Grade 9 English - Comedy and Humor: Plagiarism VS. Documentation

Plagiarism vs. Documentation

Plagiarism is the act of presenting someone else's work as your own. It is the theft of intellectual property. The following examples should help you distinguish plagiarism from well-documented research.

Original text from:

McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. p. 57

His marriage to Abigail Smith was the most important decision of John Adams's life, as would become apparent with time. She was in all respects his equal and the part she was to play would be greater than he could possibly have imagined, for all his love for her and what appreciation he already had of her beneficial, steadying influence.

Writing sample #1

Unacceptable! This paragraph is the work of someone either deliberately plagiarizing or someone who doesn’t understand what it means to plagiarize. The writer may have changed a few words and switched the order of words in the sentences, but the writer has not changed McCullough’s sequence of ideas and has not used the information in a meaningful way. He or she failed to cite what are really McCullough’s original ideas or words.

Writing sample #2

Unacceptable! Not only did this student neglect to cite, this paraphrase twists McCullough’s meaning. Though it changes words significantly, it also does a poor job conveying the original idea accurately.

Writing sample #3

The best decisions of a great leader may extend beyond the political. In fact, the course of American history may have been changed by an entirely personal decision. In his biography of Adams, David McCullough notes that Adams’ choice of Abigail Smith as a wife was the most critical decision of his life. “She was in all respects his equal and the part she was to play would be greater than he could possibly have imagined” (McCullough 57).

This is acceptable because the author uses the information in a meaningful way, accurately paraphrases the ideas presented in the original source, credits them and weaves in a quote to emphasize the point. The source is properly quoted and cited using quotation marks and in-text documentation. Note that in this example the student created his/her own topic sentence, following an independent plan and not the necessarily following the structure of another author's material.