The Hindu Business Line : For fewer sloppy Opals

"One has to go back to the traditional method of meticulously reviewing a manuscript for originality and that requires reviewers to be well read and aware of what they are looking for besides the marketability of a book."

The now-running soap is Opal, which has been on a slippery slope. "Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan `got in, got $500,000, and got a film deal," announced The Harvard Crimson on February 17, about Kaavya's debut novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.

She was "the youngest client that Little, Brown has ever contracted in their 110-year-history," informed the report, citing the Sun. "As the press keeps telling us - just like not everyone can publish a novel before the age of 20, not everyone can get into Harvard," wrote Elizabeth W. Green on April 19, appraising the book.

Four days later, however, things fell apart; David Zhou wrote, `Sophomore's New Book Contains Passages Strikingly Similar to 2001 Novel.' He found in Opal many traces of Megan F. McCafferty's novels, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings ...

Even as the issue refuses to die down, BrandLine contacted some of the major publishers in India to elicit their views about l'affaire Opal.

Wiley India

"I feel most of the time authors are honest," says Vikas Gupta, Managing Director of Wiley India. "However, publishers should make the contracts tighter so that author could be penalised heavily for such an offence," he adds.

Gupta believes publishers should ensure editors are extra careful. "If the flow of language in certain passages is not the same they should check it thoroughly." How has Wiley India responded to the situation? "We are now in a process of tightening our author contracts and are making sure that our editorial should become extra careful," says Gupta.

Pearson Education

"In my view, this problem will recur whenever shortcuts are used, such as hiring an agency to prepare a manuscript on a set formula," says Subroto Mozumdar, President & CEO, Pearson Education. "One has to go back to the traditional method of meticulously reviewing a manuscript for originality and that requires reviewers to be well read and aware of what they are looking for besides the marketability of a book. This applies to any genre of work - fiction, reference, academic, children's, and so on."

Mozumdar explains that Pearson Education operates in a vastly different space which lends itself to be quite process-driven. He concedes that despite the thoroughness of processes, there could be human oversight. "We too have faced problems of authors indulging in plagiarism," says Mozumdar.

"In one case the book had already been published by us. On receipt of the first whiff of information in this regard (from readers), we had the entire book reviewed and compared with the other books and had the offending portions marked out by legal experts. The book was withdrawn from the market pending investigation," he narrates.

"The author (a fairly senior academician) was informed and he agreed to make the necessary revisions. We could not be too strict with him due to his seniority and position of influence. Despite his seniority, he was repentant and contrite, which made it easier for us to swallow our pride and continue working with him, though the first reaction from within the company was to be as stringent as possible."

Mozumdar notes that there were rumours about a couple of other texts as well from Pearson Education. What was the company's reaction in such cases? "The books were withheld from the market and a thorough legal review for plagiarism was done by our IP (intellectual property) consultants. In both cases, a clean chit was given and it turned out that one of our competitors was behind the rumours."

The review process

What are the processes that Pearson adopts to control quality? "Our textbooks go through several rounds of reviews. The number and depth of reviewing depends on the level and size of the work," explains Mozumdar. "The review process starts with the initial table of contents, chapter organisation and sample chapters and subsequently extends to the entire copy-edited manuscript."

Who does the review? "Selection of the review panel is also a painstaking job and is generally a mix of the author's peers (two or three names supplied by the author) and a larger panel selected by our field sales force and commissioning editors." In the case of undergraduate textbooks, which are heavy in pedagogy and instruction design, 5-6 of the most thorough reviewers are invited to remain associated with the project till the finish - every chapter is reviewed by them and changes recommended are worked on by the author right through, informs Mozumdar.

"Such reviewers are paid a higher fee and have a very important contribution to what the end product turns out to be. Their contribution is second only to that of the author/s." At times, the number of reviewers for a particular textbook can be as high as 50, he says. "I know for a fact that one of Pearson Ed's US publications had 150 reviewers and they spent as much as $2,000-$5,000 per reviewer!"

Once a book has gone through such a thorough review by such a large number of experts, one may be reasonably certain that all similarities with other works and errors of commission or omission have been worked out of the final text, concludes Mozumdar, on a reassuring note.

Vision Books

"Opal Mehta is a very vexing issue, both topical and, actually, timeless," frets publisher Kapil Malhotra of Vision Books. "For plagiarism must, surely, be as old as mankind. On the other hand, the universally-pervasive and astonishing World Wide Web gives plagiarists a facility unmatched in history. Not the fabled Library at Alexandria, nor the cavernous US Library of Congress come anywhere remotely close to the vast, rich pickings that WWW offer provide a plagiarist."

But technology works both ways. For, the same WWW itself provides the greatest weapon to deter, if not prevent, plagiarism, says Malhotra.

"The powerful search facility that WWW offers a plagiarist can equally be harnessed to spotlight plagiarism. With increasingly sophisticated text matching software - and an endless army of bloggers, hobbyists, and Net-crawlers of all hues, it should be possible to unearth most plagiarists, at least post-facto," he says. "The resulting infamy, and in some cases, criminal liability, would probably be the best deterrents."

Malhotra's checklist for publishers: Put the manuscripts they receive - particularly from new, integrity-unproven authors - through text-matching services as soon as these become available; once plagiarism is evident, the publisher concerned should fully cooperate in the task of appropriately punishing the plagiarist; publishers could also adopt as a code of conduct a policy of not publishing a known or proven plagiarist; financially safeguard themselves through rigorous penal provisions of financial recovery of any loss arising to them from plagiarising authors.

Penguin Books India

"The whole episode is unfortunate and distressing. We have no further comment on this issue outside the statement issued by Little, Brown," says Thomas Abraham, CEO & President of Penguin Books India.

"We've received notification from the publishers Little, Brown Book Group UK that all copies are being withdrawn. We've sent out the notification to the trade and over the next week copies will be taken back for full credit," he informs.

How does he think publishers can guard themselves against such problems?

"There are no absolute safeguards though a system of readers and referees does exist and helps a bit," says Abraham. "Finally it is a matter of trust and every publisher's contract has a clause that enjoins authors to deliver original material. But plagiarism in trade publishing is rare; the bigger problem lies in the educational sector."

In the aftermath of Opal, new and young authors may have to be prepared for a higher level of scrutiny by publishers, who may take long to recover from the violent kiss dealt out to them by Kaavya.