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.