Plagiarism Help

Plagiarism Help (Keith Gumery, TU English Department)

Original Passage:

In 1925 Dreiser produced his masterpiece, the massively impressive, An American Tragedy. By this time - thanks largely to the tireless propagandizing on his behalf by the influential maverick critic, H.L. Mencken, and by others concerned with a realistic approach to the problem of American life – Dreiser’s fame had become secure. He was seen as the most powerful and effective destroyer of the genteel tradition that had dominated popular American fiction in the post-Civil War period, spreading its soft blanket of provincial, sentimental romance over the often ugly realities of life in modern, industrialized, urban America. Certainly there was nothing genteel about Dreiser, either as man or novelist. He was the supreme poet of the squalid, a man who felt the terror, the pity, and the beauty underlying the American dream. With an eye at once ruthless and compassionate, he saw the tragedy inherent in the American success ethic; the soft underbelly, as it were, of the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches myths so appealing to the optimistic American imagination. [Richard Freedman, The Novel (New York: Newsweek Books, 1975), pp.104-105].

Student Version There was nothing genteel about Dreiser, either as man or novelist. He was the supreme poet of the squalid, a man who felt the terror, the pity, and the beauty underlying the American Dream.	Comment Obvious plagiarism: word-for-word repetition without acknowledgment.
There was nothing genteel about Dreiser, either as man or novelist. He was the supreme poet of the squalid, a man who felt the terror, the pity, and the beauty underlying the American dream (Freedman, 104).	Still plagiarism. The footnote alone does not help. The language is the original author’s and only quotation marks around the whole passage plus a footnote would be correct.
Nothing was genteel about Dreiser, as a novelist. He was the poet of the squalid, and felt that terror, pity, and beauty lurked under the American dream (Freedman, 104).	A few words have been changed or omitted, but by no stretch of the imagination is the student writer using his own language.
“Nothing was genteel about Dreiser as a man or as a novelist. He was the poet of the squalid and felt that terror, pity, and beauty lurked under the American dream”(Freedman, 104).	Not quite plagiarism, but incorrect and inaccurate, Quote marked indicate exact repetition of what was originally written. The student writer, however, has changed some of the original and is not entitled to use the quotation marks.
By 1925 Dreiser’s reputation was firmly established. The reading public viewed Dreiser as one of the main contributors to the downfall of the “genteel tradition” in American literature. Dreiser, “the supreme poet of the squalid,” looked beneath the bright surface of American life and values and described the frightening and tragic elements the “ugly realities,” so often overlooked by other writers (Freedman, 104).	Correct. The student writer uses his own word to summarize most of the original passage. The footnote shows that the ideas expressed come from the original writer, not from the student. The few phrases kept from the original passage are carefully enclosed in quotation marks.