Today, in response to my statement that I have penalized students in the past for no more than what Gay did, someone asked, " As a former academic, did you use MLA, Chicago, AP, APA, or all three?"
But it doesn't matter what citation style she used. There's not one citation style that authorizes using other direct words without quotation marks or using another's ideas without failing to cite them.
The styles only dictate how you cite others - in-text vs. numbered, the grievous little details of the structure of the citation, etc.
These people are desperate, and the more they have to rely on bizarre arguments like this, the more obvious their desperation is.