Due Date: Tuesday, February 9
Goals
- To know what constitutes plagiarism in this class and what you must do to avoid it
- To integrate quotations as evidence for your arguments
- To document those quotations in correct APA style
Your Grade for This Assignment
- You are responsible for all of the information in this post while writing your first discussion post (Assignment 5, coming next week). All future writing, including the two documented essays (Assignment 08 and 13), must also follow the directions in this post.
- In addition, you will take an objective, 10-item quiz on this material in Canvas. The quiz will be available from Tuesday, February 2, to Tuesday, February 9.
Directions for Assignment 04
Part 1 — Avoiding Plagiarism
Step 1
"I didn't know that you considered that plagiarism!" is an unacceptable excuse in this class. Read all parts of Avoiding plagiarism at The Harvard Guide to Using Sources:
- Avoiding plagiarism
- What constitutes plagiarism?
- The exception: common knowledge
- Other scenarios to avoid
- Why does it matter if you plagiarize?
- How to avoid plagiarism
- Harvard plagiarism policy
Every time you encounter the word "Harvard," substitute "Valencia," as the plagiarism policies are identical.
Step 2
Your writing for this class will require summary, paraphrase, and direct quotations. Read what these terms mean at the Purdue University Online Writing Lab.
Part 2 — Integrating Direct Quotations as Evidence for Your Arguments
This class uses APA format. All other formats will be marked wrong. Follow the guidelines below if you want to earn maximum points on your discussion posts and essays.
Print this handout to use as a reference whenever you need to document quotations in your discussion posts or papers.
Step 1
As you write each discussion post or body paragraph for your documented essays, insert at least one quotation from your research.
Read this unacceptable paragraph:
Timing is everything in an adventure. People must be in exactly the right place at the right time. Otherwise, they might miss out on the rewards of leaving their comfort zone for new experiences out in the great unknown.
Now read this version with evidence of research from the short story Sleepy time gal by Gildner (1979). Notice that the evidence lends credibility to what the student is saying:
In Gildner (1979), the character Phil learned that timing was everything. This gifted musician had written a wonderful song, one that "everyone waited for" when he played piano at the roadhouse (p. 46). If Phil had taken the patrons' advice, he could have sold the song in Bay City and used the money to attend college with the pretty German girl. Instead of pursuing this adventure, Phil trusted that the girl would stay true and marry him after she finished her education. Unfortunately for Phil, she met another man while she was away at school and married this new guy in Phil's place. When Phil learned this news, he sold the song for "twenty-five dollars," far less than what it was worth, and the song then went on to sell "many millions of records," benefiting the record company, not poor Phil (p. 46). Because Phil did not visit Bay City when he was happy in love and able to negotiate appropriate compensation for the music, he missed the financial rewards that would have allowed him to continue his adventure with the pretty German girl. His broken heart made him part with the song at a cheap price, which kept him a blue-collar worker employed in low-income jobs.
For each discussion post and body paragraph for your documented essays, your job is to provide the same kind of credibility by inserting summaries, paraphrases, and at least one direct quotation from the source that you have chosen to discuss. Feel free to use more than one quotation per paragraph—but you are limited to 39 words of quoted material per source.
Step 2
Set up direct quotations correctly:
- Quotations cannot "float" in your essay; they must be anchored/attached to words of your own. View the sample student paragraph above. Notice that each quote is embedded in a sentence that includes the student's own words.
- Begin with an authority phrase, which introduces the quotation by telling the reader who is speaking or what source has provided the information. Here are some examples:
According to __________,
As __________ claimed, ... [or explained, said, warned, noted, believed, thought, etc.]
- Sometimes the authority phrase sets up an idea that the quotation completes:
One reason [or explanation, belief, piece of evidence, etc.] was that ...
A reader can observe this behavior when ...
- Follow the authority phrase with a quotation of no more than 39 words. (Your limit per source is 39 quoted words total.) Longer quotations are boring and make you look lazy. Indented quotations are not allowed in the essays and discussion posts that you write for this class.
- When you quote from poems, use a slash / to indicate where each line of poetry breaks.
When the authority phrase refers to the speaker, identify that person correctly:
- For a poem or short story, the person speaking is the speaker (poem) or the narrator (short story). If a character is addressing you, the reader, directly, use that character's name. The person speaking is never the author. Read these examples:
The speaker explained that Maud was "living all alone / In this old house" (Brooks, 1963, lines 19 - 20).
Enn described the girls as having "very black skin and glossy hair and movie star clothes" (Gaiman, 2006, para. 33).
- For a news article or essay, the person speaking is either the author or someone the author is quoting. Identify the person by last name. The first time you mention the author, include the year of the publication:
As Cox (2008) explained, "The frigid temperature of the water could cause an incredible shock to my body, overstimulating the vagus nerve and causing my heart to stop beating" (para. 7).
In McGrath (2008), Harding admitted that the dance was "sort of a nervous tic" (para. 4).
When the authority phrase refers to the work itself, do not use the title. Instead, use the author's last name and year of publication.
In Gilmore (1979), the reader met Phil, a young man who wrote such a beautiful song that "women got tears in their eyes when Phil played" (p. 45).
In Brooks (1963), we meet two different sisters who pursued two different lifestyles: "Maud went to college / Sadie stayed home" (lines 1 - 2).
Gilmore (1979) = "Sleepy Time Gal"; Brooks (1963) = "Sadie and Maud."
Step 3
Include parenthetical references for every quotation that you use.For short stories:
- If you have already mentioned the author and year of publication, include just the page number (book) or paragraph number (our online sources), like this: (p. 19) or (para. 18).
- If you have not yet mentioned the author and year of publication, use a full citation: the author's last name, year of publication, and the page number (book) or paragraph number (our online sources). The parenthetical reference will look like this: (Gildner, 1979, p. 46) or (Gaiman, 2006, para. 18).
- The period that ends the entire sentence follows the parenthetical reference.
Author/year of publication already indicated earlier in the paragraph:
Enn admitted, "I had parents who liked to know where I was, but I don't think Vic's parents cared that much" (para. 18).
No author/year of publication indicated earlier in the paragraph:
Enn admitted, "I had parents who liked to know where I was, but I don't think Vic's parents cared that much" (Gaiman, 2006, para. 18).
For poems:
- If you have already mentioned the author and year of publication, include the line number(s), like this: (line 17) or (lines 19 - 23).
- If you have not yet mentioned the author and year of publication, use a full citation: author's last name, year of publication, and the line number(s). The parenthetical reference will look like this: (Brooks, 1963, lines 1 - 2).
- The period that ends the entire sentence follows the parenthetical reference.
Author/year of publication already indicated earlier in the paragraph:
In this poem, we meet two sisters with different attitudes about life. We learn that Maud, for example, "Is a thin brown mouse" who lives "all alone" (lines 18-19).
No author/year of publication indicated earlier in the paragraph:
In this poem, we meet two sisters with different attitudes about life. We learn that Maud, for example, "Is a thin brown mouse" who lives "all alone" (Brooks, 1969, lines 18-19).
For articles/essays:
- If you have already mentioned the author and year of publication, include the paragraph number, like this: (para. 17).
- If you have not yet mentioned the author and year of publication, use a full citation: the author's last name, year of publication, and paragraph number, like this: (Munoz, 2012, para. 5).
- The period that ends the entire sentence follows the parenthetical reference.
Author/year of publication already indicated earlier in the paragraph:
McGrath considered Harding's dance video "an almost perfect piece of Internet art" (para. 7)
No author/year of publication indicated earlier in the paragraph:
Critics considered Harding's dance video "an almost perfect piece of Internet art" (McGrath, 2008, para. 7).
For an online video:
- If you can't find a person as the author/creator, use the name of the organization that posted the video.
- For a video, you will need a time stamp—Hour:Minute:Second.
Author or organization/year of publication already indicated earlier in the paragraph:
As Honnold admitted, "Tomorrow morning, I could wake up and drive to the east coast and then climb for the next two months" (13:17).
No author or organization/year of publication indicated earlier in the paragraph:
As Honnold admitted, "Tomorrow morning, I could wake up and drive to the east coast and then climb for the next two months" (60 Minutes, 2011, 13:17).
Part 3 — Taking Your Quiz
Take your quiz, which will be available from Tuesday, February 2, through Tuesday, February 9, in Canvas. Keep these important things in mind:
- The quiz will be available in Quizzes in the left sidebar of the Canvas Home Page for our course.
- The quiz will evaluate your understanding of the readings and explanations above.
- You will have 1 hour to take this 10-item quiz. Use the readings and this post to find and confirm the right answers.
- If you miss the quiz, you earn a zero. If you are worried that an unforeseen emergency might interfere, then complete the quiz on the first day it is available, not the last.
If you encounter a problem with Canvas, send me an email immediately for an alternate version of the quiz. Although the alternate version will test similar skills, it will differ significantly in format.
- This quiz will close at 11:59 p.m. EST on Tuesday, February 9.
If you have questions not addressed in this post, contact me through Canvas.