Unit 2:Plagiarism

Safe Practices: An Exercise

Summary: There are few intellectual offenses more serious than plagiarism in academic and professional contexts. This resource offers advice on how to avoid plagiarism in your work.

Contributors:Karl Stolley, Allen Brizee, Joshua M. Paiz

Last Edited: 2010-04-21 07:50:43

Read over each of the following passages, and respond on your own or as a class as to whether or not it uses citations accurately. If it doesn't, what would you do to improve the passage so it's properly cited?

1.       Last summer, my family and I traveled to Chicago, which was quite different from the rural area I grew up in. We saw the dinosaur Sue at the Field Museum, and ate pizza at Gino's East.

This does not need a citation. In this instance people are just talking about where they had been in a city.

2.       Americans want to create a more perfect union; they also want to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for everybody.

This should be cited as it is part of a national document.

3. I find it ridiculous that 57% of high school students think their teachers assign too much homework.

Numbers 4, 5, and 6 all refer to the following passage from Martin Luther King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail":

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

  This should be cited due to the direct quoting involved.

3.       Martin Luther King was certain that nobody would want to be contented with a surfacy type of social analysis that concerns itself only with effects and doesn't deal with root causes.

  This should be cited even though it presents as an opinion in a paraphrased form taken from a work.

4.       Martin Luther King wrote that the city of Birmingham's "white power structure" left African-Americans there "no alternative" but to demonstrate ("Letter from the Birmingham Jail" para. 5).

This is cited using quotes for the direct words and location of the piece in paragraph 5.

5.       In "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," King writes to fellow clergy saying that although they "deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham, your statement fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations."

Definitely cite this is a direct quote listing the title and author.

6.       My friend Kara told me that she loves living so close to the ocean.

Do not quote this is casual conversation.

7.       Americans are guaranteed the right to freely gather for peaceful meetings.

This is a statement of common knowledge. No citation paraphrasing a national document.

This is a tricky assignment for me. With so many ways to cite works for different applications it does get a bit mixed up. I don’t think I ever get it right without looking in the Hacker to find the right way to write a paper. I count myself lucky I haven’t taken but one class that wasn't MLA in formatting the required paper. The best strategy for me would be to sit down in the end of a paper with someone else to review my citation and see if it is correct. I struggled with this in my English. There is no excuse and never have I tried to slide anything by any teacher, I just really have to take the time because I always felt like a puppy peeing in the house and never getting it right.

Using a citation engine or having a knowledgeable person review my citation is the only recourse for me.