This is a story I tell in my classes, but I didn’t have the exact sources beforehand.
I also pass out a sheet that shows what the news media considers plagiarizing. Here’s the original and the plagiarized version – and the columnist who was found to have done this (before he ever got his washingtonpost.com job) resigned, and the editor said he would have fired him:
Murray had written:
“Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, wriggling countless tentacles and snapping their jaws. They’re known as the Phantoms, alien thingies that, for three decades, have been sucking the life out of the earthlings of ‘Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.’ ”
Domenech wrote:
“Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, splaying their tentacles and snapping their jaws, dripping a discomfiting acidic ooze. They’re known as the Phantoms, otherworldly beings who, for three decades, have been literally sucking the life out of the earthlings of the human.”
This shows them that plagiarism doesn’t have to be 10 pages of direct copying to ruin your career.
This is from avaya on the Chronicle’s fora.
I just received notice that I have received my college system’s writing award. They give one out per site. We have 60,000+ students and well over 1,000 teachers of various levels. And I received a writing award.