Plagiarism Exercise
Read the following passage on Greek drama. Answer the questions that follow. Read the two lectures on parenthetical documentation, intext.html and itc.htm, and the lecture on Plagiarism before you attempt to answer the questions in this exercise. You may type the answers directly in this document if you save it to your disk, then call it up in your word processor.
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Plagiarism Exercise Microsoft Word Document
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Combine this exercise with the Works Cited exercise and title page completed in Assignment 2. Put the title page first, then this exercise, and last the Works Cited exercise. Send a copy of the completed, combined exercise (one document only) through E-mail if working from home, or print out the assignment and submit as per the instructions in Assignment 3. To combine this exercise with Assignment 2 on your word processor, when finished answering the questions, choose Edit from the menu bar, and choose Select All. This will highlight all your text. Copy the text, then Paste it into your assignment 2 document.
An Exercise in the Proper Use and Acknowledgment of Sources:
Below is a passage from a book by William Fleming. Read the passage carefully three or four times:
"Greek drama unfolds as a sequence of choral song, group dances, mimed action, and dialogue coordinated into a dramatic whole. Poetry, however, always remains the central dramatic agent. It should also be noted that the Athenians experienced their plays and poetry only in oral presentations. While manuscript copies of literary and philosophical works were available to scholars, books in the modern sense did not exist. Much of the beauty and power of the plays was derived from the heightened experience of poetic recitation as well as from the Greek tongue itself. Not an accentual language, Greek allows a wide variety of metrical patterns capable of expressing every nuance of action and mood. In experiencing a Greek drama in translation, therefore, modern readers must let their imagination supply the melody, color, and flowing rhythms of the original language as well as the missing factors associated with a live theatrical production." [from William Fleming's ARTS AND IDEAS, 6th ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980, p. 42.]
Below are six examples of how that passage might be used in a documented essay on Greek drama. Some are followed by MLA-style parenthetical citations; some are not. Some use quotation marks; some do not. In the space following each student paragraph, use your word processor's boldface to indicate if the student version represents a satisfactory or unsatisfactory use of this material. For those you feel are unsatisfactory, briefly explain what is wrong:
1. Athenians experienced their plays and poetry only in oral presentations. Much of the beauty and power of the plays was derived from the heightened experience of poetic recitation as well as from the Greek tongue itself.
Satisfactory or unsatisfactory?
2. Athenians experienced their plays and poetry only in oral presentation. Much of the beauty and power of the plays was derived from the heightened experience of poetic recitation as well as from the Greek tongue itself (Fleming 42).
Satisfactory or unsatisfactory?
3. Athenians heard their plays only in oral presentations because books in the modern sense did not exist. Much of the beauty and power of the plays came from the experience of poetic recitation as well as from the Greek language itself.
Satisfactory or unsatisfactory?
4. "Athenians heard their plays only in oral presentations because books in the modern sense did not exist. Much of the beauty and power of the plays came from the experience of poetic recitation as well as from the Greek language itself" (Fleming 42).
Satisfactory or unsatisfactory?
5. "...Athenians experienced their plays and poetry only in oral presentations.… Much of the beauty and power of the plays was derived from the heightened experience of poetic recitation as well as from the Greek tongue itself" (Fleming 42).
Satisfactory or unsatisfactory?
6. The Athenians experienced Greek dramas directly, never from the printed page. The audience saw and heard the sequence of choruses, dances, and dialogue. Above all, they felt the power of the poetry in the original Greek. As Fleming explains, Greek is not an accentual language, but it "allows a wide variety of metrical patterns capable of expressing every nuance of action and mood" (Fleming 42). We must try to imagine the dramatic spectacle and the "melody, color, and flowing rhythms" of the ancient Greek if we are to come close to understanding the power of Greek drama (42).
Satisfactory or unsatisfactory?
Taking the language or ideas of another author and presenting them as one's own is plagiarism. I understand that misusing sources in such a way is a violation of academic honesty.
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