Did Melania Trump plagiarize at the 2016 Republican Convention?
Yes
Side Score: 10
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No
Side Score: 7
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I want to try to be fair about this so I'm going to start with reasons not and/or excuses: 1) It's not a large volume of identical text 2) The concepts in all uplifting speeches indeed have similarities and common buzz words and expressions and thus could have been arrived at independently 3) Considering it is from a political rival it clearly was not deliberate 4) She had speech writers, as well as lots of eyes reviewing it. Any blame should be shared. Now with all that said, I vote yes: 1) The similar statements appear in the same order as presented by Michelle Obama. Having similar ideas is one thing, saying them in the same sequence is beyond suspicious. 2) If it's a case of bad paraphrasing then they should admit that, and if indeed it were paraphrasing then the source still should have been attributed and it wasn't. 3) If this had been a Democrat plagiarizing a Republican there would be bloody hell uproar over it, a witch hunt, and talk of fines and imprisonment and disqualification from being a part of government. (And don't say that isn't true. It's profoundly true). 4) A keynote speaker at such a critical time in a political campaign is thoroughly vetted. How careless was she or her team to completely miss the chance of this being considered plagiarism? There are so many establishment experts on both sides playing this game it's unthinkable someone would have failed to recognize the risk of this being plagiarism. In fact, one could argue the few words which were indeed different amidst the plagiarism were an obvious attempt to change it just enough to escape a plagiarism rap. 5) Songs have been declared copyright violations for shorter passages of notes and words, as well as plagiarism in other speeches and academic papers. Far less than this has been determined to be plagiarism. 6) The carelessness in including it, the lack of attribution, and the hypocritical denial of reality when supposedly Trump is the guy keeping it real, are all proof of Trump's sloppiness, egomania, and placing himself and his side above anyone and everyone else and believing they should never have to answer for it. UPDATE: lol. Apparently it also contains a "Rickroll" too... http://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12221654/ How many people is she going to rip off? Could there be even more? Side: Yes
I believe strongly that Melania Trump plagiarized First Lady Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic convention. If you look at Michelle Obama's speech and compare it to Melania's you'll see that a vast majority of her speech was word-for-word what Michelle said at the Democratic convention back in 2008. While some may believe Trump's camp who claims that there was no plagiarism in the speech and that these are common phrases, I just don't see how we can trust that this is the truth when Melania Trump lied about her college degree. According to her professional biography, she obtained "a degree in design and architecture at University in Slovenia..." But that isn't true. She dropped out freshman year. When she can lie about something this simple and public I just don't think she's telling the truth about not plagiarizing Michelle Obama's speech. Side: Yes
I think she got a lot from Michelle Obama's speech, especially that segment of the speech. The order was too similar for it to not have been taken from Michelle, however, the rest of the speech was hers. Surprisingly, however, she isn't getting as much crap as a lot of other candidates would have. Regardless, the Trumps have an empire backing them, what they say means very little. People with power can do whatever they want, with very little repercussions, as long as other powerful people are backing them. History has shown us this. Look at what happened to the people in Wall street. Also, it wasn't Melania, it was probably her writers. Side: Yes
In academia it's plagiarism if it's 5 or more identical consecutive words. http://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/icb/ Melania has waaaaaaayyyyyy more than 5. Side: Yes
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Well it would be expected for her to have had some degree of assistance with her speech, even more so as someone who is hardly a seasoned public speaker. Her and Michelle evidently had the same person/people working with them so similar words were written but then it should have been reviewed more meticulously. I think it’s rather unfortunate how this may have damaged the impression she endeavoured to create but it is no reflection on her intelligence. Side: No
sure, sure it's no reflection on her and her husband that both of them agreed to a speech that anyone at their level should have recognised if they even paid any attention to the 2008 election speeches. It just goes to show what morons the both of them are, her I can forgive as I doubt she cares about politics and English is clearly a very non-native language to her so she couldn't have known. Her husband not noticing is just plain pathetic and the rest of their team not noticing makes me laugh with glee as I now know they deal with morons just as dumb as themselves. When I see Trump's face, I not longer feel sick inside I feel laughter. Side: No
My wife is a high school teacher and says even at the high school level they have access to a resource in which they can submit a paper and any parts taken word for word from published references will highlight to show all the plagiarism. It's hard for me to believe a high school English teacher knows and has access to this type of technology and professional speechwriters at the Washington level don't. Side: Yes
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