Directions: Read the following passage. Then decide whether the student sample at the right (or below) cites the passage accepta
bly 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).
Student sample
Eagleton notes that a society may someday exist which is unable to get anything out of Shakespeare (11).
This is an <u>unacceptable</u> form of citation, as it closely resembles the original text. Regardless of identifying the author and including the page number, the student still committed an act of plagiarism.
The purpose of <u>paraphrasing</u> text is to communicate the author's ideas or main points using your own words. This is an alternative way of referencing the concepts or literary work of other authors without using direct quotation. In academic writing, students are strongly urged to cite their source of information. If it is too challenging to paraphrase a text, then it is best to directly quote your original source as an in-text citation. It is also important to include the author's last name and the page number of the text (if using the MLA formatting style).
