In copying a recipe from a cookbook word for word, Elizabeth Warren appears to have violated both Harvard College and Harvard Law School’s strict codes on plagiarism.

Harvard’s Guide to Using Sources’ manual, for example, advises Harvard students that “[w]hen you write papers in college, your work is held to the same standards of citation as the work of professors.” But that raises the question of what happens when faculty members don’t meet the standards that they vote in for students. 

Indeed, the manual defines plagiarism as “passing off a source’s information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to cite them.” It does not draw a distinction between work submitted academically or elsewhere.

 The policy for the Law School is stricter still. 

“The issue [of plagiarism] is essentially one of academic and intellectual honesty…All work submitted by a student for any academic or nonacademic exercise is expected to be the student’s own work.” [Emphasis mine]