Derek's Essay
Below is the original essay Derek submitted along with my comments regarding the plagiarism I suspected (and confirmed via Google search and Derek's own admission) as a result of dramatic shifts in tone and grammatical choices. I sent Derek the below email and also discussed the issue with him in person.
Derek,
It appears that several of your analyses come straight from existing sources which you did not cite such as http://www.shmoop.com/eyes-were-watching-god/jealousy-quotes-6.html and http://loweperson.tripod.com/literaryanalysis/theireyeswerewatchinggodjoe.htm. I cannot give you a grade on this paper as it stands. Let's talk about this in person.
Mr. Peters
Derek and I talked about what plagiarism was as well as how and why to avoid it. I gave him two options: he could either re-write the paper using his own ideas or he could adjust the existing paper so that outside sources were correctly cited. He chose the first option and did put forth some effort to change things, but there were still some parts that sounded a lot like the original essay. As a result of the effort put forth, I decided to give Derek a grade (though not a passing one) as well as written feedback; however I still deducted points for the issue of plagiarism. Beyond this issue, I focused Derek's feedback around the strength of using topic sentences to good effect and the weaknesses of repeated sentence fragments and an unclear thesis. About this latter issue, I elaborated to say that none of the potential theses in his intro are fully or consistently supported in his essay's body.
Derek,
It appears that several of your analyses come straight from existing sources which you did not cite such as http://www.shmoop.com/eyes-were-watching-god/jealousy-quotes-6.html and http://loweperson.tripod.com/literaryanalysis/theireyeswerewatchinggodjoe.htm. I cannot give you a grade on this paper as it stands. Let's talk about this in person.
Mr. Peters
Derek and I talked about what plagiarism was as well as how and why to avoid it. I gave him two options: he could either re-write the paper using his own ideas or he could adjust the existing paper so that outside sources were correctly cited. He chose the first option and did put forth some effort to change things, but there were still some parts that sounded a lot like the original essay. As a result of the effort put forth, I decided to give Derek a grade (though not a passing one) as well as written feedback; however I still deducted points for the issue of plagiarism. Beyond this issue, I focused Derek's feedback around the strength of using topic sentences to good effect and the weaknesses of repeated sentence fragments and an unclear thesis. About this latter issue, I elaborated to say that none of the potential theses in his intro are fully or consistently supported in his essay's body.