My Thoughts on Plagiarism

I have recently read a couple of articles about plagiarism and thought that I could talk about what I think about said articles for my own self-interest. The first article was Jonathan Malesic’s “How Dumb Do They Think We Are?” which was about their perspective on how wrong it was for their students to plagiarize. It was somewhat interesting to read this article but I was a little appalled by how Malesic would use words such as “twerp” or “lazy” or “afraid” to describe their students. This article would go on to talk about how the way that these students were plagiarizing was to easy to notice and that they should have put in effort to cover their tracks better but also brings up the point that this effort could have been used to actually do their own writing. Then the last bits of the article brings up the idea that plagiarism should be reason enough for “punishing” students who “refuses to be educated.”

The next article that I read was Susan Blum’s “Academic Integrity and Student Plagiarism: a Question of Education, not Ethics,” which talked about how plagiarism should be treated as “breaking a rule” for students. In order to prevent more students from plagiarizing, this article presents a method of enforcing a set of principle upon students to ensure that they understand how wrong it is to plagiarize. This method attempts to make plagiarism seem like something horrendous to do so that students would be more honest about their work. If this method was successful then a student would understand to appreciate their education and value doing honest work as much as their professor would be to receive it. That about sums up these two articles about plagiarism.

After reading both of these articles, I began to think that both of their approaches towards plagiarism was not something I can agree with. In Jonathan Malesic’s “How Dumb Do They Think We Are?” I couldn’t stand how the author of this article was ignoring the idea of trying to understand their students’ reasons for plagiarizing and didn’t even try to bring up the issue within them in their class. Then there is Susan Blum’s “Academic Integrity and Student Plagiarism: a Question of Education, not Ethics,” which overexaggerates the issue with plagiarism and even attempts to make it a “sin” that their students could commit. I just think that plagiarism is just a common occurrence which can’t be prevented indefinitely, the best thing anyone can do is approach the student or students who done the deed so that a solution can be brought up through communication instead of presumptions.

My Thoughts on William Zinsser's "Writing About People: The Interview"

After reading a certain chapter called “Writing About People: The Interview” from one of William Zinsser’s books, I began to look for some advice on interviewing people throughout the content of this chapter. The first piece of advice would be to “Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives.” That kind of advice can be very helpful for gathering useful information for an interview that would attract the attention of people reading or watching said interview. Then there is the next tip on writing interviews which is that “Often you will be talking to people who have never been interviewed before, and they will warm to the process awkwardly, self-consciously, perhaps not giving you anything you can use.” This quote can be more useful as a tip than as a warning since it is highly likely that if you’re conducting an interview with any person then they would probably have little to no experience with being interviewed. With that said, here is the last bit of advice that I found  which is “Taking notes, however, has one big problem: the person you’re interviewing often starts talking faster than you can write.” My thoughts on this advice is that it’s true, I personally had issues with writing down notes based on what a professor was saying during one of their lectures. Throughout the entirety of this specific William Zinsser chapter, I learned that these three pieces of advice on interviewing hold some good value for conducting a successful interview.

College Assignemnt: Random Interview

1. What kind of writing do you do in your everyday life?

Response: I just write whatever school work I have.

2.What’s the best thing you’ve ever written?

Response: I wrote a essay about Pokemon once, the actual assignment was suppose to be writing about a bear and a horse, and I still got a “A”.

3.Non-Identifying Picture:

          This is the information I gathered for an in-class assignment of randomly interviewing someone from my college. It was quite the unexpected task that was given on that day but I still managed to complete it without much problem. There was some things I wanted to reflect on about this assignment. The first being that I the person I interviewed wasn’t expecting that I would asked them such a request, though this is understandable since it came up at a random time. This created a sort of awkward air of atmosphere as I interview them which felt unpleasant. Then there is the next thing I wanted to think upon which is that their responses were quite unique, I would've expected them to create some sort of bold face lie to make themselves appear better but they just told the truth. I guess that means I have a lack of trust in others to tell the truth but I am glad to know that there are people willing to share an honest answer. That’s about all I had to reflect on for this entry.

My Thoughs on "Writing Family History and Memoir" from William Zinsser's "On Writing Well"

         After reading a certain chapter of William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well,” I began to think about how bringing together ideas that seem to have little to no significance can create something great. The chapter that I read was “Writing Family History and Memoir,” which had some interesting advice written in it such as “If you still remember them it’s because they contain a universal truth that your readers will recognize from their own life.” That quote seemed pretty reasonable to me since if the writer and reader can recognize the meaning behind a certain action or event then it has to be worth writing about. Then there is this quote, “The small stories that still stuck in your memory have a resonance of their own. Trust Them.” This quote would be supporting the previously stated quote as there has to be a reason for anyone to remember certain details about their life, whether it’s obvious to see the meaning behind it or not.
         The next quote I want to talk about from this chapter is this, “my final advice is - again - think small.” What I interpret from this quote is that to “think small” is to not focus on large or extravagant pieces of writing that would capture the reader’s attention at a glance but to bring together small details to greater something with a larger meaning behind it. To trust in your own ability to put significance into the collective whole of smaller event is pretty amazing to me.

My Thoughts on Two Chapters from "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott's

After reading a few chapters of Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird,” I felt like I should write a reflection on the content of those chapters. The first of the two chapters I read was “Perfectionism,” which is basically about how trying to be perfect is actually harming a person’s ability to do anything such as writing since mistakes need to be made in order to improve. That chapter strongly believes that this idea of being perfect should be forgotten as it stated, “the bottom is that if you want to write, you get to, but you probably won’t be able to get very far if you don’t start trying to get over your perfectionism.” This idea represented by the chapter is something I can agree with as a person needs to learn from their failures in order to avoid making the same mistakes in the next attempt. Without that experience of failure, then no one would be able to improve themselves or even have the desire to seek improvement. There is this quote that supports this idea which states, “we need to make mistakes in order to find out who we are and why we are here - and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.”

Then there is the next chapter which is titled “Looking Around,” which is about developing a more open mind when it comes to writing. From what I understand, this chapter goes into great detail about how writers should avoid being narrow minded or they run the risk of their writing lacking any interest for others to read. An example of this comes from the chapter as stated, “all the images of violence and chaos and danger that cops represent.” This quote shows how some people associate cops with the idea of being violent or dangerous, probably due to some news articles about cop violence. In any case, the chapter attempts to tell the reader that they should be stuff such as stereotypes or narrow mindedness when it comes to writing.

Both of these chapters from Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird,” talked about ways to improve a person’s writing ability which I believe can actually help some people improve.

The Second Essay of The Spring Semester

I recently submitted another essay for my English class with the topic this time being to write about my perspective on the issues relating to the privacy and freedom of speech. As part of the requirements for this essay, I also had to include three sources to cite from in order to support the arguments that I made in my essay. Finding those three sources was not that difficult, the real problem came from actually writing about the topic for the essay since I couldn’t think of anything decent to write. This problem lasted for an entire week as I tried to figure out how to make a good argument for my perspective on the First Amendment. Somehow I managed to write the entire essay by the end of the week but it still felt like I wasted more time than I should have for this assignment.

Even though I wrote the essay in the span of an entire week, I didn’t checked it over for any grammar mistakes or misspelled words. After saying that, I still don’t feel the need to go back and change anything I wrote since I already submitted it. It’s not like I think what I wrote was perfect or anything, there are probably a couple mistakes that I didn’t noticed at first but what’s done is done. Any changes made at all wouldn’t even improve the essay that much so it would be kind of a waster of time to just try to fix it. That’s about all I had to say about this assignment.

Bonus Blog - A little bit about myself...

After discussing in class today about the final assignment that would be given soon, I began thinking about my personal life as that should be what the assignment is based on if I understood the discussion correctly. For this entry, I will attempt to give a decent summary of the events leading to my current status as a college freshman. To start, I was an average student who did the best I could do during the years I spent in elementary school and middle school. Like most students, I got into trouble due to some mistakes that I made but they were somewhat resolve over time. Then my seemingly “average” life changed a bit when I entered high school. This “change” was the realization that I started to do better than most students in terms of academics. By the time I reached my senior year in high school, I was already a guarantee candidate for valedictorian which was the position I ended up having when I finished my last year in high school. As “amazing” as being the valedictorian sounded like, the only real reason I had this position was due to all the free time I had to study since I wasn’t that sociable with people. Practically everyone else in my senior grade during high school was busy with social events like parties or clubs while I was just by myself with only the school materials to keep me company. I’m not sure if this sounds pathetic or anything but I was fine with how things turn out since I managed to achieved high enough academic grades to enter college. That about sums up my story on how I got to where I am now.

Next topic of discussion is my perspective on life or something, the questions relating to my final assignment are kinda vague. Well to put it simply, I see life in a somewhat darwinian manner as I believe in survival of the fittest when it comes to achieving high ranks in whatever it is that has those ranks. If you want to be better than others at what you do or just to simply become better at it, then you need to put in the effort to improve despite how hard it can be. At least that’s what I think, anyone else is allowed to think differently.

Now the last point of discussion is what I want to know about the role of literacy in the lives of other people. If I had to know anything about it then I would want to know if literacy can actually improve a person's abilities when it comes to academics. It’s not like I am saying that literacy is important to be successful but it sure does help to know it for reading or writing. My point is that I want to know the exact effect that literacy has on people, whether it can improve a person’s performance drastically or not. In my own personal experience, learning to more about literacy has allowed me to improve my writing and reading abilities but that’s just me. What I really want to know is if literacy can improve anyone’s performance, no matter how big or small that boost can be.

That’s all I got, thanks for reading whatever I just wrote.

My Critique on Vershawn Ashanti Young's essay, "Should Writers Use They Own English"

For a class assignment, I read Vershawn Ashanti Young’s essay “Should Writers Use They Own English.” It was interesting to read Young’s as he discussed about the perspectives on what is considered “standard” english in comparison to what most people perceived as a “variation” of the english language. This essay made some good points on the “so-called varieties 'of English or dialect in relation to standard English, we're not dealin with two different languages; we're dealing with a common language.” That quote made sense on the concept of a common language as what is considered to be “standard” or “variation” of english does not make them separate languages. While Young made a good argument for the concept of a common language but his recommendation for a teaching style that supports this concept seems to be too much for a regular teacher to handle. As stated in Young’s essay, “I say we teach language descriptively. This mean we should, for instance, teach how language functions within and from various cultural perspectives. And we should teach what it take to understand, listen, and write in multiple dialects simultaneously.” The style of teaching that Young proposes would take too much time and effort to make it work effectively since there is simply too much to learn or understand about these “variations” of the english language while also having no guarantee that anyone would retain this information.

Then there is the type of english language that he uses in this essay. As shown in this quote, “Students be told that vernacular language should be reserved for the playground with friends or at a picnic with neighbors, and that standard English be used by professionals at work, in academic writing, and when communicating with important officials.” In that quote, Young has some obvious grammar differences in comparison to “standard” english as he uses phrase like “be told” to mean a phrase like “as told” or shown in the previous quotes that I used where he used the word “dealin” to mean “dealing.” To be honest, the reason I understood most of what Young was saying in this essay is due to my own knowledge in “standard” english as he used words or phrases that, if sounded out, resembles a lot of words and phrases I learned through “standard” english. While Young does make some good points in his essay, I don’t entirely agree with him when he says that people should be taught to understand all forms of the english language because using the “standard” version of the english language in a professional setting makes as much sense to me as wearing “business” clothing in a professional environment.

The point that I am trying to make is that it all comes down to preferences when deciding to use a “variation” of the english language or the “standard” english language as people have a choice to approach any sort of situation, in the verbal sense, with what they believe to be a reasonable solution, in other words the type of language they choose to use.

My Thoughts on Chapter 2 of "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire

After reading Chapter 2 of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” I participated in a class discussion about the pros and cons of the two models of education that were mentioned in the chapter. One of these education models that Paulo Freire talks is the “banking” model which in his own words focuses on students “receiving, filing, and storing deposits,” otherwise interpreted as memorizing any information given to them by the teacher. There is a pro for this model which is students learning whatever information is being presented to them as “the teacher teaches and the students are taught.” Then there is the con of this model which is the lack of interaction between the teacher and students as “the teacher talks and the students listen-meekly.” The banking model of education as described by Paulo Freire prioritizes the learning and memorization of information that students received from the teacher but this does not form any sort of relationship between these two groups which could’ve led to a deeper understanding of the subject where the information comes from.

The second model that Paulo Freire talks about is the “problem-posing” model to replace the “banking” model since the former is “responding to the essence of consciousness.” That quote for this “problem-posing” model could be interpreted as forming an environment where interactions can take place so that opinions can developed from information presented to both the students and teacher. This model’s pro is the expectation “that the teacher-student contradiction to be resolved,” so that the students and teacher could form a relationship together in which they cooperate with each other to develop their own thoughts instead of memorizing details about certain subjects. Then there is the con of the students becoming “critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher,” which can lead to issues with some specific subjects such as math or science where there are equations that have to be remembered in order to solve problems relating to the material used in these subjects. The “problem-posing” model of education that Paulo Freire talks about in the text, it has benefits that improves the students interaction with their teacher but it also conflicts with certain subjects in which learning about information is crucial for that subject.

The entire reading of Chapter 2 of “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” is certainly interesting as Paulo Freire discussed about his perspective on education but I was kind of disappointed when he made his point of replacing the “banking” model with the “problem-posing” model instead of suggesting that these two models could cooperate with each other. In any case, this is just my opinion on the subject.

My Thoughts on "Raw Material" by Jane Maher

    After reading “Raw Material” by Jane Maher, I began to think about how a person’ values on subjects such as reading and writing can differ greatly from one another. The prisoners who were in the college program that the author, Jane Maher, described in her essay seemed to be more enthusiastic about what she taught than the students that she mentioned teaching outside of the prison. As for reason for where there enthusiasm comes from, I believe it was made clear near the end of the essay as Maher talked about how these prisoners were disconnected from the world outside of their jail cell. This reason could explain why the prisoners are putting in as much effort as described by Jane Maher in “Raw Material,” they want some form of connection to the outside world and this college program was their only way of experiencing it. It makes sense as there are theories, such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, that explain that a person’s need some sort of social interaction with the world in order to feel satisfy with their life.
    Other than the reasoning behind the prisoners’ want to continue their education in this college program, there wasn’t much that I wanted to know about. This doesn’t mean that Jane Maher didn’t introduce anything else interesting in “Raw Material” because there is a lot of stuff she described in it. The first thing that comes to mind was that one of the prisoners she taught had manage to publish one of their writing pieces on a magazine, this little detail could lead to some interesting questions. Then there was the officer named Joe that Jane Maher talk to about writing a book or essay but his life changed after suffering a heart attack, there may be some people who would be interested in learning if he continued writing or not. There is a lot of material in this essay that could make for some good discussions but I don't exactly want to write about any of those topics due to my lack of interest in them.
    In any case I felt that Jane Maher manage to write something fairly interesting in “Raw Material,” about her experience teaching a bunch of prisoners in the college program that was put in place in that prison.

The First Essay of The Spring Semester

I recently finished writing a essay for my English class with the topic being to write a autobiographical piece on a certain prompt of my choosing. The prompt which I picked to write about was to explain how I found a certain writing or reading task that I done in the past was challenging. What I wrote for the prompt was basically my experiences with a project that I am currently working on called “In-Between Colors,” which is basically a story revolving around the theme of morality. In this essay, I shared my experiences of struggling with creating characters who would be appropriate for the story and how I learned to improve my writing skills from this project. When the time came to bring it in for the class, I had to do a peer review with a randomly assigned partner.

That peer review was useful for two reasons, the first one being that my partner gave me their input on what I wrote for the essay. Their input was simply corrections on spelling mistakes and asking some questions about certain details which I lacked in the writing. Then there is the second reason which was that I was able to see what my partner wrote and give them my input. The second reason allowed me to gain some insight into what another student in my class thinks about when it came to writing. This whole experience gave me some time to think about my development in terms of writing.

My Response to Stephen King's "Reading to Write"

           In response to one of the questions under Stephen King’s short essay, “Reading to Write,” I personally believe that writers could learn a thing or two from television. The reasoning for this thought comes from how some television shows such as the news or history channels can offer information from around the world to inspire writers. Events such as acts of terrorism or crimes in general could lead to writing ideas for stories about horror and violence. Then there are historical discoveries like the pyramids, ancient buildings, and important figures that can be a good source for stories relating to fantasy or retelling past events. These examples are here to show that inspiration can come from anything but it depends on the writer themselves to try to find it. While news and history channels can act as sources for new writing ideas, there are more programs offered by television. These programs consist of cartoon shows, soap operas, and others like it. When watching those types of programs, a variety of reactions could happen to writers such as thinking that they could write something better than what they saw or having the desire to create something similar. There are examples of these types of writings in the form of text that admits it took inspiration from other sources or fanfiction of television shows. In any case, inspiration can come from anything including television.

My Thoughts on "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan

After reading “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, I thought that this text could be relatable for many people who are in a similar “language” situation. The reason I say this is due to how within my own household, most of my family members speak Spanish as their main language while English was their secondary language. Just so that I can communicate with most of family, I use some form of Spanglish which is a combination of words from both the Spanish and English language. This personal life experience is comparable to Amy Tan’s who stated this, “the “simple” English “I spoke to my mother.”” I interpret this statement as Amy Tan using a variation of the English language, just like Spanglish, to communicate with her own mother.

There are even times where people would have to act as translators for their own family members. I am aware that Amy Tan didn’t exactly act as a “translator” in the text but she did take on the role of “grammar checker” for her mother in one instance. This instance was stated in this line, “When I was fifteen, she used to have me call people on the phone to pretend I was her.” In some similar scenarios, I would have to translate English into Spanish for my parents so that they could understand whatever I translated. Overall, I believe that there could many people who can relate to what was written in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue.”

My Thoughts on "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie

After reading “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, I found myself enjoying it. The main reason as to why I experienced this enjoyment came from how the entire text gave the reader insight into the perspective of Sherman Alexie. This perspective of Sherman’s appeared to be how they viewed the world in the form of paragraphs which was stated as “I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs.” That quote was immediately followed up by examples given by Sherman which I found to be applicable since the concept of paragraphs could be apply to locations, households, and even individual people. With this perspective being introduced in the text, I began to think about how other things could be turned into paragraphs such as objects to buildings.
While Sherman did make the text interesting by bringing up their views on the world, the title of the entire text became somewhat dull to me or at least the “Superman” part of it. What I meant by the title being dull is that the text doesn't exactly focus on how Sherman Alexie learned to read through reading Superman comics. As stated in the text, “I learned to read with a Superman comic book.” I understand that the main purpose of the overall text was to talk about other things relating to “Reading and Writing” but I feel like Sherman could've gone further into his childhood story but he seemingly dismisses it immediately after mentioning it. That feeling came from this sentence, “This might be an interesting story all by itself.” It might not seem like much but I get the feeling that Sherman didn't want to talk about it any more than he did from this sentence.
Anyway that’s about everything I have to say about this text, I enjoy the ideas that were brought up by Sherman Alexie but I do have some gripes with how he did some things.