In March of 1980, an article by Richard L. Jensen and Gordon Irving, titled
“The Voyage of the Amazon: A Close View of One Immigrant Company,” was published in the lds magazine, Ensign.
Peterson has twice plagiarized this article, once as part of a blog entry dated September 16, 2017, titled
Charles Dickens on the Mormons, and then again on June 13, 2019, in a blog entry, titled
Charles Dickens, on “the pick and flower of England.”Neither time did he attribute any of the work to Jensen and Irving.
Jensen and Irving begin:
Jensen and Irving wrote:In June of 1863 the Amazon, a passenger ship with 891 Latter-day Saints aboard, set sail from London. Just before the voyage, many Londoners—government officials and clergymen included--came for a firsthand look at the Mormons and their traveling arrangements. Among the visitors was author Charles Dickens,
and Peterson:
In June 1863, the passenger ship Amazon set sail from London for America with nearly 900 Latter-day Saint emigrants aboard. However, just before she weighed anchor, many Londoners—including both government officials and clergymen—came to take a look at the Mormons, up close and at first hand, as well as at their traveling arrangements One of these visitors Charles Dickens,
Okay, so far pretty factual, but use and arrangement of the language is cutting it a little close.
To continue with Jensens' and Irving's sentence:
Among the visitors was author Charles Dickens, who spent several hours on board the ship questioning British Mission President George Q. Cannon and quietly observing the Saints.
Peterson breaks up his copying by listing, unnecessarily, FOURTEEN of Dicken's works, with dates, as well as noting he is regarded as a great novelist. It doesn't obviate the plagiarism, however, which continues by adding phrase rearrangements:
Dickens spent several hours on board the Amazon, quietly observing the Saints on the ship and interviewing George Q. Cannon, a member of the Twelve who was serving at the time as the president of the British Mission.
The original authors continue:
J & I wrote:A month later Dickens published an account of his visit to the Mormon emigrant ship. He pointed out that these were primarily working-class people, including craftsmen in many trades. Though he remained skeptical about what the Mormons would find when they reached Utah, Dickens was impressed by their thoroughgoing organization, their calmness, and their quiet self-respect:
And after several sentences on Cannon, from Peterson,
A month or so after his visit to the Amazon, Dickens published an account of it in an essay for the periodical All the Year Round (4 July 1863), titled “The Uncommercial Traveller.” In his essay, he remarked that virtually all of the emigrating Latter-day Saints were tradesmen and craftsmen and their families, people of the working class. He was worried about what these British converts to Mormonism might encounter when they actually arrived in Utah. (He was surely familiar with the horror stories going around England at the time – which would continue for the next several generations — about the theocratic “Mormon kingdom” in the remote North American west.) But he was deeply impressed by what he had actually seen. The emigration was thoroughly well-organized, calm, orderly.
The original authors quote Dickens, starting with:
J&I wrote:“I went on board their ship,” he said, “to bear testimony...
And Peterson follows suit, synonymously:
“I went on board their ship,” he wrote, “to bear testimony...
J & I finished up their quote of Dickens, and ended with this thought:
J & I wrote:...have often missed.” Of the people themselves Dickens wrote that had he not known they were Mormons, he would have described them as, “in their degree, the pick and flower of England.”1
Peterson also ended his quote of Dickens in the same place, and
also finished with Jensen's and Irving's thought:
Peterson wrote:have often missed.” Of the Saints themselves, Dickens confessed that, had he not known they were Mormons, he would have described them as, “in their degree, the pick and flower of England.”
Why not just give Jensen and Irving due credit for their intellectual ideas? A few synonyms, phrase rearrangements, and the insertion of some filler to spread out the plagiarism is STILL plagiarism.
Jensen and Irving's citation, missing from Peterson's use of their work:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... y?lang=engPeterson's plagiarisms:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... gland.htmlhttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... rmons.html