So therefore, I do not care either and will continue letting others know about the type of writings associated with him.

[ 25 July 2002, 09:29 AM: Message edited by: PzJgr ]

 

Hi Stevin: As otto mentioned there are strict guidelines for authors to follow. The "recommended" way that most authors try to follow is to give credit on the actual page where the quote is used as well as in the reference section at the end of the book. Unfortunately this practice varies from author to author and book to book, some authors use it all the time while others use it sometimes. The biggest error was the lack of quotation marks in the proper places. The fact that his email address is not working doesnt mean he doesnt care. I would imagine that he has had some not quite friendly emails and his cancer also prevents him from being more active. PzJgr: What vets were 'victimized' by his plagerism?

 

Well, to begin with, all of the German veterans. I can recall one episode in a History Channel documentary where Mr. Ambrose and his supposed expertise stated that the German soldier was not trained to respond to critical situations and just sat there waiting for commands from higher up. He was describing a centralized method of command which in fact we all know to be untrue. We discussed this in another topic.

Also, if he is using someone else's work, how does he know if that was fact? Would this not victimize the vets he is supposedly writing about.

And the ultimate victimization is that now a "well known" historian is guilty of plagerism. The hard work that all of the true historians have done in making the public aware of and remind them of the sacrifices made by the veterans of all countries may be at risk of being ridiculed. There are always victims and plagerism is not an innocent crime. My thoughts and I do not expect everybody to have the same.

 

Otto :

Can we delete this topic now ? I do believe we can agree and by consensus that enough has been already said.....

Danke

E

 

Well for the record there is no animosity viewed on my part. I was merely trying to answer Steve's question and of whose opinion I respect and I suspect he feels the same. Just wanted to make sure Erich and Otto are aware that this is not any kind of confrontation.

 

HI Guys: If Stephen Ambrose is guilty of plagerism than so be it. However has anyone here done any of their own research to prove this or are you following the press? I would not say that German vets have been victimized. If they have been portrayed in the wrong sense than that should be corrected. Unfortunately I do not know any WWII German vets so I cannot speak from first hand knowledge. HI PzJgr, I understand where you are coming from but I think Ambrose was trying to point out something different. The US Army on the combat lines was run from LT's on down, most US vets I have talked to said it was rare to find an officer higher than Capt at the front lines. I believe Ambrose was trying to point out that the US Army was almost designed to be run by LT's and Sgt's in combat whereas the Wermacht was designed with higher officers involved in combat, therefore there might be more hesitation on the part of a German Sgt than a US Sgt to give commands under fire and have to face the consequenses later weather right or wrong. I dont think he was saying the Wermacht couldnt be run by Sgt's just that it was less likely to happen on a regular basis.

 

On a lighter note given some of the above postings... name the day gentlemen!

See you on the beach...

[ 25 July 2002, 05:36 PM: Message edited by: sommecourt ]