Tennis Writer Neil Harman Is Guilty Of Weapons-Grade Plagiarism

Earlier today, we told you about tennis writer Neil Harman admitting that at least some portion of the official Wimbledon yearbook he publishes every year was plagiarized. The full breadth of The Times of London's chief tennis correspondent's plagiarism is now beginning to come into focus, thanks to our friends over at Slate.

Ben Rothenberg got his hands on Harman's Wimbledon annuals from the last three years, and he found a shocking amount of plagiarism:

My personal review of the 2013 book found 14 large passages taken without attribution. Further, my examination of his writing for the previous two Wimbledon annuals revealed at least eight instances of obvious plagiarism in the 2012 book, and a staggering 30 in the 2011 edition, bringing the total to at least 52 in the last three books. I have yet to examine the 2004-through-2010 books.

Of these 52 examples, 28 of the passages were lifted from the Guardian. Six were from the New York Times, five from either the Times of London or the Sunday Times, four from Sports Illustrated, four from the Telegraph, four from the Independent, and one from the New York Daily News. In two additional cases, Harman borrowed from his own previously published work. I didn't count these among his 52 instances of plagiarism.

While some of the examples I found were as short as a single borrowed sentence, the majority spanned multiple paragraphs, usually with no attribution whatsoever.

This guy sucks! Read the rest of the gory details over at Slate, and see our original post on Harman below.