In August of 2013, I was accused of plagiarism. I feel that I owe it to those who respect my work to speak up and share that these accusations are inaccurate and false.
Here are the specific accusations and my explanations and thoughts:
"Sexy Birth": Errors have been fixed and properly credited. When writing the book, I had intended to credit a small amount of specific material but never went back to do so. I wrote to the author(s) apologizing and took the steps necessary to quote them properly. The authors can back up my correspondence and correction. It wasn't intentional. Careless, yes, but not intentional. My book is still on the market, with the issues resolved and corrected. I appreciate those who brought it to my attention.
"Birth Art and Articles on birthing, babywearing": Thirteen years ago, when I had only one child, I created my first ever website to reflect my business, "Gentle Beginnings." I credited through including hyperlinks. Netiquette was a new concept and I was learning as I went. The images and the text were linked to the sources. This is not apparent on the copied and pasted material. The website was for my childbirth educator and Doula business and I took the site down over ten years ago. It hasn't been live since then.
"Fairy Godmother game": It is a game used at almost every Unschooling conference that I have attended! The rules are the rules and I saw nothing wrong with sharing the rules for the game that were already written. I altered them a bit to suit the unique spin that we were aiming for calling it, "The Love Fairy." I've seen the same rules for the game on numerous sites and wouldn't have any idea who to credit the actual writing of the gaming rules to.
"Dragontree Homelearners": Over ten years ago, when Devin was four and Tiff was only a year old, I emailed this group and asked if I could use their group description for our group here in New Hampshire. We corresponded a few times and it was a positive exchange. I had permission to use the same description for my NH group. I closed this website over ten years ago.
"Conference Art:" I hired someone to create a small ad for Life learning magazine's website for my conference in NH. It was brought to my attention that it was similar to another conferences ad.
Here are the specific accusations and my explanations and thoughts:
"Sexy Birth": Errors have been fixed and properly credited. When writing the book, I had intended to credit a small amount of specific material but never went back to do so. I wrote to the author(s) apologizing and took the steps necessary to quote them properly. The authors can back up my correspondence and correction. It wasn't intentional. Careless, yes, but not intentional. My book is still on the market, with the issues resolved and corrected. I appreciate those who brought it to my attention.
"Birth Art and Articles on birthing, babywearing": Thirteen years ago, when I had only one child, I created my first ever website to reflect my business, "Gentle Beginnings." I credited through including hyperlinks. Netiquette was a new concept and I was learning as I went. The images and the text were linked to the sources. This is not apparent on the copied and pasted material. The website was for my childbirth educator and Doula business and I took the site down over ten years ago. It hasn't been live since then.
"Fairy Godmother game": It is a game used at almost every Unschooling conference that I have attended! The rules are the rules and I saw nothing wrong with sharing the rules for the game that were already written. I altered them a bit to suit the unique spin that we were aiming for calling it, "The Love Fairy." I've seen the same rules for the game on numerous sites and wouldn't have any idea who to credit the actual writing of the gaming rules to.
"Dragontree Homelearners": Over ten years ago, when Devin was four and Tiff was only a year old, I emailed this group and asked if I could use their group description for our group here in New Hampshire. We corresponded a few times and it was a positive exchange. I had permission to use the same description for my NH group. I closed this website over ten years ago.
"Conference Art:" I hired someone to create a small ad for Life learning magazine's website for my conference in NH. It was brought to my attention that it was similar to another conferences ad.
The accusations of plagiarism are unfounded and equivocated. Over the last decade I have written dozens of articles, quotes, and answered thousands of questions publicly online. I have written two books and have been interviewed over a hundred times through radio and television. I have had John Taylor Gatto and Dr. Christaine Northrup endorse my work. I have been a voice for birth, and peaceful parenting for over twelve years. I have never had any books, articles, memes or words of mine removed from the internet or in print due to plagiarism.
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