Greg Armitage

"Plagiarism (from the Latin word for "kidnapper") is the presentation of someone else's ideas or words as your own. Whether deliberate or accidental, plagiarism is a serious offense. "-Deliberate plagiarism: Copying or downloading a phrase, a sentence, or a longer passage from a source and passing it off as your own by omitting quotation marks and a source citation. Summarizing or paraphrasing someone else's ideas without acknowledging your debt in a source citation" -Fowler, Ramsey, H. and Jane E. Aaron. The Little Brown Handbook. Ninth Edition. Pearson Longman. New York, San Francisco ET AL: Pearson Education. 2004 Perhaps you are correct. I happen to know Mr. Stonebraker and know without question that "Children: The Challenge" is a book that he has read and contains ideas that he has used for years in his endeavors. That would seem to me to be "[s]ummarizing or paraphrasing someone else's ideas without acknowledging your debt in a source citation". ...And you are correct. That "pandering about" line was indeed bad. LOL. None of us are perfect. Take it easy... -GA

Greg Armitage, why would you you waste SO MANY words on a book that is so beneath you? I haven't read the book and don't intend to because it sounds pretty lame, but you need to know that your examples of plagiarism are not plagiarism. Stolen concepts? Do you know how many ideas are truly original? People have been thinking thoughts, profound and trivial, and writing about them, for centuries. There's very little new under the sun, dude. And speaking of bad prose...Greg Armitage:"...Mr. Stonebraker panders around with his prose like a sick, wounded animal." That is not good writing, my friend.

reader

nice review i felt the same way. odd.

Greg Armitage

Relationships by Clint Stonebraker (2008 Meek Publishing) Anyone can take pen to paper. In order to write something relevant, even fiction, one is required to understand how to conduct the precise coordination of many different resources. One must have a solid foundation in constructing fine-tuned prose, grammar, have an understanding of common literary metaphor (thank you, Mr. Kesey), know how to avoid cliche, understand how to address and not alienate intended audiences, know how to utilize and cite outside resources and know how to conduct appropriate research, among many other things. Writing is my life's passion. I personally believe that there is no more powerful tool, no more deadly weapon, no more important expression offered by mankind than the Almighty Written Word. Good writers are like conductors, orchestrating and pacing the many tools necessary to produce a work of art...they pour over their many appendages, carefully inserting the right tone, the right theme, omit this...add that, etc. I cherish good writing. I am often reading several books at once, some of them for the third or fourth time around, and I read like I was trained, line by line. Most of my books have been thoroughly vandalized with highlighted passages and smudged, scrawling notes and various comments in the margins. And to the extent that I champion great works of literature, I equally detest bad works of literature. Relationships by Clint Stonebraker falls into neither category, in my opinion. You must first have your work qualify as literature before you can expect your work be considered bad literature. Mr. Stonebraker's "book" does not meet this standard. Relationships is an excruciating bland patchwork of convoluted, vague statements and phrases. Crossing the plate at a mere 154 pages, its only saving grace is that it does not take more than a few hours to read, sparing a tortured audience from having to endure a myriad of not-so-profound and decidedly annoying statements such as "[t]o change we must recognize the pattern and...change", and "[l]et go of your baggage, open your heart, and simply...love" for very long (11, 48). Mr. Stonebraker truly does not have the first clue on how to write. His narrow perspective, assumptions and generalizations in terms of human circumstances, and his astounding lack of willingness to explore his positions to effectively mean anything at all suggest that his intended audience is a very small group of isolated, captive readers that will praise the "book" no matter how grotesque it actually is. Which I am quite sure is the case. Through his colorless and skeletal writing, Mr. Stonebraker assumes that the factors and illustrations he uses to qualify his statements are universal and apply to everyone. His positions are completely black and white, and he seems to think that his life circumstances are uniformly true for every single person on the planet. In the depths of Mr. Stonebraker's evidently small mind everyone is white, male, semi-affluent, straight, from the USA and is painstakingly searching for their life to reflect the circumstances of his own life. The narcissism is jarring. The "book" has no thematic cohesion whatsoever. Mr. Stonebraker panders around with his prose like a sick, injured animal. A flotsam of unassociated ideas abrasively brush up against one another in a disjointed, nauseating fashion, while the reader consistently forgets what exactly the "book" is supposed to be about. Well, the title is Relationships. The studies of social interaction and interpersonal relationships are extensive and some of the oldest fields of study known in the realm of academia. There exist countless scholarly documents, papers and books having to do with the subject. Mr. Stonebraker did not find it necessary to consult a single one of them. He arrogantly pontificates on the subject (sometimes), and seems to have had no need to put an ounce of effort, research, work or responsible authorship into the product. There are no cited sources, no references to any work that actually has exacted the labor necessary to speak intelligently on the subject, and there is not one hint that he has at any point read anything substantial that would qualify his positions. Except for the concepts that he plagiarizes, which I will get to in a moment. While the "book" claims to have been edited by Ceara Stipe and Wendy Stonebraker, there exists no evidence that any editing was done at all. Memorable sentences such as "[a]s a result of this adaptation, he survives in this environment and any other situation is unfathomable and unrealistic" and "[t]here are plenty of poor reactions that I have had to fear and other powerful emotions that I have seen her directly emulate", and my favorite, "[l]ife teaches us many lessons that we need to learn all on its own" perfectly illuminate Ms. Stipe and Mrs. Stonebraker's deft "editing" skills (41, 44, 45). Every other plodding, unqualified sentence seems to be punctuated with the word "certainly" and the book is peppered with tired cliche's such as "waxes poetic" and "under the proverbial microscope" (11, 79). It is the editor's job to notice these things. Mr. Stonebraker was not served well by his "editing staff", to say the least. But without question, the most deplorable aspect of the "book" is its flagrant plagiarism. As I was reading, I began to notice that much of the dialog seemed to be material I had read somewhere else. I flipped open my copy of Children: The Challenge by Dr. Rudolph Dreikurs, and found some very interesting parallels. Dr. Dreikurs writes "[a]dults are usually deeply disturbed at the notion that children are their social equals...[e]quality means that people...have equal claims to dignity and respect" (8). Later on, he writes, "[f]irmness without domination requires...mutual respect. We must respect the child's right to decide", and again, "[w]e must be very sure that we show our respect for the child and his rights" (87, 91). Mr. Stonebraker writes "many people seem to believe that a child is born with the unquestioned responsibility to...respect...their parents...many people forget that these characteristics must first be given....[i]f you do believe that just because you are a parent that you can demand respect...my first suggestion is to not have children" (84). That's not all. Dr. Dreikurs writes "[i]t takes genuine understanding and acceptance of the child as he is" (63). Mr. Stonebraker writes, "[w]hen the focus in parenting is on the relationship, we allow ourselves to get to know our child as the person they are" (89). Here's some more... Dr. Dreikurs writes "we...can only try to stimulate our child toward change in behavior. We cannot always succeed...[the] child makes up his own mind about what he will do" (65). Mr. Stonebraker writes "[children] have their own...life experience...when we lose [this perspective], we start the process of owning the child's life. The tighter the grip becomes the more the child resists. When a parent is able to truly let go...the child responds much more positively" (90). These are just a few examples. I can site at least 19 other examples of stolen concepts that can be found in Mr. Stonebraker's "book". And that is just between his work and Children: The Challenge. There are more examples of his direct plagiarism from concepts found in Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (1st edition) by Bob Meehan. Relationships by Clint Stonebraker is by far the very worst "book" that I have ever had the displeasure to endure. It's technical aspects are abysmal, its substantive aspects are devoid or any value, and its conceptual aspects are largely stolen. The "book" would tarnish the reputation of the bottom of your trash can. Its more appropriate place is in a fire. I think I'll keep my copy, however. There is much more to write about this... Works Cited Dreikurs, Ruldolph MD and Vicki Stoltz. Children: The Challenge. New York: Hawthorne Books, 1964. Stonebraker, Clint. Relationships. Roswell, GA: Meek Publishing, 2008.