Correctly Documenting Source Material

1. The following worksheet was adapted from materials created by the Writing Center at The University of Delaware:

Practice Spotting Plagiarism

Directions: Read the source material below. Then compare each of the versions written by student writers to the original source. How many of these writers are guilty of plagiarism? Why?

Below is a quotation from J. M. Roberts, History of the World (New York: Knopf, 1976). Compare this original quotation with the three other paragraphs.

How many of these writers are guilty of plagiarism? Why?

Source paragraph

The joker in the European pack was Italy. For a time hopes were entertained of her as a force against Germany, but these disappeared under Mussolini. In 1935 Italy made a belated attempt to participate in the scramble for Africa by invading Ethiopia. It was clearly a breach of the covenant of the League of Nations for one of its members to attack another. France and Great Britain, as great powers, Mediterranean powers, and African colonial powers, were bound to take the lead against Italy at the leag ue. But they did so feebly and half-heartedly because they did not want to alienate a possible ally against Germany. The result was the worst possible: the league failed to check aggression, Ethiopia lost her independence, and Italy was alienated after all.

Writer 1

Italy, one might say, was the joker in the European deck. When she invaded Ethiopia, it was clearly a breach of the covenant of the League of Nations; yet the efforts of England and France to take the lead against her were feeble and half-hearted. It a ppears that those great powers had no wish to alienate a possible ally against Hitler's rearmed Germany.

Writer 2

Italy was the joker in the European deck. Under Mussolini in 1935, she made a belated attempt to participate in the scramble for Africa by invading Ethiopia. As J. M. Roberts points out, this violated the covenant of the League of Nations (Roberts 845). But France and Britain, not wanting to alienate a possible ally against Germany, put up only feeble and half-hearted opposition to the Ethiopian adventure. The outcome, as Roberts observes, was "the worst possible: the league failed to check aggression, Ethiopia lost her independence, and Italy was alienated after all" (Roberts 845).

Writer 3

Much has been written about German rearmament and militarism in the period 1933-39. But Germany's dominance in Europe was by no means a foregone conclusion. The fact is that the balance of power might have been tipped against Hitler if one or two thing s had turned out differently. Take Italy's gravitation toward an alliance with Germany, for example. That alliance seemed so very far from inevitable that Britain and France actually muted their criticism of the Ethiopian invasion in the hope of remaini ng friends with Italy. They opposed the Italians in the League of Nations, as J. M. Roberts observes, "feebly and half-heartedly because they did not want to alienate a possible ally against Germany" (Roberts 845). Suppose Italy, France, and Britain had retained a c ertain common interest. Would Hitler have been able to get away with his remarkable bluffing and bullying in the later Thirties?

2. https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QPA_paraphrase.html