Unit 2 Plagiarism

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 sentence looks pretty good as it is. The museum and the restaurant would be considered common knowledge as they are both public places. I might cite the museum for the intellectual property of the dinosaur name, but I think that it is a gray area as it could also be common knowledge.   

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 is a paraphrase of the Constitution of the United States. It definitely needs to be cited.

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

            Unless the author made up the statistic (which is another problem), it needs to have a citation.

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.

4. 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 is a paraphrase of the original statement; it needs to be cited. Since the original author was mentioned at the beginning of the statement, all that would be needed is (para.5) at the end.  I am using the paragraph citation from #6. I do not know if this is correct, but since the author included it, I am hoping that it is where this quote is located in the letter.

5. 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).

            At least this author cited the source, but the title of the source does not need to be cited in-text, it would go into the bibliography.  Since King is mentioned in the opening of the paragraph (para.5) at the end is all that is needed. If the year of the letter is known, it should be put right after King’s name, in parenthesis.

6. 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."

            The comma after the title of the letter should be outside the parenthesis. There should be ellipsis points after Birmingham, before deplore and your and after statement to show that the quote was not taken word for word and that there are missing words at these points. And the quote has a period after Birmingham. There needs to be an in text citation of (para.5) at the end of the sentence.

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

            This one is tricky, I think that if it was used in a paper for an argument or to make a claim, it would need to be cited and put in quotation marks ex: “…loves living so close to the ocean.” But if it is just a common knowledge statement that Kara tells everyone, it does not need to be cited.

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

            This is again a paraphrase, this time of the First Amendment to the Constitution. It needs to be cited.

Yahoo answers could benefit from a person who understands plagiarism. The respondent to these original questions is going to have some problems if they ever write a paper.

In summary, this exercise was a refresher for me as I have written several research papers and have many of the style guides in my personal library.  I personally like to use OWL as it is quick and easy while on the computer. I have found that writing the paper is the easy part; correctly giving credit is the part that can keep you up late at night.

I always keep track of the citing sources for all my research, even if I am not sure if I will end up using the information; it is much easier to do this than to try to find the sources later. (Which I learned the hard way. I spent more time tracking down sources the second time than I did when I first found them!) I usually just cut and paste the information directly from the source into a temporary bibliography. I have learned to be safe rather than sorry later. My sister attends University of Phoenix and they have a plagiarism checker. It seems to be very helpful as she can submit her papers for a quick check prior to submitting to the instructor.  It would be nice to have a feature like that on my home computer.

Some of the above examples caused me to question my own knowledge and I will welcome the input from the instructor as I am shaky on the personal and common knowledge aspects of citing sources. I have dealt with referring to quotes and I know that you have to be very careful about getting them 100% accurate or you are in trouble for changing the context and meaning (even if you cite it correctly). There are multiple rules for this, including how to add wording for clarification or emphasis.