Summary Of On March 11 By Leonard Pitts

Leonard Pitts crafts a judgmental tone through repetition, his choice of diction, antithesis, and personal anecdotes to convince his audience that plagiarism is despicable and a complete dishonor to the struggle of original writers and literature itself. Pitts carefully chooses his words to create a critical tone in the open letter. It is most apparent when he refers to Cecil’s plagiarism as theft. He repeatedly calls Cecil’s actions theft because it brings the reader’s attention to how Cecil’s decision to plagiarize Pitts is stealing and disrespectful to literature. Since thievery is a crime most people are well aware of, the reader is compelled to criticize Cecil for doing something so obviously wrong. Thus, if plagiarism is such a malicious act, the audience

Ultimately, moving the audience to value original creations and shy away from ever considering plagiarism, because it had turned out so poorly for Cecil. The editorialist purposefully contrasts his own workstyle and his plagiarist's to mock the copies and their inconsistencies. Pitts contrasts his original work to Cecil’s copies with paragraph structure by beginning one paragraph with “On March 11, I wrote” and the very next paragraph with “On May 12, you ‘wrote’” (Pitts). He strategically places his original works parallel to Cecil’s copies to highlight all of Cecil’s errors in copying his work. Since the plagiarized versions have obvious mistakes when compared to the original articles, the reader is made instantly aware of the mistakes in Cecil’s version. Thus, when the plagiarized versions get details obviously wrong, the audience will notice that they are not credible and understand that original works are better. Furthermore, understanding the author’s hatred for Cecil’s actions allows readers to understand why he does not consider Cecil to be a true