Sunday, October 25, 2009
Chapter 31
Using sources and avoiding plagiarism makes you scared to ever use someone else’s work unless you are positive you know what you’re doing. I understand the jest of it but I never took it as seriously as the book is bringing it up as. After it scares you, it offers to help you and shows you tips for not copying while it shows you examples of people who did do it and how different it may seem but all in all it is plagiarizing. What were helpful were certain things that aren’t considered plagiarism and are common knowledge which was interesting because usually I would quote everything I didn’t know and thinking back was really unnecessary and pointless. It hard to separate your own thinking and someone else’s, how do you know they didn’t think of the same thing somewhere and you just weren’t careful enough? Another helpful part was how to incorporate the quotes into sentences. I was taught this in high school but haven’t really mastered it. Brackets were something that I was never quite clear on but they have almost a page of explaining how to do it right and change the sentence without changing the idea. They show examples and guidelines to write well thought out summaries and what is wrong and unacceptable. Last but not least they have a box full of words to use to put together quotes, paraphrases and summaries which I find extremely helpful. The paragraph was long but it was full of information that was extremely useful and not full of filler advice that doesn’t help me.
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Really nice job, summarizing these readings, Becca.
ReplyDeleteAh, the daunting feelings of plagiarism. I must agree with you there that the book's first summaries of the extent of plagiarism can make you feel hindered. You don't realize there is so much that can be considered plagiarism. As for brackets, we both had the alleviating epiphany of understanding after reading that section. I had always seen brackets and could infer their purpose but was never totally sure how to use them in my own work until after the assigned reading. Good job summarizing and good luck with your paper.
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I agree with a lot of your feelings about plagiarism. After reading chapter 31, not only did I understand the concepts of plagiarism better, but now I'm scared to think I might have done it in the past and not even known I was doing it. The book supplies a lot of useful and in depth information that will prevent us all from accidentally using someone else's work. I agree on what you said about it being hard to separate your thinking from someone else's. The book gives good ways to break them down in section 31e.
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