Would an intentional parody of a piece of movie dialogue count as plagiarism in a college essay? The majority of the essay is original, but aa few phrases are copied to maintain the ‘feel’ of the dialogue on which it is based.
Is this OK?
I’d probably call it fair use myself, but it depends on the context. “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away” as a lead-in to something is not plagiarism. I assume you’re doing something creative with recognizable lines – e.g., “lions and tigers and bears, oh my” or “who are those guys” – but, if it’s borderline, you might want to figure out a way to identify the copied phrases. Maybe, double quotes to indicate both dialog and citation?
I think quotes would kind of ruin the essay, I tried fitting them in but they are a little too distracting. I guess my question was an intentional attempt at parody, would that be considered OK?
Paraphrasing those specific bits seems counter-productive because then it would seem like I was trying to pass them off as original.
Thanks for your response
It’s hard to answer in the abstract. I think intentional parody is fine, but it depends how obvious it is what you doing. If you want to PM me your essay or the relevant part [even if it’s still a work in progress], I’d be happy to give you my reaction.