After being accused of plagiarism, star historian Laurent Turcotte wants to “clean things up.”

Historian Laurent Turcotte, accused of plagiarism, apologized again on social networks for the “inadvertent errors” that crept into his book Sports and leisure: a history from its inception to the present day. Published by Gallimard in 2016.

Recall that Montreal Journal She revealed that in the fall of 2021, an investigation concluded that 13 paragraphs of the book had been plagiarized. Last December, we learned that a new investigation by the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières had been opened for nearly 120 other alleged cases.

“Now that the dust has settled, I’d like to clarify a few things about what has been said about me lately,” he initially said in a video posted to social media on Tuesday morning.

The star historian talks about “involuntary errors” that crept into his book, to which there are 569 references.

Mr. Turcotte said he has been working with his publisher to correct his mistakes for the reissue of his book.

The 610-page book contains 569 references. There were 1,427 at the beginning, and as is so often the case in the publishing world, the publisher asked me to reduce it considerably,” he explained, explaining that Gallimard made a choice of reference preference at the end of various paragraphs of the book.

Of the 123 quotes I was accused of, 10 are well referenced in the book. […]six duplicates put twice […]54 You have the exact reference before or after the sentence […]52 has the correct author reference, including three duplicates […]. For 49, references are placed later in the text, which will be corrected […], two of personal blogs which are sites without a reference, and one of which is a sports newspaper site. There are still a couple of errors, including the log, and I’m sorry about that,” he explained.

“At no time did I want to appropriate the work of others,” emphasized Mr. Turcotte.

According to him, anti-plagiarism software is made of artificial intelligence and “does not always take into account the necessary nuances” to understand the type of work being performed.

He also said he was “deeply wounded” by the accusations of plagiarism.