Case Study #4 Responses

Is she right or wrong? Why?

Response 1: Yes, she is wrong. This is plagiarism. Jennifer is taking someone else's work and presenting it as her own. Even though she is of the same opinion as the authors of the essays, she still needs to give them credit for their work.

Response 2: An author's analysis is a piece of "intellectual property" and does need to be cited and acknowledged. An instructor is not necessarily interested in an new analysis, but what the opinion of the student is. If Jennifer does agree with the essays she reads, she should cite them and explain WHY she agrees. This shows the instructor how carefully she did think about her projects.

Response 3: Thoughts cannot be copyrighted, so there seems to be no direct infringement in this case, but there is a fine line between having and writing thoughts that are similar to something you have read and using direct quotes. If it were me, I would use a direct quote, cite it properly, then elaborate on it using my own words. I would do this for each thought or idea that paralleled what I had read. Writing this way works in her favor, because using direct quotes, cited properly, lends credibility to her writing and strength to her ideas.

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