Avoiding Plagiarism Workshop
Here is a passage from Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches and Other Stories:
When the Star-Belly Sneetches had frankfurter roasts
Or picnics or parties or marshmallow toast,
They never invited the Plain-Belly Sneetches.
They left them out cold, in the dark of the beaches.
They kept them away. Never let them come near.
And that’s how they treated them year after year.
Below are three possible ways students may draw on Sneetches in an essay.Identify which paragraphs constitute plagiarism and which do not.
1. The Star-Belly Sneetches are intolerant. When the Star-Belly Sneetches had frankfurter roasts or picnics or parties or marshmallow toast, they never invited the Plain-Belly Sneetches.They left them out cold, in the dark of the beaches, and kept them away year after year. So, we can see that is not very tolerant.
Is this plagiarism? Why or why not?
2. The Star Belly Sneetches are examples of intolerance in Dr. Seuss’s obvious attack on racial prejudice, status consciousness and exclusivity. Dr. Seuss wrote, “When the Star-Belly Sneetches had frankfurter roasts or picnics or parties or marshmallow toasts, they never invited the Plain-Belly Sneetches"( 7). There the Sneetches were, out in the cold in the dark of the beaches. They could have been included, but no, as Dr. Seuss points out, the Star-Belly Sneetches kept them away (7). And that's how they treated them year after year. It's a harsh picture of man's inhumanity to man.
Works Cited: Dr. Seuss, TheSneetches and Other Stories. (New York: Random House, 1961, renewed 1989), 7.
Is this plagiarism? Why or why not?
3. Upon first reading Dr. Seuss's fable, The Sneetches, appears to be an example of intolerance of the worst kind. Read of creatures kept off beaches by the mere fact of a star on their stomachs and immediately South African apartheid and segregation comes to mind as grievous examples of intolerance. It's easy to condemn such actions, keep a clear conscience, and put The Sneetches back on the shelf without another thought. But those smug Star-Bellies and their "frankfurter roasts, or picnics or parties or marshamallow toasts" aren't much different than high school cliques, country club members, or Not-In-My-Backyard political activists – people who would deny having a prejudiced bone in their bodies but who thrill daily at the little privileges of wealth and belonging (Seuss, 7).Its Seuss readers who refuse to apply the lessons of The Sneetches to their own lives who are really "in the dark" (7).
Is this plagiarism? Why or why not?