Question

Read the following passage. Then decide whether the student sample at the right (or below) cites the passage acceptably in MLA style or whether the citation could be considered plagiarism. If the citation is acceptable, choose “OK.” If the citation is plagiarized, choose “Unacceptable.”
ORIGINAL SOURCE . . . There is no such thing as a literary work or tradition which is valuable in itself, regardless of what anyone might have said or come to say about it. “Value” is a transitive term: it means whatever is valued by certain people in specific situations, according to particular criteria and in the light of given purposes. It is thus quite possible that, given a deep enough transformation of our history, we may in the future produce a society which is unable to get anything at all out of Shakespeare. His works might simply seem desperately alien, full of styles of thought and feeling which such a society found limited or irrelevant. In such a situation, Shakespeare would be no more valuable than much present-day graffiti.

From page 11 of Literary Theory by Terry Eagleton (U of Minnesota P, 1996).

There is no such thing as a literary work or tradition which is valuable in itself.

a) OK

b) Unacceptable

which is correct option

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Answer 1

Answer:

b) Unacceptable  

Explanation:

The given excerpt shows the text from the original source, enabling us to identify whether the student properly followed the formatting rules of Modern Language Association (MLA) style.  The in-text citation format of the MLA style is enclosing the author's last name and the page number in open- and closed-parenthesis at the end of the text.  

In the given prompt, the name of the author and the page number were provided. Also, the student copied from the text verbatim. Thus, he or she should have written the direct quotation as:

"There is no such thing as a literary work or tradition which is valuable in itself" (Eagleton 11).

Alternatively, the student could have introduced the name of the author before the direct quote:  

Terry Eagleton presents an interesting view on the significance of value in literature, as he states, "There is no such thing as a literary work or tradition which is valuable in itself" (11).  

Therefore, the student unacceptably cites the passage in MLA style.