Composition 9

1. Composition 9 Odds and Ends

2. Take-home Work • While most of the work that you complete for this course will be done in class, the take-home work that is assigned must be completed and handed in according to MLA (Modern Language Association) format. • If you have not heard of MLA Format, you will hear much more about it as you advance through your education, as most teachers and professors at most institutions of learning tend to request that work be completed according to this format.

3. How-to • In terms of learning how to format your papers in MLA style, we will be using the following website’s instructions: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic/mla_style.html#Document • I literally just Googled “MLA Format Headers” and this was the first result. That may be of use to you when you forget all of this… • I will walk you through the outlined instructions by following them myself on a blank Microsoft Word document.

4. Plagiarism • According to dictionary.com, plagiarism is “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plagiarism). • Note that this definition encompasses both copying and pasting from a website (like Wikipedia) and simply putting somebody else’s work into your own words in order to pass off their ideas as your own. • Plagiarism is, for all intents and purposes, the theft of ideas, and is thus an incredibly serious offense.

5. Punishment for Plagiarism • School-wide, teachers are allowed and encouraged to submit any plagiarists’ work to the Dean of Studies. The student then receives a “0” for that assignment. • At most accredited universities and colleges, students discovered to have plagiarized work are expelled. No questions asked. • Turnitin is a service that checks all work for plagiarism against pretty much everything in existence. This is how I expect my work to be submitted, as you know. Do not try to beat the system. It does not work. • It simply is not worth the risk.

6. Avoiding Plagiarism • Simply put, the best way to avoid plagiarism is to follow one basic rule: if you are typing something while you are looking back and forth at some other source (like a website or book), make sure that you cite that other source. • Citing a source is letting the reader(s) know that what they have just read is not the work of the author of what they are reading, but instead the work of some other person(s).

7. How to Cite Sources • Please follow along on text page 854. • There are also MLA Format rules for how to cite sources, the most important of which for your purposes is parenthetical citation. • If you are utilizing somebody else’s work in your own writing and choose to do so word-for-word, you must: • Use quotation marks around the word(s) being quoted. • “The dog ran” • Indicate in parentheses adjacent to the quoted words the source from whence the set aside words are derived. • “The dog ran” (Johnson 29).  If the words come from a book, a magazine, or a journal, for example, the last name of the author is always followed immediately by the page or line number where you discovered the borrowed words. • “The dog ran” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plagiarism).  If you are borrowing from a website, by all means feel free to merely include the URL. • If you are utilizing somebody else’s work in your own writing and choose to do so by summarizing the author (paraphrasing), the same rules apply in terms of how to cite the work, but the quotation marks are no longer necessary.

8. You Will Get Caught • Don’t be dumb!