EXERCISE 23.2
Evaluating a Paraphrase for Plagiarism
The piece of student writing below is a paraphrase of a source on the history of advertising. Working with another student, evaluate the paraphrase and discuss whether it would be considered an example of plagiarism. If you decide the paraphrase is plagiarized, rewrite it so that it is not.
ORIGINAL SOURCE
Everyone knows that advertising lies. That has been an article of faith since the Middle Ages — and a legal doctrine, too. Sixteenth-century English courts began the Age of Caveat Emptor by ruling that commercial claims — fraudulent or not — should be sorted out by the buyer, not the legal system. (“If he be tame and have ben rydden upon, then caveat emptor.”) In a 1615 case, a certain Baily agreed to transport Merrell’s load of wood, which Merrell claimed weighed 800 pounds. When Baily’s two horses collapsed and died, he discovered that Merrell’s wood actually weighed 2,000 pounds. The court ruled the problem was Baily’s for not checking the weight himself; Merrell bore no blame.
Cynthia Crossen, Tainted Truth
PARAPHRASE