The University of Northern Colorado Writing Center: Practice Exercise for Recognizing Plagiarism

1. The University of Northern Colorado Writing Center:Practice Exercise for Recognizing Plagiarism This presentation presents information about recognizing and avoiding plagiarism

2. Types of Plagiarism The following slides give examples of the types of plagiarism that can occur when incorporating material from outside sources into the writer’s text.

3. Recognizing Plagiarism: Word for Word Original Source Meyer, Michael. “The Changing Literary Canon” Literature to Go. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 6. Print. No semester’s reading list—or anthology—can adequately or accurately echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt to sensitize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers from all over the world. This development has not occurred without its urgent advocates or passionate dissenters. It’s no surprise that issues about race, gender, and class often get people off the fence and on their feet. Word-for-word plagiarism(1): Michael Meyer notes that no semester’s reading list or anthology can adequately or accurately echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt to sensitize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers from all over the world (6). The writer has framed the source’s words with an appropriate lead-in that identifies the author and a parenthetical citation at the end of the material. However, the original wording is used without quotation marks and presented as the writer’s own wording, rather than that of Meyer’s.

4. Failure to Acknowledge All Quoted Material: Original Source Meyer, Michael. “The Changing Literary Canon” Literature to Go. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 6. Print. No semester’s reading list—or anthology—can adequately or accurately echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt to sensitize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers from all over the world. This development has not occurred without its urgent advocates or passionate dissenters. It’s no surprise that issues about race, gender, and class often get people off the fence and on their feet. Failure to acknowledge all quoted material : Meyer writes that no semester’s reading list or anthology can “adequately or accurately echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon” since people are on the fence about these works (6). Here, quotation marks do not frame all the quoted material.

5. Patchwork Plagiarism: Original Source Meyer, Michael. “The Changing Literary Canon” Literature to Go. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 6. Print. No semester’s reading list—or anthology—can adequately or accurately echoall the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt to sensitize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers from all over the world. This development has not occurred without its urgent advocates or passionate dissenters. It’s no surprise that issues about race, gender, and class often get people off the fence and on their feet. Although what we regard as literature—whether it’s called great, classic, or canonical—continues to generate debate, there is no question that such controversy will continue to reflect readers’ values as well as the writers they admire. Patchwork Plagiarism: The literary canon can echo more voices if readers are sensitized to these voices, whether they are called great, classical, or canonical (Meyer 6). In this example, a few words are changed, but the structure and phrasing are too similar to the original.

6. Missing Documentation: Original Source Meyer, Michael. “The Changing Literary Canon” Literature to Go. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 6. Print. No semester’s reading list—or anthology—can adequately or accurately echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt to sensitize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers from all over the world. This development has not occurred without its urgent advocates or passionate dissenters. It’s no surprise that issues about race, gender, and class often get people off the fence and on their feet. Although what we regard as literature—whether it’s called great, classic, or canonical—continues to generate debate, there is no question that such controversy will continue to reflect readers’ values as well as the writers they admire. Paraphrase without Documentation: Although it is difficult for any anthology to include the myriad of voices reflected in today’s literature, exposure to these voices can allow readers a broader literary perspective, regardless of how the reader categorizes a work of literature. Such exposure also reflects readers’ personal experiences. This is an acceptable paraphrase, but it has no documentation. The reader is led To believe that ideas are original to the writer, and not Meyer.

7. Incomplete Documentation: Original Source Meyer, Michael. “The Changing Literary Canon” Literature to Go. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 6. Print. No semester’s reading list—or anthology—can adequately or accurately echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt to sensitize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers from all over the world. This development has not occurred without its urgent advocates or passionate dissenters. It’s no surprise that issues about race, gender, and class often get people off the fence and on their feet. Although what we regard as literature—whether it’s called great, classic, or canonical—continues to generate debate, there is no question that such controversy will continue to reflect readers’ values as well as the writers they admire. Paraphrase with incomplete documentation: Although it is difficult for any anthology to include the myriad of voices reflected in today’s literature, exposure to these voices can allow readers a broader literary perspective, regardless of how the reader categorizes a work of literature. Such exposure also reflects readers’ personal experiences (Meyer 6). There is no frame to tell where Meyer’s words begin. It appears that only the last sentence is from Meyer’s work, when the ideas in the first sentence are also from Meyer.

8. Misrepresentation of the Source: Original Source Meyer, Michael. “The Changing Literary Canon” Literature to Go. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 6. Print. No semester’s reading list—or anthology—can adequately or accurately echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt to sensitize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers from all over the world. This development has not occurred without its urgent advocates or passionate dissenters. It’s no surprise that issues about race, gender, and class often get people off the fence and on their feet. Although what we regard as literature—whether it’s called great, classic, or canonical—continues to generate debate, there is no question that such controversy will continue to reflect readers’ values as well as the writers they admire. Misrepresentation of the source’s ideas: Meyer states that no anthology can hope to include the works of every special interest writer, so what we regard as literature should be limited to the “greats—the classics—the canonical,” since few people read books anyhow (6). Although the source is cited correctly, it is unethical to misrepresent the source’s original ideas.

9. An Acceptable Summary: Original Source Meyer, Michael. “The Changing Literary Canon” Literature to Go. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 6. Print. No semester’s reading list—or anthology—can adequately or accurately echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt to sensitize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers from all over the world. This development has not occurred without its urgent advocates or passionate dissenters. It’s no surprise that issues about race, gender, and class often get people off the fence and on their feet. Although what we regard as literature—whether it’s called great, classic, or canonical—continues to generate debate, there is no question that such controversy will continue to reflect readers’ values as well as the writers they admire. An acceptable one-sentence summary of the original passage: Meyer notes although it is difficult for any anthology to include the myriad of voices reflected in today’s literature, exposure to these voices can allow readers a broader literary perspective, regardless of how the reader categorizes a work of literature. Such exposure also reflects readers’ personal experiences (6). Success! The writer frames the original source material and uses different phrasing and word choices than the original while maintaining Meyer’s ideas.

10. Resources The information given in this presentation provides a knowledge base for recognizing and avoiding plagiarism. For further information, always consult an up-to-date handbook, your instructor, or contact the UNC Writing Center at 970-351-2056 with questions Refer to a list of resources available on our web site: http://www.unco.edu/english/wcenter/owr/index.html