Exercise: Research: Avoiding plagiarism (MLA) 1 (autoscored)

Read the following passage. Then decide whether each of the items that follows cites the passage acceptably in MLA style or whether the citation may be considered plagiarism if included in another writer’s work. If the citation is acceptable, click “OK.” If the citation is plagiarized, click “Unacceptable.”

Click Submit after each question to see feedback and to record your answer. If your instructor has assigned this exercise set, you must answer every question before your answers will be submitted to the gradebook.

ORIGINAL SOURCE

. . . There is no such thing as a literary work or tradition which is valuable in itself, regardless of what anyone might have said or come to say about it. “Value” is a transitive term: it means whatever is valued by certain people in specific situations, according to particular criteria and in the light of given purposes. It is thus quite possible that, given a deep enough transformation of our history, we may in the future produce a society which is unable to get anything at all out of Shakespeare. His works might simply seem desperately alien, full of styles of thought and feeling which such a society found limited or irrelevant. In such a situation, Shakespeare would be no more valuable than much present-day graffiti.

From page 11 of Literary Theory by Terry Eagleton (U of Minnesota P, 1996).

1 of 10

Eagleton notes that a society may someday exist which is unable to get anything out of Shakespeare (11).

A.
B.

2 of 10

There is no such thing as a literary work or tradition which is valuable in itself.

A.
B.

3 of 10

No literary work exists that is and will always be valuable, no matter what anyone thinks of it.

A.
B.

4 of 10

Eagleton argues, “There is no such thing as a literary work or tradition which is valuable in itself, regardless of what anyone might have said or come to say about it” (11).

A.
B.
Eagleton argues, “There is no such thing as a literary work or tradition which is valuable in itself, regardless of what anyone might have said or come to say about it” (11).

5 of 10

Someday our society may have altered so much that no one appreciates the sentiments or the ideas in the works of Dickens.

A.
B.

6 of 10

Eagleton foolishly considers Shakespeare “no more valuable than much present-day graffiti” (11).

A.
B.
Eagleton foolishly considers Shakespeare “no more valuable than much present-day graffiti” (11).

7 of 10

As Eagleton points out, the value of a work of literature changes depending on its audience—literary value is a subjective idea, not a fixed one (11).

A.
B.
As Eagleton points out, the value of a work of literature changes depending on its audience—literary value is a subjective idea, not a fixed one (11).

8 of 10

Eagleton explains that literary value “means whatever is valued by certain people in specific situations, according to particular criteria and in the light of given purposes” (11). Someday Shakespeare might mean little or nothing to the people in this culture.

A.
B.

9 of 10

Eagleton argues that someday, Shakespeare texts “might simply seem desperately alien, full of styles of thought and feeling which . . . a society found limited or irrelevant” and thus as incomprehensible and worthless to the society’s people as scribbled graffiti (11).

A.
B.
Eagleton argues that someday, Shakespeare texts “might simply seem desperately alien, full of styles of thought and feeling which . . . a society found limited or irrelevant” and thus as incomprehensible and worthless to the society’s people as scribbled graffiti (11).

10 of 10

As Eagleton observes, “value” is a transitory word that describes something appreciated by particular people in particular times and places, judged by certain standards for certain reasons (11).

A.
B.