Research Journal, Part 2 Plagiarism

My Nerves are at their wit ends.   
While looking over "the terms and conditions of fair use" to the Purdue Owl Site, it stated "You may not copy and paste any information from the OWL into another document. All resources must be used as they appear on the OWL and in their entirety." The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2008. Web. 14 Jan. 2011.


My plan was to cut and paste the questions that I needed to answer.  Making it look nice and neat.  Now hopefully I don't put myself into jeopardy of plagiarism.  
But according to an email I received from The Purdue Owl, I may download the material I need as long as I don't change the format and go from there.  I hope I am doing this right. 
Oh where is my knight in shining armor? 
Here I go....

Safe Practices: An Exercise

Summary: There are few intellectual offenses more serious than plagiarism in academic and professional contexts. This resource offers advice on how to avoid plagiarism in your work.

Contributors:Karl Stolley, Allen Brizee
Last Edited: 2010-04-21 07:50:43

Read over each of the following passages, and respond on your own or as a class as to whether or not it uses citations accurately. If it doesn't, what would you do to improve the passage so it's properly cited?

1. Last summer, my family and I traveled to Chicago, which was quite different from the rural area I grew up in. We saw the dinosaur Sue at the Field Museum, and ate pizza at Gino's East.

Answer: This in general or common information. You do not have to cite common knowledge or information, like the capital of a state or a name of a museum or restaurant. 

2. Americans want to create a more perfect union; they also want to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for everybody.

Answer: These words are famous words from an historical document. There should be quotations place around the exact cited word for word. Then of course a stated or citation//bibliographic acknowledging the source. 

3. I find it ridiculous that 57% of high school students think their teachers assign too much homework.

Answer: This seems to be a summary of a survey study on high school homework assignments. It is an arguable assertion because a percentage is stated and because this is statistically driven, it would need to be cited and the source acknowledge in a bibliography. 

Numbers 4, 5, and 6 all refer to the following passage from Martin Luther King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail":

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

4. Martin Luther King was certain that nobody would want to be contented with a surfacy type of social analysis that concerns itself only with effects and doesn't deal with root causes.

Answer: This statement above uses the idea of the article and it also uses exact wording. Then the rest of the sentence is paraphrased. There should be quotations around the actually words stated. The published article should be cited. Not just the mention of the author's name. 

5. Martin Luther King wrote that the city of Birmingham's "white power structure" left African-Americans there "no alternative" but to demonstrate ("Letter from the Birmingham Jail" para. 5).

Answer: This seems to be correct. It depends which Style Manual the individual is using. This would determine how the exact citation would look like. 

6. In "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," King writes to fellow clergy saying that although they "deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham, your statement fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations."

Answer: This statement seems correct also. Of course there would be an acknowledgment in a Bibliography with the full publication information. 

7. My friend Kara told me that she loves living so close to the ocean.

Answer: This is a personal statement containing common information that two friends have shared with each other. It does not have to cited. 

8. Americans are guaranteed the right to freely gather for peaceful meetings.

Answer: This is general information stated in a common formality. If they would have stated the Amendment number or the actual wording from the Amendment, then it would have had to been acknowledged as a source of information. Thus citation would have had to be in place. 

Safe Practices Questions Generated by http://owl.english.purdue.edu