Exercise by Professor Jack Dougherty (who adopted it from Professor Zayde Antrim, who adopted it from Professor Kathleen Archer, and so on. . . )
To avoid plagiarism, one must first learn how to plagiarize, and then how to paraphrase properly. This exercise requires students to demonstrate the differences in five steps.
Read the “Intellectual Honesty” section on pages 21-23 of the Trinity College Student Handbook (2015-16) Compare the examples of improper paraphrasing (which follows the structure of the original source too closely, regardless of a citation) versus proper paraphrasing (which restates the original source in one’s own diction and style, with a citation).
Follow the five steps below, and clearly number each of your responses in your new document. Feel free to copy and paste any content into your word processor, rather than retype it.
Original text:
“The system that the elite colleges and universities developed to evaluate the best and the brightest is now the template for what counts as ideal child rearing in America. Perhaps no single college president or dean of admissions fully realized that the development of clear measures of youthful accomplishment—standardized test scores and high school GPAs, athletic team win records, counts of AP classes and titles and formal accolades of all sorts—would in time transform the organization and culture of bourgeois childhood, would make it more competitive, more expensive, more structured around the production of demonstrated accomplishment, and, perhaps more consequential for the ideal of meritocracy, even more difficult for families of modest means to emulate.”
Source: Mitchell L. Stevens, Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites (Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 247.
Step 1: Plagiarize any portion of the original text by copying portions of it word-for-word.
Step 2: Plagiarize any portion of the original text by paraphrasing its structure too closely, without copying it word-for-word.
Step 3: Plagiarize any portion of the original text by paraphrasing its structure too closely, with a citation the original source (using any academic citation style). Remember, even if you include a citation, paraphrasing too closely is still a form of plagiarism.
Step 4: Properly paraphrase any portion of the original text by restating the author’s ideas in your own diction and style, and include a citation to the original source.
Step 5: Properly paraphrase any portion of the original text by restating the author’s ideas in your own diction and style, and supplement it with a direct quotation of a key phrase, and include a citation to the original source.
You may use any academic citation style for this assignment (such as Chicago-style full notes, or MLA/APA in-line citations with a bibliography). Remember to include the full reference to the source in your citation style. If you use a citation tool, such as Zotero (my personal favorite), make sure all of the necessary data (author, title, date, etc.) appears in your full reference.
Upload your work to our Google Doc Organizer by Sunday Sept 27th at 9pm.
Avoid common mistakes: Look at three anonymous examples from past students, who quoted different texts, and my comments on their work.