On Tue, 02 Nov 2010 01:54:14 -0700, Scott O Lilienfeld wrote: >A close friend of mine has been (and still is) a speechwriter for cabinet >members in both of the last two U.S. presidential administrations (I shall not >say more...), and he tells me that this kind of ghostwriting of books is par >for the course, at least in Washington politics. Politician/cabinet >member/etc., gets full credit for the authorship, when in fact the book or >essays have been written in large part or entirely by his/her aides. I too >find this practice - and the fact that it is deemed acceptable - to be >exceedingly odd.
A few points on this topic: (1) With Ted Sorensen's death, most media outlets rather blandly report that he assisted in the writing of "Profiles in Courage" which has John F. Kennedy as sole author. If there are presidential historians or Kennedy buffs on the list, they can tell you that this issue was not always treated so benignly, especially back when the book was released. To get a sense of this, consider the following quote from the Wikipedia entry on Sorensen (yadda-yadda): |Coauthorship of Profiles in Courage (1956) | |At the age of 27, Sorensen had an important role in researching and |drafting Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book Profiles in Courage, |prompting some controversy over the book's authorship. In December |1957, syndicated columnist Drew Pearson, interviewed on TV by Mike |Wallace, said, “Jack Kennedy is . . . the only man in history that I know |who won a Pulitzer prize on a book which was ghostwritten for him. |”[15] Kennedy demanded a retraction. After Kennedy provided handwritten |notes and Sorensen signed an affidavit attesting to Kennedy's authorship, |Pearson acceded.[16] Historian Herbert Parmet, in his book The Struggles |of John F. Kennedy (1980), concluded that although Kennedy did oversee |the production and provided for the direction and message of the book, |Sorensen clearly provided much of the work that went into the end product.[17] | |In May 2008, Sorensen clarified in his autobiography, Counselor how |he collaborated with Kennedy on the book: "While in Washington, I |received from Florida almost daily instructions and requests by letter |and telephone - books to send, memoranda to draft, sources to check, |materials to assemble, and Dictaphone drafts or revisions of early chapters." |(Sorensen, p. 146) Sorensen wrote that Kennedy "worked particularly |hard and long on the first and last chapters, setting the tone and philosophy |of the book" and that "I did a first draft of most chapters" and "helped |choose the words of many of its sentences". JFK "publicly acknowledged |in his introduction to the book my extensive role in its composition" (p.147) |Sorensen claimed that in May 1957, Kennedy "unexpectedly and generously |offered, and I happily accepted, a sum to be spread over several years, |that I regarded as more than fair" for his work on the book. Indeed, this |supported a long-standing recognition of the collaborative effort that Kennedy |and Sorensen had developed since 1953.[citation needed] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Sorensen?oldid=0#Coauthorship_of_Profiles_in_Courage_.281956.29 I suspect that people interested in the details of who did what and the "writing by committee" that produced "Profiles in Courage", that they look at Herbert Parmet's book "The Struggles of John F. Kennedy". For fans of the "Straight Dope", see the answer given by Cecil Adams back in 2003: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2478/did-john-f-kennedy-really-write-profiles-in-courage Of direct relevance to Tips, may be following quote from Adams: |The principal controversy, apparently, has been what to call the |curious process by which the book came to be. Even Garry Wills, |a Kennedy critic, writes that JFK was the author of the book in the |sense that he "authorized" it. Come now. Kennedy conceived the |book and supervised its production, but did little of the research |and writing. If you or I were discovered doing the same for a |sophomore term paper in sociology, we'd get an F. The problem seems to be that one person has the ideas and editorial control over what is presented but others provide the text/writing that forms the final product. I assume that most academics think of these two processes at co-occurring in a single individual especially if that individual is listed as sole author on a written work. Recognition of the contribution of others would be acknowledged by co-authorship and/or other compensations. Again, since we require students to be the sole authors of their written assignments, if students used a process like that used by Kennedy could result in an failing grade. (2) I have no idea of how pervasive this kind of thing is or was in psychology but I do know of one author of several textbooks in psychology who would pay graduates students to write a chapter for a textbook (this was way back when I was a graduate student and some students did this kind of thing for the extra money). The student's name would not be listed as an co-author of the textbook and I have no idea what was said in the acknowledgements section of the text. My understanding at the time was that this writing was "work for hire" which the textbook author would then modify as needed to fit into the overall scheme for the textbook. Since the writing was 'work for hire" and legally belonged to the person who paid for it, there did not seem to be an issue of "ownership". Issues of whether one was presenting all of the writing in a textbook as one's own were not raised. The author has since shuffled off this mortal coil but I wonder to what extent such practices still exist, especially in textbook that aim to be encyclopedic in its coverage. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=6188 or send a blank email to leave-6188-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
