"Journey of Hope"

On October 12 Laura Ling spoke at Pruis Hall about her “Journey of Hope”. She is a TV reporter who was taken as a prisoner in the North Korean regime of dictator Kim Jong II; from late March to early August 2009 when she was finally released, after President Bill Clinton intervened. When the Introducer first spoke of Laura Ling I wasn’t really sure who she was at first, but as I looked over the pamphlet I realized that I have heard of her before, but I really didn’t know what she was known for. I have never heard her story before, which made no sense because what happened to her was a big deal. What I gained from her story is that there are serious problems still going on to this day. We really don’t hear too much of it, but it was her job to go and seek it out.
The video she showed us about Mexico she had interviewed some of the prison mates and a lot of them believed that once they were let out of jail, they knew they were going to be coming back. The violence in Mexico is extreme and a lot of it is between young men who only live to be in there early twenties or younger. There was a part in her video where she visited this graveyard where people built small building like graves where there is a glass window and inside you could see pictures, liquor bottles, and anything else that showed remembrance of these young men.
I do believe that going to this session was beneficial for me as a student because the information she gave let me know that there are places around the world that you don’t really hear about that have serious problems. I don’t think I would change anything about this session because it was very interesting and I learned a lot.

Accidentally Offensive

Envisions chapter 7 ties in well with our latest assignment, the argument essay. In an essay such as this, one must obviously cite outside sources the add credibility to their argument. However incorrect attribution can result in plagiarism.

This chapter focused on the difference between plagiarism and rhetorical art of imitation. Imitation is the way students learned rhetoric in ancient times. They would study and copy great speeches and refer to them when writing their own speeches. Plagiarism is using another person’s idea as your own.

Another focus of the chapter was citing sources. Citing sources is how one avoids plagiarism when using a direct quote. That is, citing sources is another word for attribution. The chapter introduces a term called in-text citation. It is citing the someone’s work right after you say it, allowing for an interested reader to refer to that person in the bibliography. An example of in-text citation would be. “I love cake, chocolate is my favorite” (McNamee, Brain)

The difficult part about citation is the different formats. Because media and information comes in different forms like pictures video web sources or journals, they all must be cited and referenced differently. There are also many different formats to style each media form. The most widely used is called MLA. In MLA format the citation page is called a works cited.

The most important message of the chapter is avoiding accidental plagiarism. The book highlights two strategies to stay clear of accidental plagiarism. Always keep in mind that you are contributing to a conversation with other writers. Treat their work as if you are introducing them in a speech. And develop effective ways of note taking while reading through your sources.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

Chapter 7 of the book "Envision" is all about plagiarism and the various problems that some writers may have with giving others credit for their work.

First of all, it's worth noting that there are two main types of plagiarism. A person can intentionally steal someone else's ideas, or they can unintentionally do this. Obviously, unintentional plagiarism is a big problem if it pops up in your own arguments. The book gives two ways to avoid plagiarism, but the second one is by far the best. It says to, "Develop effective ways of note taking while reading through your sources." That's key. Taking good notes can prevent plagiarism, something we're all trying not to do.

Much of the rest of the chapter gives solid examples of how to cite various sources within the paper itself. Sometimes parenthetical citations can be confusing or difficult to format, but the chapter does a very good job of showing differently formatted sources and how you would cite each one. I would describe this part of the chapter as more of a reference than stand-alone material, but it's very valuable none-the-less.

While chapter 7 of "Envision" may be largely review for a significant portion of the class; it is still useful in refreshing everyone's usage of citations within a paper written in the MLA format. The chapter is also extremely valuable in describing what is and isn't plagiarism as well as giving tips and advice to avoid using someone else's ideas without giving them their due credit. It's one of the more practical chapters in the book, and it's definitely something I'll likely use as a reference in the future.

How to avoid plagiarism.

Chapter 7 of Envision

Chapter 7 of Envision starts out by explaining rhetorical imitation and intellectual property. Rhetorical Imitation is the practice of taking after others. Intellectual property is the ideas that best belong to someone else.

Did you know that plagiarism, or using the ideas of somebody else, wasn’t a crime in classical times? This is according to Peter Morgan and Glenn Reynolds, anyway. But with the invention of the printing press, copyright laws came into play. And thus became the coined term plagiarism! Not plagiarizing is a part of the respect principle. If you keep the respect principle, you will rarely fall into the trap of accidently stealing somebody’s work.

To avoid unintentional plagiarism, you need to keep in mind that you are contributing to a conversation with other writers. Also, develop effective ways of taking notes while reading through your sources.

Citing your sources sometimes isn’t enough citation—if you’re writing a book or planning to publish your contribution. You need to pay to use the contribution of the quote or material.

The book describes four different documentation styles. It describes MLA, APA, CSE, and Chicago format.

MLA format stands for the Modern Language Association. It’s used with writing literature, philosophy and is used by humanities scholars and teachers.

APA format stands for the American psychological Association and is used by psychologists and social scientists.

CSE format stands for the Council of Science Editors and is used for biology and physics.

Chicago format stands for the University of Chicago. This is used by business writers, professional writers, and those in fine arts.

The book also tells you how to cite definitions, government publications, interviews, e-mail, and even Facebook, Tweet, and chat room discussions. Which, I find that really neat that you can quote Facebook.

Chapter 7: Plagiarism

Plagiarism is one of the number one things not tolerated in all schools throughout the world. It’s considered cheating. Plagiarism is the theft of ones words or ideas. Sometimes plagiarism is unintentional and a complete accident. So, in order to avoid plagiarism you should keep in mind that you are contributing to a conversation with other writers and also, take effective notes while reading your sources. Other ways to avoid plagiarizing is to use quote a writer, word for word. Or you can use your own words to summarize and paraphrase the ideas of a source.

While writing your paper you should cross-reference the information you gather from your sources with your Works Cited page. Works Cited is a list of all the sources you used in your paper and the author of those sources. This reference page demonstrates your research process and respect for the authors that you included in your paper.

The Works Cited should be in MLA format, which means the authors name’s should alphabetica. Next, the title of the book or article followed by the place of publication, the publisher, and the date of publication. If it is an online source you need the date you accessed it, that database in which you searched it and the URL for the website. Also, the Works Cited uses “rap text”. This means that the first line of every citation is normally spaced from the margin of the page and all of the lines below it should be indented.

A Works Cited is the best way to ensure that you are not plagiarizing someone else’s words. It shows that you respect them and their writing enough to not “steal” their words and ideas.

Chapter 7 :) :)

Plagiarism

Everyone’s own writings are important. It is very important to credit whoever work you are using. When you are writing a research paper it is important to look at others people works. You cannot write word for word what they have said in the article. That would be plagiarism, which is illegal. When writing from a paper you should first analyze what you are reading. To help make sure you do not plagiarize people’s work you can keep in mind that you are contributing to the authors work, not making the same exact paper. You can also learn to take good notes about the sources you are reading. When you do you a source in your paper you should make sure that you cite it. This will give other people who read your work background. It is very important to know exactly how to cite your paper. You need to know that you can use MLA, APA, CSC, and Chicago. All of these have different ways to cite your sources. This also goes along with in-text citation. In-text citation references your source within the body of your paper. Then as I said before you use your sources to make the works cited for your paper. The works citied can have many different sources of documents. They can range from a book to a Facebook post. In the end you just need to remember that people worked hard on there research and it is not fair to take their hard work.

Undercover Plagiarism

 Plagiarism comes in various forms, direct quotations and paraphrasing (both without proper citation) to list a few. It also comes in two different categories as well; intentional and unintentional.  Believe it or not, some people try to get away with copy and pasting most or all of the information they find and calling it their own. There are other people though, who do not realize that they are plagiarizing. Sometimes it is difficult to determine what exactly has been plagiarized. Have no fear… chapter seven of Envision offers a few helpful hints on how to avoid plagiarism. Let’s break it apart step-by-step.  Step one, be aware that you are simply “responding” and using the information you find as support for your argument, persuasion, etc., for your audience. Therefore you do not need to sum up every part of the found source because if that was the case, it would no longer be your argument; you would be support to their argument. Long story short, taking bits and pieces from the information will cause less of a risk for plagiarism (due to it being easier to catch in order to properly cite) in the long run (by the end of the paper). Not to mention it will also help you with the second and final step of note taking while researching. Actually taking the time to write down key points or quotations you would potentially like to use in your paper (rather than just highlighting), may actually help in the organization of your paper because you are free to move the pieces wherever necessary throughout your argument. By following these guidelines, you have the potential to be one step closer to a plagiarism-free product.

That Was Easy

In Chapter 7 of Envision, titled “Avoiding Plagiarism and Documenting Sources,” the authors of the book discuss what plagiarism is and how to properly cite sources used in a paper. The authors define plagiarism as “using another person’s idea as your own” and it can be intentional, unintentional, or accidental. The authors give helpful suggestions to avoid accidental or unintentional plagiarism such as keeping notes while reading through potential resources that could be used. Citing sources is also discussed and the various styles are briefly described; however, MLA Style is discussed in much more detail and many examples of various sources are shown.

Unlike Purdue Owl, which also demonstrates how to cite sources in MLA, Envision is more user friendly. Envision gives clear examples of how to cite sources and locates all of the examples in one location. Purdue Owl on the other hand, gives examples of how to cite sources, but they are buried under all of the extra in-depth information and the alternative ways to cite a source. I ran into trouble with Purdue Owl on the rhetorical analysis paper. After searching through the myriad of links in an attempt to find out how to cite a cartoon, Purdue owl gave me examples of how to cite works of art, which are not really the same thing. The next closest thing described was a figure; they gave an example of a podcast, which did not help at all. Perdue Owl stated that there was no specific MLA requirements for figures and that the basic MLA Style should be followed. They described the basic MLA Style as one-inch margins. How exactly does that help with citing a source? In Envision, under the bold letters, Comic Strip of Editorial Cartoon, a clear example is given on how to properly cite a cartoon. The confusion is not only contained to MLA Style on Purdue Owl, Chicago Manual Style is in the same way and it has to be assumed that APA and CSE are not any better. Chapter 7 of Envision was the most important part of the entire book. It gives clear, helpful, and easy to follow examples of how to properly cite sources so that you will not commit plagiarism.

Class Observation

On Thursday, our class met in Bracken Library for class. We had a workshop to attend. The workshop was about how to use all of the libraries resources. The workshop detailed all of the online research engines at our disposal, from Card Cat to Academic Search Premier. We learned about searching for books and looking up journal articles.

Before Thursday, our assignment was to go on the self guided tour of the library. It was our task to walk all around the library and find all of the various sections. I found it very helpful since I've never even been past the first floor.

The instructor for the workshop was very helpful. She showed us how to navigate all the different search engines. She also showed us how to narrow down a search based on key words, like using a asterisk instead of typing out the different endings of words. She gave us time to research our own topics for our persuasive essay at the end of her presentation.

I found both the self guided tour and the workshop to be very helpful. I learned a lot and what I learned will definitely come in handy researching my persuasive essay topic.

Library Scavenger Hunt

On Thursday, we had a library work shop to help us on our next research paper. The lab was very informative. I learned how to search for books, pin point my searches, and how to look up journal articles in the journal article data base from the comfort of my own room.

Before the library work shop, though, we were asked to fill out a paper by doing a library scavenger hunt. I found the scavenger hunt to be very helpful. It helped me become more familiar with the library and where to look when I need to find something.

The library scavenger hunt was a set of ten questions that you needed to fill out while scurrying through the library and a set of five questions that you needed to fill out on the internet card catalog.

Going into this scavenger hunt, I felt the assignment to be rather pointless. But as I was walking through the library filling out this paper, I realized the significance of this assignment. I didn’t know how to search for something in Bracken Library. It’s filled with a lot of reference books, but I found that there are children books and there is a music library. I found that to be rather neat, and I think I can see myself going to those sections in my future.

Another Gold Nugget!

The latest and greatest from Envisions is a lesson on preplanning your writing. When it comes to heavy duty research papers, slapping down a rough copy without planning it out can be trickier than a simple narrative. There are a few ways to map out your paper. One such example is the flow chart. You start with your main idea and draw arrows from it that lead to supporting statements. Then from those support facts you draw arrows that remind you of what details and facts to include when you are discussing those supporting statements.

Further in the chapter it discusses the use of sources in support of your argument or focus in the paper. It talks about ways people can use outside sources to shape the readers view of the essay’s subject. There are two ways to actually use sources in your essay. You can let the outside information lead the way with you providing commentary and context, or you can take charge and lead the paper with other sources giving you support when needed. It highlights 3 ways to use those sources effectively, summarizing paraphrasing and direct quotation. Regardless of the method, proper attribution is required to avoid plagiarism.

After you outline your essay and arrange your sources, you can finally draft the paper. A resource the chapter makes note of is your peers, more specifically peer review. Peer review offers the chance for others to read your work, and give you feedback on what you did well and what needs improving.

Plan Before You Write

Writing essays, articles, journals, or even movies is difficult enough. Though everyone has their own style and way of writing, there is one word that has the potential to help us all…planning. A simple plan to writing may just consist of a bubble web, which is just one of many graphic flowcharts.  To enhance the writing into an elaborate and well organized piece, take the flowchart and use it as a plan for another plan. The other plan in this case would be an outline. You can then form subtopics (from each bubble) as a base for each key topic in the outline, leaving room to include direct quotations, or short summaries to guide your thinking.  You can even turn them into questions to make sure you have clearly explained each topic or issue. It may even help form and organize sub arguments to help support the overall argument.  By using an outline, you can then insert an introduction and conclusion whenever necessary without throwing off the organization of the whole entire paper. As changes in the outline are made, alterations to these add-ins can be made as well. Besides adding in the introduction and conclusion, transitions can also be put in without causing chaos to the paper.  Including transitions before writing the essay or other piece, will make paragraphs flow together without completely changing the meaning of the next paragraph (which could easily happen if the paper was not planned). By planning your writing ahead of time, it could mean writing less drafts, saving more time, or even less chaos overall.   

My Career in Review

My first PIR session was not only educational but eye opening. It validated a few News class concepts as well as made me see a few things that I hadn’t noticed about the world of journalism.

Keith Connors was my favorite speaker on the panel. Although the other 3 people had plenty to say, Connors seemed so driven and composed. Everything he said struck like hammer to anvil. He got straight to the point about how he trains people, whom he hires, and what he expects from them.

He said he is constantly asking himself and his employees what do you do to make yourself know what’s happening. He stressed the importance of always being on top of the most current events. Reading the paper, listening to radio, and watching other newscasts are all part of your job. I hear similar advice everyday in class. Whenever the class is polled, less than half say they watched the news. According to Connors, that will not fly in the work force.

One part of the work force itself startled me. Honestly it sort of diminished my interest in the news field. Right off the bat I noticed that all the members of the panel, except for Ms. Moody, have moved many times throughout their careers. That was a big turn off for me. I don’t crave an on the move lifestyle.

The Fall News Roundup reminded me of a story I watched in another news class. What I saw in the story was another hit to my news interest. It was one cameraman’s angle on a big legal case. He was in the middle of a crowd of reporters who were surrounding a lawyer trying to get the story. My first thought was “Good god I don’t want to do that.” At that point I started to reconsider my career aspirations.

Shortly after, the guests all stressed the importance of internships. The whole time they were talking about them I was thinking how much I didn’t want to do one.

Attending the PIR Fall News Roundup gave me a very clear insight into what I need to do to successfully land a career in the news field. However I’m not sure that it’s a field I wish to continue in. I can’t picture myself in the newsroom anymore. But, in the end I am glad I took the news path, because I was able to sample something and find out that it wasn’t for me.

There are some things a writer should know

Chapter six of Envision is titled “Organizing and Writing Research Arguments.” As I was reading the chapter, I stopped at a section that particularly interested me. This section was titled “Integrating Research Sources.” It first stated that after you find your sources and create your outline, you must start turning your outline into a rough draft. A question most people have is, “How will I introduce and enter my sources into my paper?” Specifically, you will need to include your sources not only appropriately and rhetorically, but also strategically. This process is called integrating. Integrating consists of three basic ways: Summary, paraphrase, and direct quotations. A summary is a brief vision in your own words of the overall content of a text. However, summaries are not analyses. You summarize by merely laying out the ideas explored by another writer in another text. In summarizing, you need to tell the reader exactly what it is you are summarizing, and provide complete bibliographical information at the end of your paper. Paraphrasing focuses in and restates one part of a text. Some people use paraphrasing in order to help a reader to better understand a text, or you may want to paraphrase a text to make sure that you understand it yourself. Using direct quotations is excerpting a specific passage from a source, and enclosing it in quotation marks. Quotations should be included to accomplish a specific rhetorical purpose, as well as be integrated responsibly in order to give the writer credit.

Class Observation

My day to observe the class was Thursday, October 13^th. The first ten minutes of class was spent proofreading our rhetorical analysis papers before we turned them in. After that, we discussed our new assignment: an argument essay. A requirement of the paper was to choose a topic that covers something we truly care about. Within this essay, we will need to have three primary sources in order to support our argument, one of which needs to be an interview to provide a second opinion. We then had a power point lecture over “positioning yourself as a researcher,” in other words, interviewing. Three questions to help you monitor your assumptions are: “What surprised me? What intrigued me? And what disturbed me?” We also learned about closed and open questions. Closed questions require a “yes,” “no,” or very short answer. In order to avoid these types of questions, do research ahead of time. Learn about the topic, as well as your informant’s background. Open questions help provoke your informant’s perspective and allow for more conversational exchange. The real key to interviewing is being a good listener. You must have a structured plan containing focused questions. In the last part of class, we were paired up with someone that we had never really talked to before, and interviewed them. I thought it was a great way to get people to know each other and make new friends.

Stop, Collaborate and Listen... to Your Peers

Chapter 6 of Envision, titled “Organizing and Writing Research Arguments,” talks about various aspects of writing a research argument including organization, how to integrate sources, and how to write a draft. The authors explain how to use visual organizational methods such as a bubble web and a graphic flow chart and other non-visual methods such as an outline to help organize a research argument. The authors then go on to explain how to integrate sources into a research argument appropriately, rhetorically, and strategically. Integrating can be done by summarizing, paraphrasing, or by using direct quotations. Later in the chapter the authors explain how to write a draft and brought up a topic that I found particularly interesting because it not only applied to writing, but also to my major, architecture.

The authors discussed the idea of collaborating with others through peer review. Collaboration and peer review allows for a write to hear advice from other about their work on how to improve it. I recently traveled to Chicago on the CAP first year trip and had a chance to visit many wonderful places in the city. While the majority of the places that we visited were nice, others were not. The Harold Washington Library was one of “bad” places. The designers and the committee that approved the design did not take into account the people who would be using the space. The library is confusing and uncomfortable to navigate. When we visited the public atrium located on the top floor, we had to travel through a maze of escalators and elevators to arrive there. The public space is hardly used by anyone because it is so difficult to arrive there. The rest of the library is also laid out uncomfortably.

The people of Chicago have an idea of what a Chicago building looks like and when the Harold Washington Library was built, many people did not like it. With its Beaux-Art style façade, the building looks like it belongs in Paris, not Chicago. When the design was chosen, the committee chose it because they thought it looked like a library. The fist design eliminated was the people’s choice, quickly followed by the librarian’s choice. Had the committee and the designers stopped and worked with and listened to the people who would be using the library, they could have chosen a better design that would have made the building work better with its surroundings and with its users. Peer review is a tool that is more than something that we have to do when just when drafts are due. It can have a large impact in the real world which is why it is such an important tool to know and understand.

(Photo by me)

October 13th: What are good interviewing techniques?

At the beginning of class today, we were to turn in our final draft of our rhetorical analyisis. Before we turned in our papers, we got about ten minutes to look over our drafts to make any last minute changes. After turning in our papers, we discussed our next writing assignment. The next project we are writing about is an arguement essay. For our arguement essays, we need to have three to five sources, plus an interview from the person of our choice. It is important that we pick a topic that we enjoy and are interested in, so that we can argue our topic thoroughly. We want to be knowledgeable on the topic, but we want to be able to further explore the topic in depth. This must be a topic that you care about, because you need to argue the topic in a three to five page paper. After discussing the arguemental assignment in class, we went over a powerpoint that talked about interviewing. The powerpoint titled, "Positioning Yourself as a Researcher," talked about different position types, researching people, types of questions to askd during an interview, and learning how to listen. Following the powerpoint lecture, we got into groups of two and interviewed each other. Both students were to come up with a list of questions to ask one another. After finding out about a student in class that we had never talked to before, we wrote reflections on the interviewing process and what we found out about the other student during our interview. The interview with each other was helpful, because it gave us an idea of questions we should and should not ask during an interview. Learning about closed and open ended questions was helpful, so in our real interviews, we do not ask too many closed questions that end with "yes" or "no" answers.

Online Libray

Online Library

Yesterday in class we learned about Ball States online library. Everything about it is very helpful. The first easy thing is the that web address is www.bsu.edu/library . The first page when you go to that website tells all about the research and services the website offers. You can then go anywhere from the first page. You can check out there convent hours the library has. There is also places you can eat in the library to and that’s on the website. My favorite part was that if you had a question you can instant message someone at the library to help you.

The website is also easy to use to look up books. It’s really easy. You can just type in what your looking for and many documents will pop up. Document for periodicals, journals, books, and much more. It is a very helpful way to look up things when you’re doing your research. There is also CardCat. This is something that you use your BSU username and password, then you can: view course reserves, renew materials, check due dates, place holds, check the status of holds and video bookings, and compile and save permanent lists of items.

There is so much you can do on the library’s website. Since this is true I would encourage everyone that goes her to check it out. It’s so helpful in many ways. It could help you if you were hungry to tell you were to go to find something. It something that is easy to use and hopefully everyone knows about it.