Winning Guyana Annual entries not plagiarised, management committee says

Following reports of plagiarism being discovered in entries for The Guyana Annual, management of the magazine is assuring the public of the integrity of the winners.

In a statement released yesterday, the magazine’s management committee stated that it wished to “clarify some misconceptions” that may have been created by an article published on Tuesday by The Guyana Times, which reported that the magazine’s launch would be postponed because of certain findings during the judging process.

“Although instances of plagiarism and lack of proper citation of sources were discovered in a few entries submitted to the Guyana Annual Magazine 2018, NONE of these entries was awarded any prizes. [Therefore], all the winning entries that were announced on the Guyana Annual’s Official Facebook Page on April 16th, 2018 were verified as being original pieces with proper citations and references,” the committee assured, reminding that the competition rules explicitly stated that all entries must be “original work, unpublished and unproduced” and “verifiable if necessary.”

“…We, the 2018 committee are extremely excited about this edition of the magazine and the quality of the entries. We hope that many of the young writers, budding journalists, poets and artists will be encouraged to pursue future literary, art and editorial careers, contributing to the strong cultural and social legacy of Guyana,” the release further stated.

It was explained that the magazine’s launch was postponed due to two factors—the need for extensive verification of the entries received, and the fact that the deadline for entries had been extended from November, 2017 to January, 2018.

The release related that there was a need for the extension of the initial deadline not only to allow more entries, especially from outlying regions, but also because of a lack of sponsorship of the publication, which the statement pointed out is almost entirely supported by benefactor Dr Tulsi Dyal Singh.

The magazine is scheduled to be launched on May 24th, 2018 to coincide with Guyana’s Independence celebration.

The Guyana Annual last year relaunched the