Correct Citation and the Avoidance of Plagiarism


Examples and Quiz

Example Quote
The central doctrine of the book -- that each of us has a Catcher in the Rye lodged within -- implies a strict code for living. In its ramshackle way, Catcher is a conduct book for the age of anxiety and conformity. No section of the book is without its precepts, prohibitions, and practical tips for cant-free living. It is, in this sense, one of the first manuals of cool, a how-to guide for those who would detach themselves from the all-American postwar pursuit of prosperty and bliss. Holden the drop-out and outsider speaks like some crazed, half-literate Castiglione as he discourses on everything from clothing and bearing to the appropriate responses of a cool person in any situation. After fifty years these teachings remain a central element of our culture. Formal discourse, sequential thinking, reverence for the dignified and the heroic: these acts closed by the 1960s.The voice of Holden played a part in shutting them down (Castronovo, 2001).


Student Version 1
Castronovo (2001) indicates that The Catcher in the Rye is one of the first manuals of cool, a how-to guide for those that would detach themselves from the all-American postwar pursuit of prosperity and bliss.
Student Version 2
The central theme of the book is that we all have, living within us, a Holden Caulfield who provides us with a strict code of conduct.
Student Version 3
Castronovo (2001) proposes that the central theme of the book is that we all have, living within us, a Holden Caulfield who provides us with a strict code of conduct.
Student Version 4
The Catcher in the Rye, one of the most widely read as well as most frequently banned books, was a major influence on social change. It has become an instruction manual for a new way of thinking, which shunned the materialism and pretense of pre-sixties society, and Holden Caulfield was the catalyst and model.
Previous examples adapted from the School of Education, Indiana University (http://www.indiana.edu/~istd) and Ted Frick, University of Indiana (http://eduaction.indiana.edu/~frick/plagiarism/item1.html)


Further Questions

1. As long as you put another person's words into your own words, you do not have to cite the source.
2. You do not have to cite things you take from the Web/Internet because nobody owns the Internet.
3. When you condense a large section of type into a summary, you do not have to cite it.
4. You may quote a proverb or an old saying, e.g. Spare the rod and spoil the child, without citing it.
5. The only thing you are quoting from an entire article is the phrase "manual of cool." You do not have to cite the article.
6. You do not have to cite the source of the statement, "Shakespeare wrote Hamlet."
7. You do not have to cite the source of the statement, "Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, wrote Hamlet in the late sixteenth century."
8. You are writing a paper on feminist versions of Cinderella. You locate a picture on a web page and paste it into your paper. You do not have to cite it.

*Adapted from Harris, Robert A. The Plagiarism Handbook. Los Angeles: Pyrczak, 2001.

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