To:                      Freshman English Students

FROM:               Director of English Composition

SUBJECT:          Plagiarism

The following definitions and departmental policies pertaining to plagiarism are designed to promote equity among all composition students. Plagiarism is submitting as your own work a paper written wholly or partly by anyone else. This includes any paper
            (1) Supplied or improved by anyone else, including the rewriting of a single clause;
            (2) Copied from a printed source to any extent:
                       (a)   word for word plagiarizing
                       (b)   the mosaic where "phrases are lifted out of the original text and moved to
                               new patterns";
                       (c)   the paraphrase where "the writer has simply traveled along with the original
                               text, substituting approximately equivalent terms," and even
                       (d)   the apt term, where "the writer has nor been able to resist the
                               appropriation of...striking terms" (Martin and Ohmann 269-273).

As Harold Martin and Richard Ohmann concede, "If it could be assumed that the distinction between plagiarism and honest use of sources is perfectly clear in everyone's mind, there would be no need for . . .  explanation" (p. 276). To be sure, sometimes echoing in your own paper what you have read elsewhere without acknowledging your indebtedness seems to be an honest mistake. After all, doesn't what you read become your own intellectual property? Well, yes, but if you can trace it back with a bit of honest effort, the source must be cited.

Students who fail to cite and quote where they should, despite the absence of absolute clarity to what constitutes plagiarism, will be failed in the course. Beyond that are the possibilities of an appointment with an academic dean and a record of the offense in the student's permanent file. The English department cannot play God and judge just how honest a mistake might have been.

With these definitions and policies in mind, you should certainly not commit plagiarism out of ignorance. With a sincere desire to express yourself honestly, you should not commit it at all.

Martin, Harold and Richard Ohmann. The Logic of Rhetoric of Exposition. 3rd ed. New York:
    Holt,1969.