Today’s plan:
- Attendance
- Writer’s Market Series
- Draft Feedback
- Plagiarism
- Handling Sources, Attributing Ideas
- Workshop Prestyn’s Piece
- Workshop volunteers for Thursday
- Homework for Thursday
Draft Feedback
I’m in the process of providing feedback on your drafts for the first medium essay. Chances are I won’t get to most of your drafts until Thursday. In general, though, I wanted to take a few minutes and explain what my feedback does, and what it doesn’t do. My goal in providing feedback is to address the largest concern I have regarding the draft. I am working from a hierarchy of concerns:
- Has the writer properly attributed ideas from other writers?
- Does the writing have an argument? Is it cohesive beginning to end? Does every paragraph clarify how it relates to or advances that argument?
- Has the writer done enough research? Have they summarized articles with enough detail that I know what I need to (the original author’s purpose, their evidence or method of research, etc)?
- Is the writer missing something big?
- Does the order of paragraphs make sense?
- Do paragraphs end with purpose? Do they begin orienting a reader toward a new idea?
- Has the writer properly coded links? It the article grammatically sound? Are there sentences that are confusing?
I generally spend about 10 minutes with each of your drafts (there’s 20 of you, 10 minutes each means roughly 3 and 1/2 hours a week responding to your writing). I can’t comment on every issue I see with a draft. Rather, I’m checking down the list and trying to supply you with two or three concrete, actionable things you can do to improve a draft. It is your responsibility to read and revise your work carefully–and that ALWAYS MEANS CHANGING MORE THAN I INDICATE.
What is Plagiarism
One of my graduate students put together a PowerPoint. Let’s start there.
How to Avoid Plagiarism?
I want to follow that presentation up by stressing a few ways to avoid plagiarism. I’ve got two general recommendations:
- First, use the sentence I outline below, or something like it, to make it really clear where you found information.
- Second, use author’s names, and make it clear what they are saying. Use “I” to make it very clear when you are extending, responding to, agreeing with, another writer’s ideas
What I hope the walk-away of that presentation is that plagiarism isn’t just a matter of taking someone else’s words without credit, it is also a matter of taking someone else’s thought. And plagiarism isn’t always a matter of giving credit, it is also a matter of acknowledging influence or similarity. That is, ideas are never created out of nothing, as if one writer or thinker owns them in their entirety. However, thinkers have a responsibility to acknowledge what other thinkers and thoughts they have come across while developing and refining their own ideas.
I think this is especially important because of the nature of this class. For the next 8 weeks or so, I won’t expect you to use MLA or APA format to document sources. But I do expect you to make it very clear when you are presenting other people’s ideas (and, as I’ve indicated, I expect about 66%-75% or your writing to be presenting other people’s ideas!). On medium, citation isn’t necessary as strict–but it is no less important. And citation is often driven by two things: attribution (the name of the source, acknowledgement that you have read it) and links (hence why I have put so much emphasis on hyperlinking early in the course). Start paying attention to the articles you read online and you will see these strategies at work. Just because there isn’t a parenthetical doesn’t mean there isn’t ways of acknowledging the material we use.
I want to put particular emphasis on another part of the presentation–the idea of “common knowledge.” This is one of the trickiest parts of acknowledging the influence of ideas. No one needs to cite the fact that the Earth is round. Unless, that is, you are writing a paper on the history of cartography. Then, in fact, it might be necessary to cite a number of sources that helped trace the development of this idea. In his 2004 post “The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus,” David Sterns argues that several different philosophers and scientists discovered the Earth’s roundness at different points in history: the ancient Greeks, then the ancient Romans, and then the council of King Ferdinand’s court who approved Columbus’ journey to the “new world.” As Sterns notes, this council was quite aware of the theories proposed by the Greeks and Romans.
That previous paragraph was meant to show how I expect you to attribute sources this semester. It introduces a source, David Sterns’ post, using what I call the “magic sentence,” so called because it packs a lot of contextual information into very few words.
Avoiding Plagiarism: Providing Contextual Information and Attributing Sources
Essentially, I consider handling sources a 4 part process. There’s the signal, the quote/evidence, the summary, and the analysis. The signal is the part that makes the attribution.
This is essentially the underlying structure for most (academic) argumentative paragraphs: a claim, followed by evidence, and analysis:
- Signal: who, what, where, when. Note that what/where can be a reference to a kind of media [article, book, poem, website, blog post], a genre [sonnet, dialogue, operational manual], or location/event [press conference, reporting from the steps of the White House]. The signal helps create ethos, establishing the credibility of your source, addressing their disposition toward the issue, and positioning them within the context of a particular conversation.
- Quote/evidence: in-line citations use quotation marks and are generally three lines or less. Block citations do not use quotation marks and are indented from the rest of the text. Generally, quotes present logos of some kind–be it in the form of statistics or argumentation. Of course, quotes can also be used in an attempt to engender pathos, or a strong emotional reaction.
- Summary: especially for block quotations, you need to reduce a block of text to a single-line. You need to put the quote in your own words. Because language is slippery, and your readers might not read the quote as you do. So, offering a summary after a quote– particularly a long one (which many readers simply do not read)–allows readers an opportunity to see if they are on the same page as you.
- Analysis: Reaction, counter-argument, point to similar situation, offer further information, use the bridge, “in order to appreciate X’s argument, it helps to know about/explore/etc. This is where the thinking happens.
Here’s an example; let’s say I was writing a blog on the struggles of newspapers to survive the digital transition, I might want to point to the October 15th, 2009 NYT’s article dealing with the Times Co. decision to hold on to the Boston Globe.
In his recent article, Richard Perez-Pena explains that the Times Co. has decided to hold onto the Boston Globe, at least for now. Perez-Pena explains that the Times Co. has been trying to sell the newspaper for the past month, but, since it hasn’t received what it deems a credible offer, it has decided to pull the paper off the market. He writes:
Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University who has closely followed The Globe’s troubles, said it might be better for The Globe to remain with the Times Company than to go to a new owner that might do more cutting or replace top executives. “But the company has its work cut out for it in terms of rebuilding credibility with the employees and the community,” he said.
Perez-Pena explains that the Times Co. has been involved in bitter labor disputes over the past year, as advertising revenues continue to fall: this move, as Kennedy notes above, could be a solid first move in rebuilding an important relationship with one of America’s oldest, and most significant, newspapers. However, I think we still need to be a bit skeptical here: the fact that no one even proposed a reasonable offer for a newspaper that only 15 years ago commanded 1 billion dollars, the highest price ever for a single newspaper (Perez-Pena), does not bode well for the future of the industry. Like many newspapers, the Globe was slow to adapt to the digitalization of America’s infosphere. Time will tell if recent efforts are too little too late.
If you look above, I first contextualize the quote–not only supplying where/when/who it came from, but also providing some sense of what the whole article discusses. Then I focus attention toward a particular point and supply the quote. After the quote, I first reiterate what the quote said (providing a bit of new information). This is an important step that a lot of writers skip. Always make sure you summarize a quote, so a reader knows precisely what you think it says. Then, in the final part of the paragraph above, I analyze the material. I respond to it. In this particular case, I am somewhat critical of the optimism that underlies Perez-Pena’s piece.
A few other small points:
- Notice the first time I reference an author, I use there first and last name. After that, it is sufficient to only use the last name.
- Notice that I don’t have a citation after the direct quotation: the reason here is that it is obvious where the quote came from thanks to my signal. This is an electronic source, so there is no page number citation, were it a print source I would have to include that. NEVER USE A PAGE NUMBER IN THE SIGNAL TEXT.
- Notice in my analysis that I make a parenthetical to the author–its because I pulled the price of the Globe purchase in 1993 from his article. I don’t directly quote it, so no quotation marks.
- Finally, there’s two kinds of quotations, in-line quotations and block quotations. Each have there own rules for academic papers (the dreaded MLA and APA guidelines). We will deal with those later in the course. In terms of blogging: quotes longer than 4 lines need to be blockquoted. Blogger has a button to help you do this. Blockquotes don’t receive quotation marks.
The First (Best?) Step Toward Avoiding Plagiarism: Crafting Quality Signals
In response to plagiarism, I want to focus a bit on the first part of what I introduce above, crafting a quality signal that introduces a reader to a source (be it a quote or statistical evidence). Here it is:
Shakespeare’s Renaissance tragedy Romeo and Juliet documents the titular characters’ intense love and foolhardy demise. Shakespeare’s play leads us to question both the sincerity of young love.
I came up with this sentence while prepping high school students to take placement exams, hence the literary material. But the semantics of the sentence make it useful for virtually every kind of writing. I especially want to highlight the importance of the verbs in this sentence, because choosing the proper verb often reveals both our appraisal of the source and our thinking on the questions it raises.
[Author]’s [time period] [genre] [title] [verb] [plot summary]. [Author] [verb] [theme/purpose].
Ok, so in reality I have two sentences here. But, when dealing with non-fiction works, they can often be combined into one:
[Author’s] [time period] [genre] [title] [verb] [purpose].
As I indicated above, it is the verb that is the silent star of the show here. Consider for a minute the following example:
Malcom Gladwell’s 2005 book Blink exposes how subconscious part of our brain think in ways we are not consciously aware.
Exposes. How does the meaning of the sentence change if I use the verb:
- suggests
- argues
- questions whether
- supposes
- explicates
- details
- offers a theory of
- explores
Each of these verb choices subtly alters the way I approach the work discussed. Exposes suggests something secret and perhaps mysterious is being uncovered. Suggests suggests that an amount of doubt surrounds the issue. Supposes implies that I am hostile or at least quite skeptical toward the idea. This subtle indicator allows my an opportunity to softly align or distance myself from the source I am using. Good authors do this all the time to subconsciously prepare readers for their arguments.
Here’s an example from a presentation I am currently working on.
After reviewing the first round of essays, I want to go back and revisit my previous advice for handling a source. As an example, I want to revise a portion of Jess’s essay on gun control. She writes:
“Even gun owners who have never used their guns for self-defense find solace in the fact that the gun is there if needed.” I found this relating to my situation and completely accurate to how I feel about my gun being in my home quoted by Norman Lunger in Big Bang: The Loud Debate over Gun Control.
There are many different scenarios where a child is killed because a gun was left loaded, and not hidden well by an adult and an accident death occurred. But is that really the guns fault for being loaded, is it not the adult’s fault that left it in a non-secure location that was accessible by a child? As mentioned an accident in Big Bang: The Loud Debate Over Gun Control by Norman Lunger “In Florida, two young boys found a shotgun under a bed in their grandparents’ home. A six year old pulled the trigger, and a five year old fell dead.” It seems these things happen too often and how can they be avoided.
Part of what is missing here is that I don’t have an orientation to Lunger–is this a source with which Jess agrees? Or disagrees? Part of my confusion lies from the fact that, while I understand the particular passages, I don’t have any context for them, I don’t understand the purposeful argument of which they form a part.
Previously, her essay documented her own reasons for wanting a gun: after a terrifying attempted burglary, she wanted a weapon for home protection. She then might use this kind of transition:
Based on my own experiences, I find myself relating to Norman Lunger’s idea that “even gun owners who have never used their guns for self-defense find solace in the fact that the gun is there if needed.” Lunger, in his contemporary [time] examination [genre] Big Bang: The Loud Debate Over Gun Control [verb] [argument/purpose].
Without more familiarity with the book, I cannot fill out the rest of the sentence.
Here’s a second example, from G-Lo’s post on marriage and Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages:
In the book, The 5 Love Languages, by Gary Chapman he makes it clearly evident of common mistakes that men make when trying to show their partner in life how passionately they feel for them. He illustrates our mindset that we think that we, as men, are doing so well in our efforts to please our wives but yet cannot figure out why they aren’t thanking us daily for being so wonderful. That’s because a lot of us have been oh so wrong.
The key to our puzzle is unlocked in this book. “The problem is that we have overlooked one fundamental truth: People speak different love languages,” is a clear statement made by Gary Chapman. What he is saying is that everybody feels love in different ways. This famous and successful marriage counselor describes the five “love languages” as words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.
Here we have a bit more information to work with. What I would like to do here is 1) to make the transition into the quote less wordy and 2) tighten up the summary and response to the quote. So:
Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages makes clear the common mistakes men make when trying to show their love to their partners. […]
Chapman identifies the key to our puzzle, writing that “the problem is that we [men] have overlooked one fundamental truth: people speak different love languages.” By speaking different languages, Chapman, a famous and successful marriage counselor, means that everybody feels love in different ways. He describes five different ways, or languages, that we must familiarize ourselves with: affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.
Notice how I am able to describe Chapman in a parenthetical phrase. Notice, too, how detailing the purpose of the work helps us to understand G-Lo’s relation to it. If done properly, I don’t have to use words like “clearly evident” or “clear statement” later. I don’t have to say that I find his writing clear if I show how clear his writing can be.
An example of a drive by quote:
Most people that smoke know the consequences of smoking and the results of tobacco use. I believe that you should care about this because the mortality rates in Asian countries are increasing and many American tobacco companies are targeting these asian countries instead of promoting decreased use of cigarettes and other tobacco products. “Tobacco use is the most important risk factor for cancer and is responsible for approximately 22% of cancer deaths” “Approximately 70% of deaths from cancer occur in low- and middle-income countries” (world health organization, 2018).
One last example:
On another note, most universities and businesses try to be as racially fair as possible. If I am going to give credit somewhere, it would be here. America does try to be as unbiased as possible when it comes to hiring or acceptance letters. But their efforts to be unbiased towards race has slowly affected their ability to hire or accept applicants fairly.
For instance, there was a case study done by Duke University involving the application process of certain employers:
Here there is a transition, but I think we can make that transition stronger:
A recent case study by John B. McConahay, a social psychologist from Duke University, supports my suspicions toward how “kind racisim” affects hiring and acceptance rates:
Homework
Workshop volunteers x3.
Start revising your medium.com essays, even if I haven’t provided comments yet. Look specifically at how you are handling sources and make sure you are providing enough contextual information in your signal. Also, make sure you are using links that indicate what a source says (i.e., not just linking “Here is an article on Trump’s decision” but “Robert Smith’s article presents reasons why House and Senate Republicans are upset with Trump.” Make your link text meaningful.
Also, as my hierarchy above indicates–look at the first and last sentences of paragraphs. Make sure they open with a claim, and end clarifying how the paragraph supports that claim, and/or how it fits into the ongoing argument.
