Concerning the March 1 ABP story "Negrut, 'hero' to SBC conservatives, accused of plagiarism in Romania," the following information became available after publication of the story. Editors may want to insert the following addition after the 14th paragraph:

An American student who took Negrut's ethics course in 2004 used his blog to discount the plagiarism charge. "Those chapters from Moral Choices were translated in order that the Romanians would be able to have the material in their own language," wrote Trevin Wax, now a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

"It's true that the printed course did not have footnotes," Wax wrote. "Neither did it specify where the information came from. This should not have happened."

Wax said Negrut was guilty of "unintentional negligence" but not plagiarism.

"The ethics course was never a book, in the proper sense, and was never published. It was a collection of materials placed into a notebook without a spine. This is not unusual in Romania. Most courses were done this way, since few of the books needed were translated into Romanian."

Photocopies of the Romanian version of the book indicate the text was typeset, as if for printing, but it is unclear how the pages were bound. Negrut's name appears at the top of every page, and no mention of Rea's authorship appears on the pages. It is not known if copies of the Romanian book were ever sold.

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Also, in the 20th paragraph, there were errors in the name and title of Otniel Bunaciu, vice president of Bucharest Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition, the Bucharest seminary has objected to ABP's description of the school as "more moderate" than Emanuel Seminary. However, editors lack a more accurate description that would not have additional connotations.

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