Tuesday, October 25, 2011

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.

No comments:

Post a Comment