WC120
Spring 2004
The Emergence of the Modern
World
Instructor: Patrick
M. Thomas
Office: Olmsted
306
Office Hours: MWF
1-3; TTh 11-1
Telephone: 479-2251
Email: pt4@evansville.edu
Course Goals:
World
Cultures 110 and 120 together form the cornerstone of the General Education
Program. As a result, World Cultures
will emphasize the development of critical reading skills, critical thinking
skills and critical writing skills.
The
courses are organized on the basis of periodic central lectures and small
seminars. All students will adhere to a
reading list that will serve as the source of context, coherence, and
commonality for students and faculty.
Subsequently, the seminar system fosters a common learning experience
based on serious small-group discussions and rigorous writing under the
direction of a faculty mentor.
World Cultures 120 will examine some of the movements and ideas that emerged since the end of the Renaissance and Reformation, and how some of these events have set the tone for present world conditions. For example, some topics will include the consequence of Western European expansion around the globe, the role of racism, the emergence of different challenges to political authority, the emergence of science, and the role of class. Some of the selected readings include Stillman Drake, editor, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place, Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and Richard Wright, Native Son.
All
sections of World Cultures 120 will follow the same schedule of readings and
lectures, with variations in the seminar sessions depending on the interests of
each professor. The same principles for
assignments and evaluation are followed as much as possible by each professor.
About the instructor:
My background: I am an associate professor of Archaeology
and the chair of the Dept. of Archaeology/Art History. My BA is from
You are responsible for purchasing or acquiring all of the
required texts, and for reading the syllabus and understanding the class
schedule, policies, and assignments. Do not throw the syllabus away. You will
need to refer to it throughout the semester.
Required Texts for
all sections:
Richard Wright, Native Son
Galileo, “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina”
Samuel Huntington, “Clash of Civilizations”
Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel
and Dimed
Additional texts for
this section:
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Dee Brown, Bury My
Heart at
Edmund Burke, Reflections
on the Revolution in
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Course Schedule:
Unless announced otherwise, common lectures will be held in Dunigan Hall; old-timers, including your instructor, will often refer to this as the “Great Hall.”
Western Intrusion
January 12 Introductory
Lecture
January 14
January 16
January 19 MLK Day, no class;
January 21 Chinua Achebe,
Things Fall Apart
January 23 Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
January 26 Discuss the movie The
Mission [times the video will be shown have yet to be announced]
“Others” in
January 28 Introductory
Lecture/Video
January 30 Library research methods (either today or the following week)
February 2 Richard Wright, Native Son
February 4 Richard Wright, Native
Son
February 6 Richard Wright, Native
Son
February 9 Dee Brown, Bury My Heart
at
February 11 Dee Brown, Bury My Heart
at
February 13 Dee Brown, Bury My Heart
at
Challenging Political
Authority
February 16 Introductory
Lecture/Video
February 18 Thomas
Paine, Common Sense
February 20 Thomas Paine, Common Sense
February 23 term paper session
February 25 Edmund Burke, Reflections
on the Revolution in
February 27 Edmund Burke, Reflections
on the Revolution in
March 1 Edmund Burke, Reflections
on the Revolution in
March 3 mid-term review
March 5 Midterm
The Clash of Ideas
March 15 Introductory
lecture/video
March 17 Galileo, “The Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina”
March 19 Galileo, “The Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina”
March 22 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
March 24 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
March 26 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Collision of Class
March 29 Introductory lecture/video
March 31 Lecture/video
discussion
April 2 Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
April 5 Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
April 7 Nickel and Dimed,
Barbara Ehrenreich
April 9 Easter Break
April 12 Easter Break
April 14 “Clash of
Civilizations”,
April 16 “Clash of
Civilizations”,
April 19 “Clash of
Civilizations”,
April 21 “Clash of
Civilizations”,
April 23 slack day
April 26 final review
April 28 Reading/Study
Day
April 30 Final Exam
GRADING POLICY COMMON TO
ALL SECTIONS OF WORLD CULTURES 120:
Grades will be determined
on the basis of the following considerations:
·
Written
Assignments (3 essays, 1 Research paper) 50%
·
Exams (Midterm
and Final, 15% each) 30%
·
Class
Participation,
A= 92-100% B+= 86-88.9% C+= 76-78.9% D+= 66-68.9%
A-= 89-91.9% B= 82-85.9% C= 72-75.9% D= 60-65.9%
B- 79-81.9% C- 69-71.9% F= below 60
WRITING REQUIREMENT FOR ALL SECTIONS OF WORLD CULTURES
120:
Each student will be required to write the equivalent of
approximately 20 typed pages during the course of the semester. The writing
will most cases be a combination of in- class and out-of-class assignments but must include at a minimum a
Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQ)
Q. I
don't want to be in this class. I came here to major in interplanetary social
engineering and I shouldn't have to take any courses that don't relate to that.
I don't care what people thought about 3000 years ago, 1000 years ago, or
yesterday. You don't mind if I just blow this class off and sit here like a
bump on a log, do you?
A. I do mind. This attitude suggests to me that besides being a narrow and dull person, you are probably headed for a permanent place on the lower rungs of your chosen profession, if you get there at all, because the people who usually get ahead in life are those with lively personalities and interests in a variety of areas, not only what they do between 9 and 5. That you would choose for yourself a life little distinguished from that of a domestic animal makes me sad, and while I cannot control your choice, I can certainly try to develop your human potential and show you that the unexamined life is not worth living.
Q. Who designed this course, anyway?
A.
Not I. WC 120 is designed and assessed by a World Cultures coordinator and a
committee of faculty members. It is not “my” course. Faculty members teaching
the course have the option to select certain readings for each set of topics,
but the topics themselves are prescribed, as are about half of the readings. My
honest opinion is that the lack of historical context in WC 120 leads to
confusion; moreover, like many such “freshman experience” courses, it suffers
from having too many objectives. That being said, as part of an academic
community I yield to the judgments of my colleagues and try to do the best job
I can with it.
Q.
The grades you get in World Cultures don't really count, right?
A.
They count just as much as any other course that you take.
Q.
Every paper I get back from you is full of corrections, additions, and
suggestions in bright red ink. You've even marked my spelling and grammar
mistakes. This is the new millennium, man! Don't you realize that this stuff
doesn't matter anymore?
A.
The reason I often comment rather fully is that I take you and your ideas
seriously. Probably nothing you do here is more important than learning how to
communicate in an organized, thoughtful, and moderately elegant way. Real
people lose real jobs in the real world because they cannot express themselves
clearly or write in such a slovenly manner that employers and clients peg them
as careless or stupid.
Q.
My roommate is in a WC section, and they only had to read two books and did six
pages of writing instead of twenty. This is unfair! Outrageous! You're
violating my civil rights! What are you, some kind of tyrant?
A.
All WC instructors work from a common syllabus. Everything important comes
directly from the common syllabus that instructors are required to use, save a
couple of explanatory sections. The amount of writing is mandated by the common
syllabus, not by the individual instructor. If other instructors are not doing
what they're supposed to, that is a matter for the WC coordinator to deal with;
it does not mean that other instructors must therefore dumb down their
requirements.
Q. All this grading of writing is completely subjective and based on how well you like us individually or how bad a mood you’re in, right?
A. Come—let us face some facts. A frequent exercise in faculty workshops both at UE and other institutions (and we have a couple of them yearly for World Cultures) is to distribute a set of student papers culled from various courses; the names of the students are blanked out. Faculty are then asked to read, critique, and assign a grade to each paper. Often faculty from disciplines where writing is not emphasized express nervousness about their ability to assess student writing. When it comes to “show and tell” time, however, it invariably turns out that virtually all faculty members assign nearly the same grade, usually within a plus or minus, to the same paper and almost always within a whole letter grade. It simply is not the case that faculty members can’t consistently distinguish an “A” from a “C”—in fact, most of the time they agree with unanimity on distinguishing a “B+” from a “B-.” Some faculty, admittedly, are better than others at explaining why a particular grade is warranted.
Q. But in my roommate’s friend’s class, everyone got “A’s” on all of their essays and the teacher never bothered to correct the papers!
A. Well, I’ve heard of these sections, but as far as I can tell, they’re mostly mythical: in 14 years here, I have only had two advisees out of substantially more than one hundred confess to being in such a section. Many more have complained that they had the hardest instructor in the whole university. Also, I think that some faculty members, although knowing perfectly well what grade a paper actually warrants, award somewhat higher grades for various reasons.
Q.
Of course, you don't mind if I bring my cell phone/beeper/pager/walkie-talkie to class?
A.
All electronic communications devices are prohibited in my classes. They are
disruptive and unnecessary. On the other hand, if for some reason you feel the
need to tape a class, that's fine.
Q.
I’m the kind of person who marches to the beat of a different drummer and makes
my own rules. You surely don’t expect me to follow all these rules you lay out
for the essays and papers, do you?
A. I
do.
Q.
Since I have a hard time getting to class on time, you won't be too upset when
I come in late, will you?
A. I
doubt that I will yell at you too loudly, but being late counts as a half
absence. Being more than fifteen minutes late counts as a full absence.
Q. I
hope you realize that you are ruining my semester. Jerk!
A.
Thank you for sharing that.
For
each assignment you will write an essay addressing one of the questions. Your
essay should be about 4-5 pages in length (typed, double-spaced; if you write
longhand, skip lines, and the length should be at least 8 pages), exclusive of
a separate title page. Check your paper carefully for grammar and spelling
mistakes. These are NOT intended to
be research papers, but are intended to develop facility in working with texts
and writing about them. DO NOT use
lengthy quotes under any circumstances: briefly paraphrase the passage to which
you want to refer, and give a page number in parentheses. If you do use any
sources other than the text, you must document that with footnotes or
parenthetical notes. Margins should be no greater than 1.5 inches on the left
and no greater than 1 inch on the others. Do not put extra spaces between
paragraphs, or employ any of the other quite tiresome space-filling tricks. The
font should be 10 or 12 point; do not use a cursive or strange-looking font;
only black ink or toner is acceptable for text. The essays should be fastened
with a staple or a paperclip in the upper left-hand corner. Do not put the
essays into a folder or plastic cover. Essays not meeting these specifications
will be returned for correction and given a late penalty.
Essays
are due on the indicated dates at
If
you are dissatisfied with a grade received on the first two essays, you may
re-write them for extra credit. You can earn a maximum of extra eight points
for the assignment, although a typical re-write that goes no further than
fixing grammatical, spelling, or mechanical problems will only gain two or
three points. Re-writes must be completed no later than one week after the
assignment is returned.
Term Paper Specifications
One
of the requirements for this course is a term paper. This is a project that
requires you to select a topic, research it in the library, and write a paper
about what you learned. The paper must be properly documented: it must include
a bibliography and footnotes or endnotes of some kind indicating the source of
quotes and specific information. You must use at least six different sources.
No more than two (2) of these may be
Internet-based; this will be strictly
enforced. Note that this restriction does not apply to regular print
journals or books that have been placed onto an internet database, such as
JSTOR. You may use no more than one
(1) encyclopedia article as a source; this
will be strictly enforced. I absolutely forbid the use of high school-level
encyclopedias such as Microsoft Encarta
or the World Book. College-level
materials such as the Encyclopedia Britannica or The Grove Dictionary
of Art are much more suitable. You should attempt to use both primary and secondary sources: a primary source is either an original text or
first-hand account by a participant in an event. A secondary source is someone
else's opinion or interpretation of a text or event. Common Sense is a primary text; an article about it is a secondary
source, for example. Do not feel that you are restricted to the sources
available in our library alone, because the library can obtain almost any book
or article you need through Interlibrary Loan: all you need do is fill out a
form with some basic information about the source (e.g., author and title), and
the library can obtain it. You can even submit requests from the library’s Web
page. If you would like to use Interlibrary Loan, let me know, and I will show
you how to use it.
The
topic of the term paper is up to you. It must in some way relate to the
historical periods/themes that we cover in this course, but beyond that, you
have the widest latitude in selecting a topic, although purely biographical or descriptive term papers are NOT acceptable
(e.g., “The Life of Gandhi” or “The Discovery of DNA”). Your paper should have
as its focus some sort of controversy or problem that requires you to evaluate
evidence and draw conclusions. I strongly advise selecting a limited and manageable
subject.
The
best way to look for sources about a topic is to use a keyword search in the
library catalog to discover whether our library has any relevant books. The
bibliographies you find in books will be a good starting point to compile your
own list of sources. You can also use various indexes in the library such as The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature,
The Art Index, Expanded Academic Index, etc. UE has numerous library databases
available, many of which provide access to full-text articles in scholarly
journals. The reference librarians in the library are quite willing to help you
learn how to locate sources quickly and easily.
The
paper must be a minimum of seven pages long and may be no longer than ten
pages. Title page, bibliography, and any illustrations do not count toward the
final page total. The margins are to be no greater than 1.5 inches on the left
margin, and one inch on all other margins. The text is to be double-spaced,
except for longer quotes, which should be indented from the body of the
paragraph and single-spaced. The paper should be typewritten, or printed on a
laser printer or on a quality dot matrix printer; you may not use any ink color
other than black; do not use any cursive or strange-looking fonts. Font size is
to be 10 or 12 points. Papers not meeting these specifications will be returned
for appropriate modification. Electronic submissions of papers are not
acceptable.
If
you have never written a term paper, I would like you to first read Chapters 37-39
in the Harbrace Handbook, and then bring any questions
to me. EVERYONE should read Chapter 40, which concerns how to document your
sources using footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical notes. You may use any of
these forms, but you must use them
properly and consistently.
Schedule:
Jan.
28: Topic must be turned in (you will be assigned a topic if you do not have
one of your own)
Feb.
16: Bibliography for topic must be turned in (three points subtracted from
final paper grade if not turned in)
March
17: Outline of paper due (three points subtracted from final paper grade if not
turned in)
April
7: Draft of paper due (five points subtracted from final paper grade if not
turned in)
April
23: Final paper due no later than
All of these deadlines are mandatory and points will be
subtracted from the final grade if they are not met.
Grading Written Work
Essays and papers are graded A to F according to the
following scale of values, in this order of priority:
Content (50%)
Topicality/Responsiveness
(dealing directly with the assigned topic); Thoughtfulness (evidence of having
reflected seriously on assigned topic); Organization (order of subtopics and
details); Coherence (links between subtopics and details); Logic (relations
between subtopics and details); Validation (specificity and appropriateness of
details such as evidence and examples).
Mechanics (30%)
Grammar
(Standard American English forms, including case and number agreement, pronoun
reference, and verb conjugation); Titling; Paragraphing; Punctuating; Spelling.
Style (20%)
Diction (accurate and appropriate word choice); Sentence
Structure (variety; parallelism)
Paper Grades
A The essay is well-organized, stating
its thesis with clarity and developing it with logic, effective phrasing and
vivid details. The essay contains no more than one or two significant
mechanical errors, which are those interfering with immediate understanding of
meaning.
B The essay is also well organized,
notable for its force of argument and clarity of idea and diction, but there
are imperfections of development, lapses in style or attention to detail, or
minimal errors (five or fewer) in mechanics, grammar or sentence structure.
C The essay has a main idea that it
introduces or arrives at in its conclusion, and it develops that idea with
recognizable clarity and logic. The essay has no more than ten notable errors
in spelling, grammar, or sentence structure.
D The essay is one that lacks a main
idea, or does not develop clearly or completely in overall outline, in
individual paragraphs or in a notable number of sentences. The essay has more
than ten serious errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation or sentence
structure.
F The essay fails to develop an idea,
has numerous mechanical errors or grammatical deficiencies, or otherwise does
not exhibit standard English usage and clarity of diction.
The Dirty (Baker's) Dozen: Thirteen
Freshman (actually Sophomore, Junior, and Senior, too) Writing Problems
Lack of Focus on the Question. When you
are writing an essay or paper, be absolutely sure you stay on topic. The vast
majority of college professors are analytical individuals who put a high
premium on dealing directly with a question in an organized fashion. Many of
you got away with wandering all over the place in papers in high school because
you wrote in a creative or energetic way. Be sure that you directly address the
question or topic posed. If you are asked to write why Gandhi is or is not a
hero, for example, a comparison of him with other traditional heroes would be
appropriate as part of the answer. But you
must deal with the question of his being a hero: it is not
acceptable to avoid the main question. If you are asked to write an essay on Galileo,
it is desirable to compare his ideas to those of others, but you should not
spend 95% of the paper on other people and only 5% on him.
Lack of a Clear Introduction. Not
infrequently I have to read 30-40% of an essay before I can actually determine
what it is about or which question it is answering. It should always be clear
to readers what it is about by the time they are ca. 10-15% into the work (in
assignments of under twenty pages). An introduction should indicate what the
paper is about, the purpose of the paper or what you are trying to show, and a
very brief statement of its major points and structure.
Improper Paragraphing. A paragraph is
about a single thought or topic. The first (or occasionally, second) sentence
is called the topic sentence and
indicates what the paragraph is about. When you start on a new topic, you begin
a new paragraph. Some of you may have been told by high school teachers that
essays should be answered with a body section having exactly five paragraphs. This is an idiotic rule that you should
consign to oblivion. A non-idiotic rule you should not consign to oblivion
is avoiding paragraphs of only one or two sentences.
Misuse of Words. Many students have
never opened a dictionary in their lives, and as a consequence do not know the
real meanings of words. They may have read them or heard them used in
conversation, but they do not understand their proper use. When you see a word
you don’t know, LOOK IT UP. When
usage problems are pointed out to you in papers, LOOK THE WORDS UP. If college professors with doctoral degrees are
not too proud to look up words they don’t know, you should not be either.
Incomplete Sentences. “John got fired
from his job. Which really made him
angry.” “Pete’s parents kicked him out of the house. Pushed him right into the street.” “God punished Job for no good
reason. A real bummer.” In creative
writing, incomplete sentences may be perfectly appropriate to express a train
of thought. They should be avoided in formal, expository writing or until you
are a famous writer who can break the rules.
“Dick and Jane” Writing. College
students often write short sentences. Short sentences are not incorrect in and
of themselves. They can be tedious, however. It is boring to read many of them
in a row. Why do students write like this? They are afraid of making mistakes
in writing longer sentences. Students should learn to write more complex
sentences. Varying sentence length is a good stylistic practice. Too many short
sentences drive professors to drink. They also make you seem simple-minded.
Colloquialisms. “I really thought that Things
Fall Apart sucked, big-time. It was, like, just way too deep for me.” Colloquial words and
expressions are fine in everyday, casual conversations, but they should be
avoided in formal expository writing. In the above examples, “really,” “like,”
and “just” are little more than fillers. Neither adds much to the sentence,
although you could replace “really” by the more formal “definitely” or
“especially.” “Sucked” and “big-time” are colloquialisms that can be replaced
easily by less rude and more formal words. “Deep” in this context is a
non-standard, colloquial usage. Note also that expressions such as “a lot,”
“quite a bit,” “maybe” (as in “maybe the Greeks emigrated”), etc. are regarded
as colloquialisms. Contractions (e.g., “can’t,” “won’t,” “I’ve,” or the
especially hideous “would’ve”) are also regarded by some teachers as
colloquialisms. You should also avoid the colloquial use of “you” and “your” as
in “First you have your Russian Revolution, then your Chinese Revolution.”
Excessive Formality and Archaic Language.
Some students write as though they are angling for a position in a 19th
century law office. Their essays bristle with phrases such as “whereas,”
“pursuant to,” “heretofore,” etc. These can easily be replaced with more direct
and less legalistic language. Under this heading I would also include ponderous
circumlocutions such as “due to the fact that”—which just means “because,” no?!
The over-formal essay writer is also often guilty of misuse of words. Be sure
that you know what those “big words” mean and how they are employed.
“There”-itis.
“There are many people who like to write wordy sentences.” “Many people like to
write wordy sentences.” “There have been many events that changed world
history.” “Many events have changed world history.” Excessive use of phrases
such as “there are,” “there is,” “there have been,” etc. makes for wordy and
weak writing. Usually these sentences can be pruned and restated more directly
as in the above examples, without losing any meaning. This does not mean that
you can never use “there is,” or similar expressions, but do not overuse them.
The Comma Splice. “John was going to
the store, Jane was going to the ball game.” Independent clauses (those with
their own subjects and verbs) must be separated not just by a comma, but also
by a conjunction (e.g., “and,” “but,” “or”). “John was going to the store, but Jane was going to the ball game.”
Misuse of Colons and Semicolons. A
semi-colon is equivalent to a comma + a coordinating conjunction (e.g., “,
and”). It is used to join independent clauses in lieu of a comma and
conjunction. It is also sometimes used to separate items or phrases in a list,
especially if they themselves contain commas. The colon is used to introduce an
explanation, elaboration of a previous clause, or a list of items. Read the
section in the Harbrace handbook about their use.
Websteritis. "According to Webster's
New World Dictionary, the word …." How many essays open with such a
phrase? Like Al Bundy in Married with Children, your instructor cries
"Oh God…" and begins to beat his head uncontrollably against the
desk. Not only is this a trite, hackneyed, and weak opening, but unless the
word in question is a rare or technical one, it is an insult to your reader to suppose
he or she is not familiar with basic English.
Triteness (especially at the beginning of a paper or essay). I know… I’ll start my paper with a grand-sounding phrase!: “Throughout history…,” “Ever since the beginning of time…,” “From the earliest days…,” etc. Yuck. Yuck. YUCK!
AND
What
is plagiarism? An old joke relates that plagiarism is copying from one source
while scholarship is copying from many. Probably most students would agree that
copying a passage verbatim from a source and attempting to pass it off as their
own work without citing the source constitutes plagiarism. Along with the vast
majority of college teachers you will encounter, I find plagiarism intolerable.
Plagiarism is morally worse than stealing as far as I am concerned, because not
only does a plagiarizer take someone else’s work without acknowledgment, but
also compounds that theft with deception. Many students, however, are under the
impression that by altering a couple of words, deleting or adding a sentence,
or introducing some other such slight modification in a passage, they make unattributed borrowing acceptable. Some students believe
that if they paraphrase a passage from another author, they need not cite the
source. While the student may not intend to deceive in this situation, this is
still plagiarism. I do not care if your
high school English teacher told you that it was permissible to do any of
these: your teacher was mistaken. And although this is admittedly a gray
area, it is even plagiarism to follow too closely the organization of someone
else’s work.
Why
do people plagiarize? In some cases, it is clearly poor management of time,
e.g., “Gee, that term paper is due tomorrow, and I haven’t even looked at the
topic yet.” More usually, though, students plagiarize to avoid thinking.
Plagiarism
is dumb. Leaving aside the moral issue, it is an insult to your instructors to
believe that they are so stupid as to not recognize the difference between the
writing style and organization of an older scholar and a nineteen-year-old student.
The fact is, folks, it sticks out like a sore thumb. In a school with a
relatively modest library such as UE, it is also likely that your instructor
has read many or all of the sources one is likely to plagiarize and that he or
she will recognize the author. The Internet has created additional temptation
for students. It is very easy to download a passage or whole paper and turn it
in as your own work. Without getting into the details of detection, suffice it
to say that many other instructors and I can very easily and quickly recognize
such plagiarism.
It
would surely be an awful burden if everything that we wrote had to be
completely “original.” The cult of “originality” and “creativity,” so eagerly
embraced by the American educational establishment, has produced such a torrent
of graceless and moronic prose, artless poetry, and abysmally incompetent art
that the very words “original” and “creative” have a suspiciously rank odor.
Please be assured that no one expects students or even world-class scholars to
relay only on their own knowledge and judgment, but when you use other people’s
words or ideas, you must acknowledge your sources.
Many
students are confused about when they must, when they should, and when they
need not cite a source. No matter what kind of paper you are writing, when you
quote directly or paraphrase someone else’s words, you must acknowledge the
source—always. You do not need to
cite sources for simple facts, common knowledge, or personal opinions, e.g.,
“the boiling point of water is 212 degrees,” “Sophocles wrote Oedipus Rex,” “the sky is blue,” or “the
Tao is icky.” When you should cite a
source depends on the formality of the paper. In a research paper, you
generally will want to acknowledge your sources as fully as possible so others
can consult them.
What
about “structural” plagiarism? If one were discussing the Vietnam War, it would
not be plagiarism to discuss Eisenhower's involvement before Kennedy, Johnson,
and Nixon, no matter how many other works followed the same arrangement,
because one might argue this is the natural chronological structure of such a
paper. What I have in mind is the very common practice of essentially
re-writing paragraphs or sections from a book or article in the same order as
they occur in the original. If you find yourself re-writing three or four
paragraphs from a source, then you are plagiarizing.
The
best way to avoid plagiarism is to start your writing assignments well ahead of
time, to take careful notes on index cards or in a notebook, to outline your
paper, and then to put away your actual sources, and write the paper from your
notes. When you have open books or xeroxes at your
elbow, it is very easy to start copying directly.
If I
believe that you have plagiarized a paper, my response will depend on the level
of deception I perceive in the plagiarism. If it appears to be inadvertent or
the result of a misunderstanding of what needs to be documented with sources, I
will ask you to rewrite the paper with correct sources. If I find an entire
paragraph lifted directly or closely paraphrased from another source without
attribution, I will assume that you intended to deceive me and you will receive
an “F” on the assignment. If you turn in a paper that is entirely plagiarized
or has more than one substantial plagiarized section, you will receive the
“death penalty”: an automatic “F” for the course and a referral to the dean of
students for disciplinary action, which will at a minimum result in academic
probation, and may result in suspension or expulsion. Would I really be that
severe?—“Been there, done that.” Note additionally that if I have detected
plagiarism in your work, you will not be allowed to withdraw from the class
with a "W."