Although the author claims that she was just ‘mixing’ and that it should not be seen as plagiarizing, I think that it can be debatable. There are some books that I have read in the past that is based on historical figures, but the authors made the book into a diary in the person’s view (they had sources at the back of the book, along with actual pictures). I would consider that or something like that mixing. But having page in a book pretty much word for word the same, is really pushing the line between mixing and plagiarizing. Yes, mixing ‘allows’ people to use other people’s work/idea, and then put a different interpretation to it. But I think have one whole page of someone else’s work is a little overboard.
The author brings up an interesting point (one that we have mentioned in class before) that most of the younger generations (students) see plagiarizing differently from most of the older generation (most importantly teachers). It partly has to do with the fact that copying text is so much easier now. Technology has made is so much easier for people to find different sources, and more information. At the same time, it also indirectly encourages, or at least makes it easier to simply copy and paste sections of text. With the internet, it is easy for people to read a bunch of articles they find, read them all and only quote a few. In the citation, a lot of time the works that they read yet did not directly quote from is forgotten. Perhaps to avoid making that mistake, just list all sources in the bibliography or works cited page just in case. (I know that when I write, some of my phrases or word choices differ and is influenced by what I read around the time I write my paper).
Personally, I found it surprising that the girl in the article was still one of the finalists, even though the judges knew about the plagiarism. Perhaps to writing society is being more open minded (or some similar word that is not coming to me right now) about the issue.
I agree with the person who wrote the New York Times article, a few words or phrases that are similar, is accepted. But whole page or more is really pushing the standards or at least what is accepted. This article really puts most of the other articles on plagiarism and creates an example.
While doing proper citation of sources is rather confusing, there are people, websites, and even software that would help the general public with making proper citations (I was surprised to learn how Microsoft word 2007 has a reference menu that has helps with the citation). So it should not have been hard for her to come up with some kind of page with her sources listed out.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Inventing the University
One of the first thoughts that came to me when reading this article is how Bartholomae addresses the performance/authentic self indirectly. The mention of the writer and authority reminded me of another class I am taking, where we were talking about the authority, and how his authority changes between the first and second part of the book (Don Quixote). From the first part of the article, I am pretty sure that Bartholomae does not think that a student is an authentic self, at least when it comes to writing academic papers. He makes the point that students write differently, depending on who their audience is, and why they are writing the paper. I think he makes a good point that students have to ‘target’ their audience. Depending on who their audience is, the student can use jargon from a certain study without confusing the reader. One would not write a paper full of math or science jargon for an English class.
Continuing on the first paragraph, I think he is saying that people code switch when writing. Changing the way things are worded when talking to different people is really important (especially when one is trying to make a point). People talk to children and teachers differently. Can you see someone using a lot of college level academic jargon when talking to a child? The poor child would be so confused after talking to the person.
Through the article, I think that the author takes his writing really seriously. Towards the beginning of the paper, he points out that a technique would only work if they treat writing as words on a page. With that comment, one can tell that he believes that writing is more than just words on a piece of paper. His writing is influenced with his opinion, and perspective of the world around him. While there are people who write, just to make a living, he gives me the impression of wanting to be a writer because that is what he chooses to do. Since he is painting the people who write as a job in such bad light, I hope he is the type of person who likes to write, or is someone who writes for themselves while taking into account of who he is writing for.
I did not really notice it myself, how writing differs depending on what that piece of writing is supposed to do. While I know that writing lab reports is really different from writing papers, I did not take into account how I am unconsciously tailoring the language and phrases I use in paper to the audience.
Continuing on the first paragraph, I think he is saying that people code switch when writing. Changing the way things are worded when talking to different people is really important (especially when one is trying to make a point). People talk to children and teachers differently. Can you see someone using a lot of college level academic jargon when talking to a child? The poor child would be so confused after talking to the person.
Through the article, I think that the author takes his writing really seriously. Towards the beginning of the paper, he points out that a technique would only work if they treat writing as words on a page. With that comment, one can tell that he believes that writing is more than just words on a piece of paper. His writing is influenced with his opinion, and perspective of the world around him. While there are people who write, just to make a living, he gives me the impression of wanting to be a writer because that is what he chooses to do. Since he is painting the people who write as a job in such bad light, I hope he is the type of person who likes to write, or is someone who writes for themselves while taking into account of who he is writing for.
I did not really notice it myself, how writing differs depending on what that piece of writing is supposed to do. While I know that writing lab reports is really different from writing papers, I did not take into account how I am unconsciously tailoring the language and phrases I use in paper to the audience.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Blog List. . . .
I know that we were supposed to find more blogs to follow (I'm still looking for more), but I will write this for the three I have up right now. Maybe there is a better way of looking for blogs, if anyone has a better way than typing in phrases into google blog search (that is how I found two out of the three so far), please let me know. *Ok, so now that I have found enough for the assignment, it is fine, but if anyone has a better way to search for more blogs, please let me know*
My Abstract Thoughts. . . well I actually know the person writing the blog, but I find it interesting, firstly because it is also what I think is 'homework' blog (just like how this one is right now), and secondly, I am interesting in seeing what she has to do and read in the class.
Jane Austen. I found this one through google blog search. So far, I have read two of her books, and liked it, and this site gives different perspectives of pretty much all her stories, so it would be interesting to see what other people thing, or come up with from the same book.
America's Most Wanted. This is my attempt to keep up with the show. I used to watch it every week, but have been busy the last few weeks when the show is on. To this day, I don't know why I watched the show when I was younger, since I was always scared during the clips. . .
Grey's Anatomy. . . well, with this one, I just started watching the show on TV, so I decided that I would like to read some insight so here is the link.
Dale Chihuly. I saw a special exhibit they had on him at the Legion of Honor and LOVED the pieces he designed. I will be waiting to see if there will be more information and artwork from this artist. But since this has not been updated for three years, here is my last blog for the blog roll for now.
Koit. I have grown up listening to this radio station, and from the list of blogs, I like to look at different ones depending on the most interesting story I hear on the radio.
Ok, so remember how at the beginning of this post I was saying that I could not find a blog. . . well, now I know that a lot of my random article reading comes from blogs. The article about recycling caught my eye (garbage nigh, sigh), and then I saw the link to the author's blog. Some of the articles look interesting. Can't wait to see what else will be posted!
My Abstract Thoughts. . . well I actually know the person writing the blog, but I find it interesting, firstly because it is also what I think is 'homework' blog (just like how this one is right now), and secondly, I am interesting in seeing what she has to do and read in the class.
Jane Austen. I found this one through google blog search. So far, I have read two of her books, and liked it, and this site gives different perspectives of pretty much all her stories, so it would be interesting to see what other people thing, or come up with from the same book.
America's Most Wanted. This is my attempt to keep up with the show. I used to watch it every week, but have been busy the last few weeks when the show is on. To this day, I don't know why I watched the show when I was younger, since I was always scared during the clips. . .
Grey's Anatomy. . . well, with this one, I just started watching the show on TV, so I decided that I would like to read some insight so here is the link.
Dale Chihuly. I saw a special exhibit they had on him at the Legion of Honor and LOVED the pieces he designed. I will be waiting to see if there will be more information and artwork from this artist. But since this has not been updated for three years, here is my last blog for the blog roll for now.
Koit. I have grown up listening to this radio station, and from the list of blogs, I like to look at different ones depending on the most interesting story I hear on the radio.
Ok, so remember how at the beginning of this post I was saying that I could not find a blog. . . well, now I know that a lot of my random article reading comes from blogs. The article about recycling caught my eye (garbage nigh, sigh), and then I saw the link to the author's blog. Some of the articles look interesting. Can't wait to see what else will be posted!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
My Word! Chapter Three
Observing the Performance Self
Throughout the chapter, something one of my teachers talked about kept coming to mind. During one of his classes, he brought up the term ‘code switching’. His explanation was that we talk and act differently when we are with different people, and in different environments. When he asked the class ‘who does not think they code switch’, a lot of people raised their hands. Then, he asked people to think about the way they talk to their friends, and see if they use the same terms, and attitude when talking to their teachers/parents/elders. When he asked the question again, no one raised their hand. I think his explanation is another way of talking about the performance self. To me, authentic self is being true to one’s inner self. The authentic self would not let others pressure them into doing things that go against what they wanted to do or what they believe in. Where the performance self may be an instinct, or a purposeful reaction.
I do not see myself as a performance self, or an authentic self. It feels as if the two are two ends of a spectrum (I took way too many science classes. . .) where I feel that I am somewhere in the middle. While I try to be as true to myself as possible, I know for a fact that I act differently in different situations. I act differently to someone I just met versus a childhood friend, and there are some people in my life who I tend to ignore most of the time. Before reading the article about performance self, I would have probably said that I am an authentic self, but after reading the article, I will stick to the grey area between the two.
My reaction to Blum's statement on p. 89 that "The performance self is more prone to cheat and plagiarize than the authentic self . . . For a performance self, intellectual property is a quaint yet meaningless notion." so I copied this from the 114 blog):
The chapter points out that there is an emphasis on grades, and impressing teachers (or people’s bosses). To address the emphasis on grades now a day, there are teachers who like students to have multiple sources in their papers to show that they did their research, while there are also some who want the students to show that they were in class (there was a girl in the chapter whose philosophy teacher was like this). There are some cases where the performance self is encouraged to use other people's ideas and the only thing that saves them from plagiarizing is their citation or what their teacher thinks. I agree that there are some students out there that believe that they are forced into cheating or plagiarizing.
As Susan Blum says, the authentic self and the performance self are models, and let’s face it, there are very few things in life that follows a model (no matter how much we wish it would . . . unfortunately). So I guess this is one of those times when it is alright for me not to be able to make up my mind.
Throughout the chapter, something one of my teachers talked about kept coming to mind. During one of his classes, he brought up the term ‘code switching’. His explanation was that we talk and act differently when we are with different people, and in different environments. When he asked the class ‘who does not think they code switch’, a lot of people raised their hands. Then, he asked people to think about the way they talk to their friends, and see if they use the same terms, and attitude when talking to their teachers/parents/elders. When he asked the question again, no one raised their hand. I think his explanation is another way of talking about the performance self. To me, authentic self is being true to one’s inner self. The authentic self would not let others pressure them into doing things that go against what they wanted to do or what they believe in. Where the performance self may be an instinct, or a purposeful reaction.
I do not see myself as a performance self, or an authentic self. It feels as if the two are two ends of a spectrum (I took way too many science classes. . .) where I feel that I am somewhere in the middle. While I try to be as true to myself as possible, I know for a fact that I act differently in different situations. I act differently to someone I just met versus a childhood friend, and there are some people in my life who I tend to ignore most of the time. Before reading the article about performance self, I would have probably said that I am an authentic self, but after reading the article, I will stick to the grey area between the two.
My reaction to Blum's statement on p. 89 that "The performance self is more prone to cheat and plagiarize than the authentic self . . . For a performance self, intellectual property is a quaint yet meaningless notion." so I copied this from the 114 blog):
The chapter points out that there is an emphasis on grades, and impressing teachers (or people’s bosses). To address the emphasis on grades now a day, there are teachers who like students to have multiple sources in their papers to show that they did their research, while there are also some who want the students to show that they were in class (there was a girl in the chapter whose philosophy teacher was like this). There are some cases where the performance self is encouraged to use other people's ideas and the only thing that saves them from plagiarizing is their citation or what their teacher thinks. I agree that there are some students out there that believe that they are forced into cheating or plagiarizing.
As Susan Blum says, the authentic self and the performance self are models, and let’s face it, there are very few things in life that follows a model (no matter how much we wish it would . . . unfortunately). So I guess this is one of those times when it is alright for me not to be able to make up my mind.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Second Chapter of My Word!
This second chapter of My Word! is packed with interesting information. I liked how she used some of the transcripts from the study she did to help get an idea of how other college students see plagiarism. The way the chapter was separated made it seem easier to read. It was really interesting to read about how copyright developed, and how who the true owner of the paper/article. When I got to the footnote section of the book, how I wished I was reading this a couple of semesters ago. There was a last minute group project we had to do, and during the last group meeting we had before the project was due, one of the group members decided to argue about footnotes for the whole hour we met up. Anyways, back to the book. I guess since I don’t really watch as much TV as I would like to, I don’t find the people around me quoting as often as the book makes it out to be (that or maybe they just don’t tell me. . . but they would normally use that as an excuse to tease me a little. . . hmmm. . . ). While sitting in places, while listening around me, I would hear a movie/TV reference once in a while (I only said that I don’t watch much, but between what I do watch, and loving friends, I do know some of the more popular quotes). It is good to know that I am not the only one who has problems with citing sources once in a while, and that most teachers really look into cases before bringing up the plagiarism case to the dean.
But it is true, no matter how original people try to be, we are influenced by other works.
But it is true, no matter how original people try to be, we are influenced by other works.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Should a charge of plagiarism ruin your life?
Wow there are so many different ways of seeing or thinking about plagiarism. To mast, in the beginning, it would seem like a really bad thing to have people copy from you. But after a while, it can be seen as a compliment to the ‘original’ author. The piece of writing must have been good for people to read it, and like it enough to copy it into their own writing. Not properly citing the work is similar to disrespecting the original author. There are times when people do not mean to plagiarize, or they might cite their sources incorrectly. That is similar to when people don’t show the ‘proper’ respect to others. Using that analogy, it would also help explain the difference between cultures, and even age groups. Going back to the reading, I guess I can see how copying information gathered by a person without consent and using details from the author’s life in a work are two totally different things. Using life details just feels like such a bigger breach of privacy. Between the ownership of words, and copyright laws, this is starting to get a little confusing. Perhaps it is because plagiarism is governed by ethical rules, and to tell the truth, different people have different stands on ethics. It is interesting how there are some cases where it is alright to copy someone else’s work. The rules regarding written work is super strict, and yet there are so many instances where music is somewhat copied from artist to artist, and yet it seems like it is nothing. In the music world, it is seen as influence, or tweaking the original music. While they cannot outright copy the music note for note, having parts that are similar (like patch working in writing) is acceptable in that industry. In the end, I found it a little funny how the person writing the play acknowledges her other sources, just not some of them. And how do you deal with the plagiarist being plagiarized?
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
What is an essay?
In the past, the essay has at least five paragraphs; the introduction, at least three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion paragraph. Some teacher had a very specific way they wanted the essays to be done. I had a teacher who wanted a five paragraph essay, and each paragraph had to go with a certain pattern. Within each paragraph, it had to be a topic sentence, concrete detail, two commentary sentences (repeat the concrete detail and two commentary a few times) and lastly a conclusion sentence.
There are different types of essays. Research, debate, and probably what most teachers want from students when they want papers (?). To me, essays are a little more formal than other types of writing. Throughout elementary and high school, essays seem to be a lot of points compared to other assignments. It used to be that essays took a long time to write. A class can easily spend a whole month under the guidance of a teacher (ok, so the teacher sets the due dates, and the students drag their feet to meet the deadline) to produce THE final copy of an essay to be graded. When writing an essay, there is at least one draft, before the final version. It is always important to keep track of the information gathered for the paper, because there has to be a works cited page at the very end (with proper citation throughout the paper).
For me, writing an essay really depends on what I am writing about. In my middle school, we used to have an overarching topic that we work off of for the whole school year. There would be papers, projects, and one major oral report that count for a large part of our grades (depending on what subject is involved, mostly English and sometimes science or history). One year, the topic was family history/immigrants. For one of my major papers, I interviewed my uncle, and wrote about what it was like for him growing up. It was really interesting to learn and write about my uncle during his teenage years. The teacher allowed us to present the information we gathered however we wanted to. I chose to write in my uncle’s perspective, giving people a glimpse of what he did outside of school. So far, that is my favorite writing assignment any teacher has given me, because it gave me a chance to see what it was like growing up for him.
The definition of essay by American Heritage is: “An essay is a short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author. Something resembling such a composition: a photojournalistic essay. A testing or trial of the value or nature of a thing: an essay of the students’ capabilities. An initial attempt or endeavor, especially a tentative attempt.” I think another way of seeing it, could be any type of paper in which a person approaches the challenge (of writing the paper) with the best effort they have.
I guess the definition really widens what an essay can be.
There are different types of essays. Research, debate, and probably what most teachers want from students when they want papers (?). To me, essays are a little more formal than other types of writing. Throughout elementary and high school, essays seem to be a lot of points compared to other assignments. It used to be that essays took a long time to write. A class can easily spend a whole month under the guidance of a teacher (ok, so the teacher sets the due dates, and the students drag their feet to meet the deadline) to produce THE final copy of an essay to be graded. When writing an essay, there is at least one draft, before the final version. It is always important to keep track of the information gathered for the paper, because there has to be a works cited page at the very end (with proper citation throughout the paper).
For me, writing an essay really depends on what I am writing about. In my middle school, we used to have an overarching topic that we work off of for the whole school year. There would be papers, projects, and one major oral report that count for a large part of our grades (depending on what subject is involved, mostly English and sometimes science or history). One year, the topic was family history/immigrants. For one of my major papers, I interviewed my uncle, and wrote about what it was like for him growing up. It was really interesting to learn and write about my uncle during his teenage years. The teacher allowed us to present the information we gathered however we wanted to. I chose to write in my uncle’s perspective, giving people a glimpse of what he did outside of school. So far, that is my favorite writing assignment any teacher has given me, because it gave me a chance to see what it was like growing up for him.
The definition of essay by American Heritage is: “An essay is a short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author. Something resembling such a composition: a photojournalistic essay. A testing or trial of the value or nature of a thing: an essay of the students’ capabilities. An initial attempt or endeavor, especially a tentative attempt.” I think another way of seeing it, could be any type of paper in which a person approaches the challenge (of writing the paper) with the best effort they have.
I guess the definition really widens what an essay can be.
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