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ENG 490: Senior Literature Capstone

Course guide for ENG 490: Senior Literature Capstone

Session 4

Plagiarism

Jill Lepore published an article in the New Yorker about gun control in April 2012. A few months later, Fareed Zakaria published an article with several paragraphs that mimicked Lepore’s writing, although the wording was usually a little different. Zakaria was suspended for a week from Time, and apologized.

 

From Lepore’s 4/22/2012  

New Yorker article:  

 As Adam Winkler, a constitutional-law scholar at U.C.L.A., demonstrates in a remarkably nuanced new book, “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” firearms have been regulated in the United States from the start. Laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, and other states soon followed: Indiana (1820), Tennessee and Virginia (1838), Alabama (1839), and Ohio (1859). Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.” 

 

From Zakaria’s 8/20/2012  

Time Magazine column: 

 Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. Laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed: Indiana in 1829, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839 and Ohio in 1859. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.” 

 

Questions to consider: 

  1. Do you see a problem here?
  1. If so, what do you think should have happened? 

 

NOTES 

  1. Lepore, Jill. “One Nation, Under the Gun.” The New Yorker, April 23, 2012. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/23/120423fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=all

 

  1. Zakaria, Fareed. “The Case for Gun Control: Why Limiting Easy Access to Guns is Intelligent and American.” Time, August 20, 2012, 17.

Session 4

A Glass of Red Wine Equivalent to an Hour at the Gym

  1. Is this an ethical presentation of information?
  2. Why or why not?
  3. How could it be adjusted to make it better?
  4. How does this translate to your research and writing?
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