Research Journal, Part 2: Plagiarism

1.       Last summer, my family and I traveled to Chicago, which was quite different from the rural area I grew up in. We saw the dinosaur Sue at the Field Museum, and ate pizza at Gino's East.

·         In this statement I believe there is no need to cite, because it is stating their own experiences so it’s correct.

2.       Americans want to create a more perfect union; they also want to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for everybody.

·         In this statement I feel it can go both ways since it is common knowledge and it has been paraphrased. I personally would cite it anyways by stating where it is from, for example it would look something like this; The Constitution explains that  Americans want to create a more perfect union; they also want to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for everybody(  ). I prefer to use the MLA format, with a works cited page.

3.       I find it ridiculous that 57% of high school students think their teachers assign too much homework.

·         In statement number 3 it gives a percentage of high school students so this info must of came from some credible source, which if I was reading this statement I would like to know how that person came up that amount of high school students. So with this I would cite the credible source of where I found the 57% from then state my opinion after.

4.       Martin Luther King was certain that nobody would want to be contented with a surfacy type of social analysis that concerns itself only with effects and doesn't deal with root causes.

·         This I feel is correct since it’s a summary.

5.       Martin Luther King wrote that the city of Birmingham's "white power structure" left African-Americans there "no alternative" but to demonstrate ("Letter from the Birmingham Jail" para. 5).

·         With this one I feel it is correct, the writer used quotation marks when making a direct quote of Martin Luther King’s letter, and then gave a citation at the end of the sentence.

6.       In "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," King writes to fellow clergy saying that although they "deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham, your statement fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations."

·         This one I believe is partial right and partially wrong the writer uses the quotation rights, but it’s not the exact wording. I had to go over this one a few times.

7.       My friend Kara told me that she loves living so close to the ocean.

·         This is correct because it’s only a statement of what a friend said.

8.       Americans are guaranteed the right to freely gather for peaceful meetings.

·         I would have to say this is correct because it is common knowledge, but in my opinion I would site it anyways just to play it safe.


Summary and Steps of Avoiding Plagiarism

    This week I learned a lot about plagiarism, and did some extra research on the subject. I found out that there are so many different copyright laws, especially in the music industry. I also found that the IRIS site was really helpful with identifying when or when not to acknowledge. The steps I plan on using to avoid plagiarism is to make sure I give credit to the source, and make sure to site everything I have borrowed. I think it's better to play it safe, if I'm not sure of something I'll probably go ahead and site it anyways.

 I do have a question, in my first post I used someone else's picture but I made sure that I included his name at the bottom of the picture, but this is all I did, so is that giving enough acknowledgement?