A Word on Plagiarism

As I'm reading through blog posts, I'm consistently impressed those of you that are struggling trying to make meaning of the text. Some of you working on  The Bluest Eyes and The Handmaid's Tale are consistently impressive with your insights into gender and societal expectations, rules, and appearance. A few heroes with  The Memory Keeper's Daughter and  Atonement are also striving to make sense of the unabashed cruelty of humanity. For this time and effort, I thank  you. I appreciate that you are trying to make sense of these sometimes depressing and confusing texts.

On the other hand, a few of you are in very real danger. Not only have you personally offended me with this distasteful act, wasted my time and to a degree that of your classmates, you have also slandered your good name with me. On top of this, you've also cast the shadow of doubt on all your work for me thus far. Needless to say, the damage to future work will depend on your actions in the coming days.

Let me clarify some things that you might not realize. If you scoot on down to SparkNotes, or any of the hundreds of websites I too have access to, read over the summary of a chapter or an explanation of a quote and then just summarize it changing some words around--that's plagiarism. You have shown no original thought. Be it the structure, the wording, the syntax there are several ways to tell. Those of you who know you are guilty of doing the perviously outlined action are in danger. The head of the English department has been notified of your actions with evidence attached. I would highly recommend that you show that you were not aware that this was a form of plagiarism by going back and perhaps choosing a new quote or discussing a different section of the text and actually do your own work. I can only offer you a warning that failure to correct the work may result in further review from the RHS English Department, the involvement of administration, and the possible removal from the AP Literature Classroom.

This has been a warning that I hope is heeded.

For those of you kicking butt and doing your research on authors, doing your citations, and doing the work on the images,music, and videos--Thank you for kicking butt and being responsible. I love it when you guys comment back and give me clarifications into your thoughts and ideas. One blog is seriously discussing the importance of diction in her work and it's killer.

Keep Calm and Carry on,
KHdz