Question

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright—
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.



-from "The Walrus and the Carpenter” by Mother Goose

Carlos is integrating this source content into his essay. Which of the following sentences demonstrates an ethical and responsible use of this source in his writing?

“The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might.”
Mother Goose begins to describe the oddity at the end of the first stanza, “And this was odd, because it was / The middle of the night.”
The sun was shining on the sea, / Shining with all his might:
The poem says this was odd because it was the middle of the night and the reader is left to wonder, “Why is it odd? How can it be sunny in the middle of the night?”

Answer 1

The second sentence.

Reason: it clearly attributes the lines to the source (“Mother Goose”) and uses quotation marks for the exact words taken from the poem. The others either reproduce the poem’s text without attribution (1 and 3) or mix a paraphrase with quoted rhetorical questions in a way that could be unclear about what is original versus taken from the poem (4).