The quote, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse”, always comes to my mind when I ponder about a story I was introduced to from a teacher, when I too, felt victimized of being accused of plagiarism. The story begins as a boy throws a small pebble into a pond without realizing the presence of a small frog. The frog when hit, dies immediately as a result of the boy’s careless behaviour and the boy pays the consequences even though the act of murder was not intended.
Like this passage portrays, I know that it wasn’t your intention to commit plagiarism which is why I am going to go over with you where in your passage I feel that you have committed plagiarism and explain ways to avoid plagiarism. In your essay, the passage wasn’t in quotations
...and the source in which the passage came from wasn’t sited. You did argue that the passage you extracted from the C. Hugh Homan’s, A handbook to Literature, was a common knowledge, but the true definition of common knowledge is the type of knowledge in which any reasonable persons would know off the top of their heads.
From my viewpoint, it is quite convincing that no reasonable persons would be able to give specific examples of the type of writings during any specific eras nor give accurate years for modern English period beginning at the Renaissance. Therefore this passage should have been directly quoted with proper citations. If you paraphrased this passage on the other hand, then no sources need to be cited, but the passage should have been expressed in your own word
in a complete manner.
Paraphrasing does not include changing few words around or changing the sequencing of the sentences from the original passage, like what you have done in your essay. This is an important concept to note since switching around few words and piecing sentences in different orders from the original passage together is considered as plagiarism. To avoid from recommitting plagiarism, I would recommend on you documenting all your sources for any type of quotes if the quotes are being directly quoted.
In direct quotation though, the quotes must be copied exactly, enclosed in quotations and must be sited in a MLA format. Second, you should use your own words as much as possible and use references when in doubt. Third, summarize or use personal commentary as your methods of rewriting the passages read. In each case, it must be written in your own words and must focus on the main idea of the passage. Last, recheck your work for plagiarism.
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