Definition of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the presentation of another writer’s ideas or words as if they were your own, without acknowledging the source.

The brief passage below is taken from page 72 of the book Norman Mailer by Philip Bufithis (Ungar, 1978). Examples of how the passage might be plagiarized follow below.

To any reader who accepts the terms of Mailer’s vision, this book generates intoxication hope, for Rojack is a pioneer of the spirit: his explanations give us a felt sense of expanding possibilities for the self. Mailer has defined character what the classic American heroes of James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville tried to do before him-get away from the enfeeblements of civilization, the crush of history.

To any reader who accepts the terms of Mailer’s vision, this book generates intoxicating hope, for Rojack is a pioneer of the spirit: his explorations give is a felt sense of expanding possibilities for the self. Mailer has defined character in this novel as an endless series of second chances.

An American Dream may be seen as an optimistic book, for Rojack is a pioneer of the spirit. He is an example of character defined as an endless series of second chances.

Note:  Whether many or only a few key phrases are copied, they should be in quotation marks, with a source and author cited.

Rojack falls in the line of other American classic heroes created by James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville in his ardent individualism and his desire to escape the debilitating confines of society and accumulated weight of history.

Rojack can be viewed as another Ahab or Deerslayer in his willingness to push the limits of his spiritual potential in the face of an inherently hostile universe. He struggles to redefine himself, in spite of the risk of self-destruction.

• Indicate clearly when you use anything from another writer’s work, even if only a phrase or single key word, by using quotation marks.

• When summarizing or paraphrasing distinguish clearly where the ideas of others end and your own comments begin.

• When using a writer’s idea, credit the author by name and also cite the work in which you found the idea.

• Provide a new citation when using additional information from a previously cited work.

• Err on the side of caution by giving credit whenever you suspect you are using information, other than general knowledge, from a source.

• Do not use facts, details, or ideas from a source without indication in some way that you are doing so.

• Do not confuse your own ideas with others’ ideas discovered during your research. Even if your ideas resemble another writers, you must credit that writer and the work in which the idea is shared.

Gardner, John. Grendel. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.

Archer, Elaine, Suzanne Holman, and Angela Sullivan. Women of the Western Plains. Chicago: Lone

Star Press, 1998.

McDaniel, David, et al. Ocean Disasters of the Twentieth Century. London: Monarch Press, 1996.

Jones, Harold L., ed. The Official Work of Stephen King. 2 vols. San Diego: Waterfront, 1989.

Brown, Carl. Cooking in Fifty States. New York: Scribner’s, 1980.

Shain, Charles E. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." American Writers. Ed. Leonardo Unger. Vol.4. New York:

Scribners, 1974. 77-1000.

Losey. Brent. "I See You." A Collection of Personal Poetry. Ed. James Graham. St. Louis: Ocean 

Front Press, 1996. 47-48.

Porter, Roberta, ed. The Viewer’s Eye: A Critical Study of Advertising. New York: Holt, 1987.

Wong, Paul, and Cedric Rollins, eds. The History of the Calvary. Princeton: Princeton Press, 1978.

Miller, Jason, et al., eds. Teaching Poe. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998.

American Library Association. Manual of Home Safety Tips. Chapel Hill: University of North

Carolina Press, 1985.

Dostoevsky, Fedor. Crime and Punishment. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonshy. New

York: Vintage, 1996.

Norris, Matt. "A Real DogFight: Analyzing the Hound of the Baskervilles." English Literary Work 76

(1989): 133-140. Rpt. Twentieth-Century Literacy Criticism. Ed. Juan de Rodriquez.

Vol. 43. New York: Norton, 1999. 230-237.

Klar, Fred. Introduction. Blue Skies. By Richard Upton. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987. v-x.

Encyclopedia with author (omit vol. and page numbers if alphabetically arranged)

Schmidt, Reba. "Rabbits." World Book Encyclopedia. 7^th edition. 1975.

Encyclopedia without author (do not cite editor of reference work)

"Ross, Betsy." Encyclopedia Britannica, 1986.

"Feminism." The Harper Dictionary of Modern Thought. Ed. Alan Bullock and Stephen Trombley.

New York: Vintage, 1996.

Cooper, Jessica. "Viet Nam Nurses." Time. 17 March 1989: 89-103.

Nabokov, Fladimir."The Thunderstorm." Literary Cavalcade. January 2000: 12-14.

Flowers, Benjamin. "Cash for College." Washington Times. 8 April, late Ed.: E9.

Pamphlet (treat as a book)

Building a Fountain. San Diego: Home Institute, 1978.

1996.

Jaws. Dir. Steven Spielberg. With Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss. Universal

Pictures. 1975.

Grisham, John. Interview. All Things Considered. Natl. Public Radio. New York. 10 Oct. 1998.

America in the 1930s Project. Ed. Kathleen M. Hogan. 1998. University of

Virginia. 3 March 1999 <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/FILM/lorentz/front.html/>.

The English Server. Carnegie Mellon. 1 May 1997 < http://eserver.org/>.

Hart, Michael. Home page. 12 June 2000 < http://promo.net/hart/>.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. London, 1906. Project Guttenberg.

Frost, Robert. "The Road Not Taken." The Poetry of Robert Frost. Ed. Edward

Connery Lathem. 1944. Favorite Poem Project. 15 November 1999

Boston University. 13 February 2000 http://www.favoritepoem.org/poems/frost/>.

"Transcendentalism." Britannica Online. Vers. 99.1.1. May 1999.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. 29 May 1999 <http://www.eb.com:180>.

Hermann Astleitner and Detlev Leutner. "Designing Instructional Technology

from an Emotional Perspective." Journal of Research on Computing in

Education 32.4 (Summer 2000): 22 June 2000 < http://www.iste.org/>.

"Romanticism." Compton's Encyclopedia Online. Vers.

4.0. 1999. America Online. 4 July 2000. Keyword: Compton's.

"Melville Biography." Discovering Authors. CD-ROM. Detroit: Gale, 1999.

Burns, Jane. "Writing Catch 22." E-mail to the author. 12 February 2000.

Work by One Author  

Give the author’s last name and the page number in parentheses.

Trains were once popular modes of transportation (White 8). 

If you mention the author’s last name in the sentence, give only the page number in parentheses.

According to Larry White, trains were once popular modes of transportation (8).

Work by More than One Author  

Give the authors’ last names in the same order as stated on the Works Cited page and the page number in parentheses: (Jones and Miller 639). If a source has more than three authors, give the first author’s last name follow by et al. and the page number: (Jones et al. 88)

Give the title (or a shortened version of it) and the page number: (Railroads 11)

Give the author’s last name, the title or a shortened version of it, and the page number: (Reese, Planes 25)

If a book or other work was written by a committee or task force, it is said to have a corporate author. If the corporate name is long, include it in the text (rather than in parentheses) to avoid disrupting the flow of writing. Use a shortened form of the name in the text and in references after the full name has been used at least once. Example: Use Education Committee in place of Education Committee Task Force for Secondary Rural Schools after the full name has been used at least once.

The finding of the Education Committee's report proves that students in rural school have fewer cases of violence than inner city schools.

Cite verse, plays, and poems by division--act, scene, canto, book, part--and line, using Arabic numerals for the divisions unless otherwise instructed. Use periods to separate the various numbers. If citing lines only, use the word line or lines in the first reference and numbers in additional references.

In the second act of the play, Sammy says, "I don’t care/Why should you?" (2.3.144-45).

Note: A diagonal line is used to show each new line of verse. 

Verse quotations of more than three lines should be indented one inch (ten spaces) and double-spaced.

Each line of the poem or play begins a new line of the quotation; do not run the lines together.

William Beauchamp’s poem "The Ocean" contains layer upon layer of specific details:

The Ocean was blue ` Beyond the horizon.

Only we could not see

The bright orange sun,. . . (12-13)

To site prose (novels, short stories, etc.), list more than the page number of the work available in several editions. Give the page reference first, and then add a chapter, section, or book number in abbreviated form after a semicolon.

In The Car Wreck, Juan Carlos describes the emotional trauma of the incident as "no squealing of tires, only gnashing metal penetrated the lives of the two young women" (23; ch. 3). 

When quoting prose that takes more than four typed lines, indent each line of the quotation one inch (10 spaces) and double space it. In this case, put the parenthetical citation outside the end punctuation mark of the quotation itself.

Use a semicolon to separate the entries:  (Morris et al. 89; Riley)

Give the author’s last name, or if no author is named, give the title:  ("Ocean Storms")

Works Cited

America in the 1930s Project. Ed. Kathleen M. Hogan. 1998. University of

Virginia. 3 March 1999 <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/FILM/lorentz/front.html/>.

Dostoevsky, Fedor. Crime and Punishment. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonshy.

New York: Vintage, 1996.

Losey. Brent. "I See You." A Collection of Personal Poetry. Ed. James Graham. St. Louis: Ocean

Front Press, 1996. 47-48.

"Melville Biography." Discovering Authors. CD-ROM. Detroit: Gale, 1999.

Miller, Jason, et al., eds. Teaching Poe. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998.

"Transcendentalism." Britannica Online. Vers. 99.1.1. May 1999.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. 29 May 1999  <http://www.eb.com:180>