JUDGING NOTES FOR PLAGIARISM (APA Style)
These exercises were adapted from Lester. D. (1996, 1999). Writing research papers: Instructor’s manual
(8th and 9th eds.). New York: Longman.
Directions: For the first two exercises below, read the excerpt from the original source. Determine whether the following notes are good or poor in their paraphrasing of the original quotation. Then, if you have marked the citation as poor or plagiarism, briefly explain your response.
Exercise I
Original Source:
“His [Billy’s] impediment in speech is a symbol of his irreducible imperfection as a man; it is not a symbol of total depravity. . . .”
-From Newton Arvin, Herman Melville: A Critical Biography (New York: Viking, 1957) p. 297.
- Arvin (1957) called Billy’s habit of stuttering a symbol of mankind’s total depravity.
Good Poor Explain:
- Arvin saw Billy’s stuttering as a symbol of everybody’s sinful nature because we all sin every now and then and come up short of what Jesus Christ expects of us.
Good Poor Explain:
- Arvin (1957) believed that Billy’s habit of stuttering showed that he had a human flaw, and it was not representative of his sinful nature.
Good Poor Explain:
Exercise II
Original Source:
“In 1969, impatience with the rigors of the Cold War was pervasive in the West. All leaders were under pressure to demonstrate their commitment to peace; the Soviet Union played on these sensitivities cleverly.”
-From Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979) p. 403.
- Kissinger (1979) said that leaders “were under pressure” to show that they wanted peace in the midst of the Cold War in 1969. The Soviet Union “played upon these sensitivities” (p.403).
Acceptable Plagiarism Explain:
- Kissinger commented on the cleverness of the Soviet leaders who, in 1969, played on the sensitivities of world leaders who were under pressure to make commitments to peace.
Acceptable Plagiarism Explain:
- Commenting on the West’s “impatience with the rigors of the Cold War,” Henry Kissinger (1979) argued that the Soviet Union was able to skillfully manipulate the “sensitivities” of world leaders who were “under pressure to demonstrate their commitment to peace” (p. 403).
Acceptable Plagiarism Explain:
Exercise III
Directions: Practice writing paraphrased notes with the original excerpts of the research below.
Keys to Proper Paraphrasing:
- Use approximately the same number of words as the original source
- Do not simply change words; change sentence structure, too (switch the order of information)
- If you use a keyword or phrase from the source, put it in quotation marks
- Be sure to keep the author’s original meaning intact; do not add your own thoughts/conclusions to the paraphrase
- Properly cite the source. Practice using APA In-Text Citation format.
1. Original Source:
Gross, 2002, p. 28
“Today, radio audiences listen to stations rather than programs. This is because most stations have a sound that usually translates into a particular format.”
Paraphrase:
2. Original Source:
Morris, 2000, p. 51
“Louisiana ‘creation law’ itself finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987, and there the concept of supernatural creation has received an apparently conclusive and final rejection.”
Paraphrase:
3. Original Source:
Larson, 2001, p. 89
“Darwin would not prove his case by observing past processes, so he relied on analogy and hypothesis.”
Paraphrase:
