Reading Response
Chapter 17
For
chapter 17, I learned about integrating sources and avoiding plagiarism. Now to
me, I see a common theme throughout this whole last two chapters in it’s about
using MLA format. For some reason I hate MLA format. I think the world be a
better place if bibliographies didn’t exist. I find giving credit to the
authors is an important aspect of writing but I’m just lazy and hate writing
MLA works cited pages. I learned about paraphrasing which is something that I
do quite often since I can never figure out what to write besides what the
author writes. I seem to have the same problem where when I read the author’s
writing I simply want to copy and paste what he or she may have said. So
paraphrasing and learning how to use it is something that I will use for the
rest of my life. I also learned about summarizing which is a little different
than paraphrasing but it’s somewhat the same as well. Summarizing involves a
brief restatement in my own words in a passage for the main idea. I also
learned about quoting, and when you quote you need to use the writer’s exact
words as they appear in the source including all punctuation, capitalization,
and spelling. And the quote has to be enclosed by quotation marks. I learned
what synthesizing was. When I write a synthesis was supposed to combine
paraphrases, summaries, and quotations with my own ideas. That was something I
did not know before. I also learned how to avoid plagiarism which is something
that I’ve never had to actually deal with that now I know just a little bit
more on how to avoid it. Overall this chapter was a good read and I did learn a
lot but I am tired of writing MLA works cited pages.
Now
being a student in college I have to give a educated response on how this
chapter affects my student life. Academically this was a good chapter to read
because it did teach me a lot I really hadn’t known before and also refresh my
memory on quite a few things. This chapter in this book is very handy for a
person who wants to be able to write a solid good works cited page and learn
how to avoid plagiarism. I believe that summarizing and paraphrasing things
from the author is something that is a necessity for the student to achieve. It
helps the student look simply smarter in than they actually could be. I think
that high school students should be using this book and taught early on how to
stay away from plagiarism because it is a serious problem that society faces today.
A fun story I have is when I was a junior in high school, my principal who is
no longer the principle of meet high school was accused of plagiarizing a
graduation speech. It was true that he actually plagiarize the speech and spoke
the exact same words the original speaker at spoke. I think it’s funny that he
was the one to do this due to the fact that he was a doctor. Plagiarizing is
something that is a big problem in our culture and this book helps a lot by
explaining what plagiarizing is and how you can avoid it.
-Preston Allen
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