Urgent need help

[irish319]

Greetings all, I am a current high school student. I just got my research paper back with a grade of an 80%...not too bad right? THEN I saw that it had a 0% at the bottom on an account of plagiarism. I need to come up with an argument against this tomorrow in order to reverse my grade back to an 80%. Is using (literally) two words "egocentric hell" from a source that i had cited throughout the paper considered plagiarism? I paraphrased the original sentence, but using anything else but egocentric hell just didn't deliver the same punch. Please help me and decide whether or not using two words that are apprently not in my vocabulary according to my teacher. The website is also public domain, which means I don't need an in text citation, right?

Thanks in advance,
Timmy

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Any time you cite anything, anywhere, it needs a citation.

Still, realizing that this is only one side of the story, a grade of 0% for one missing citation on two words seems incredibly harsh and unrealistic. Plagiarism, in the wider sense, is when one steals whole ideas and doesn't give credit to the originator. Unless your whole paper revolved around ideas pertaining to those two words, I hardly see justification for that low grade, especially if you cite the same source elsewhere. Simply put, as described, this isn't plagiarism, it's a mistake. I've made much harsher citation mistakes in college and was never accused of plagiarism.

But, this is only your side of the story. I don't know the extenuating circumstances, and I'm assuming there are more. From the simple explanation above, either your teacher is a jerk and has it out for you, or you're not telling us the whole story.

[LitNetIsGreat]

It sounds like a bit of confusion. It is plagiarism if you do not give full credit to the original source of any ideas or phrases, anything that not your own. Even if you paraphrase you must credit the original. And yes regardless of whether it is public domain or not you must still credit it.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

It sounds like a bit of confusion. It is plagiarism if you do not give full credit to the original source of any ideas or phrases, anything that not your own. Even if you paraphrase you must credit the original. And yes regardless of whether it is public domain or not you must still credit it.

I think the problem here is what kind of plagiarism. Plagiarism can vary from copying a few words and forgetting to cite them, which is what this sounds like, to stealing a whole paper. A zero tolerance policy can hardly be implemented in both cases.

To the OP: you better than anyone here, obviously, know you're teacher. If he/she is a reasonable person, I don't see why you won't be able to clear things up. If the teacher isn't reasonable . . . well, good luck.

Let us know what happens.

[Charles Darnay]

It comes down to how much "paraphrasing" you did. If enough of your paper is not your own ideas it is plagiarism. If it's really just a matter of two words, just calmly explain you made a mistake and forgot to cite. The key is, don't fight with your teacher. If in the end you still feel cheated, take it up with your department head or other superior, but first explain to your teacher that you still feel cheated.

[OrphanPip]

Using a term defined by another author is not plagiarism, as long as you make it clear from the original use that you got the term from the source.

Charles' advice is probably the best, you go to the teacher and explain that you thought you had cited it appropriately and then ask your teacher to clarify how they would have preferred it to have been cited.

[irish319]

Thanks for your replies all! I really appreciate it. Now, back to the matter at hand. The paper had little to none paraphrasing, except for long quotes which needed to be condensed. On turnitin.com there was less than 1% plagiarism for the entire paper as it consisted of my own original interpretations of Barn Burning by William Faulkner. Also the grading of a 0% because of two words which I used from another source is, seemingly, a bit too harsh. Many of my peers have recieved more than 10% plagiarism on their papers, and gotten off the hook. I think I will bring up all of your points so far and read them to her and see how she handles it. Honestly I never lie, especially when it comes to school work as it is not a good idea to be known as a cheater throughout the teacher community. NOW, I legitimately forgot to cite the source, and was not aware that it had to be cited even when paraphrasing, especially if I only used two words that were not my own.

[AuntShecky]

In the future, anytime you use a phrase someone else created, always enclose it in quotation marks. If you don't want to cite it or footnote it as you would for a cource, you could preface it by writing, "As the critic Cyrill Drybread notes, this author has confined himself to "egocentric hell" and that way you're covered.