Citation versus Plagiarism II

1. Citation versus Plagiarism II Summarizing, Paraphrasing and Misquoting

2. Definition of Plagiarism • In the American academic context, plagiarism applies to any number of instances where: • The ideas or words of another person or entity are used without properly crediting the original “owner” • The ideas or paper has been submitted, by yourself or another person, for a different project or assignment in a journal or difference class • Influence by another person makes the work almost completely different than the author’s original or a project was intended as a solo, non-collaborative work

3. Intention Doesn’t Matter, Quality of Source Does • There are two types of plagiarism, and yet not even ignorance will save you from a failing grade.  • Be aware as well that the quality of ideas can often indicate sloppy scholarship as well: • The Internet is NOT your friend for last minute information. • Non-integrated sources undermine your work even further in terms of both scholarship & readability.

4. Strategies for Ensuring Accuracy and Fluency • Be sure what you are trying to prove: it’s easier to choose a source and fit it neatly into your writing if you feel secure in your own purpose. • Focus on the nouns: content words reflect not only meaning but connotation as well. • Always explain the source’s relationship to your idea. Don’t expect the reader to make the connection. • Use whole paragraphs when possible: a paragraph is the smallest unit of meaning.

5. Strategies for Summarizing • Create a topic sentence that reflects the author, title, and main idea (topic and purpose of the WHOLE original). • Mention only the major supporting ideas that support this overall topic, again returning to the main idea. • The story The Fox and the Crow attributed to Aesop shows the consequences of vanity. By flattering the crow, the fox is able to “steal” the crow’s food, a feat that would have been impossible if the crow hadn’t succumbed to vain demonstration.

6. Pick a Book! • Choose a book from the list that you’ve read, or another famous book that you know, and create a succinct 2-3 sentence summary. • Grapes of Wrath • Gone with the Wind • Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet

7. Strategies for Paraphrasing • The first time you read the article or source, you should be summarizing EACH paragraph in your own words. • Put the desired comment in a safe place, put it away from you, and then write, from memory, the ideas of the source. • Check the nouns, verbs, and main clauses for accuracy of ideas conveyed, as well as tone.

8. Practice • Look at this passage, then from memory, write down what you remember…. • Like any metropolis, the web has neighborhoods, some safer and some horrific. Unlike any other metropolis, the web lacks a government, laws, or a police force. The only universally acknowledged cyber-crime is the intentional spreading of computer viruses—infectious software programs that could impair the experience of other cyber-tourists. Beyond this, there are no moral guidelines. A turn down the wrong cyber-street guarantees exposure to information or images at least as corrosive as anything available in the streets of New York, Paris, or Tokyo—and often even worse. • Kelemen, L. (n.d.). Escaping the cyber-slums: Online dangers and practical responses. Simple to remember.com. Retrieved from http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/dangers-of-the-internet/

9. Quoting and Misquoting • A sentence quoted once again must respect the context of the whole. • Try to keep the main clause the center of the quote’s meaning. • Look at the sentence’s meaning before and after the quote in the original and circle any identifying concepts that could affect your CORRECT use of this idea.

10. Tell me about munchkins…. • Reality is a tricky thing. That which has become a main stay of the language has not ever been seen as a true, participatory member of society. Take “munchkins”, the nation of little people from Oz, for instance. Munchkins do not exist in so far as anything the comes to the big screen does not exist. Yet existence, except in our minds, is itself unreal. How, then, can we deny this nation their autonomy when we cannot even guarantee our own reality outside the constructs our own heads create?

11. What Can Be Done? • Be aware of what the big names ACTUALLY say so that you can be wary of misuses, and call authors on it! • Strive for accuracy—in your own work, and when you read. The best readers comprehend what the author truly intends, recognizing all the factors at play: • Audience, intent, purpose, tone or attitude, perspective, relationships used to further the argument/prove the point