Analyzing "I Wasn't Me, Was It? Plagiarism and the Web"

Though they don’t conduct a study per se, Annette Rosati and Danielle DeVoss use their student’s experiences as a means to understand the changing landscape of plagiarism tactics and practices. Thanks to the Internet, students have a large and readily available stream of information. They can easily locate a sample essay on a subject they are writing about and claim it as their own. The temptation to simply cut and paste is also present, particularly if the student is writing hastily or has a hard time rewording the original ideas.

The article is interesting as it analyses the mindset that students accrue as a result of the demands of their teachers. When teachers ask students to create a new idea, the students are forced to research sources that will not only provide them a new idea, but will present it within the confines of a “correct” interpretation. In order to assuage their professor, the students then use plagiarism not only to ease their job, but as a way of “patchwriting” or “kidnapping.” Thinking of plagiarizing as kidnapping implies that the source text is borrowed to assimilate one’s own writing with the author’s ideas and style.

Finally, DeVoss and Rosati seek to resolve plagiarism issues by explaining the concept of intellectual property. Intellectual property refers to the creative output of another person. Though its definition can be skewed and blurred, it is essentially an idea that belongs to someone else, whether it be a design, a template, text, or art. Proper knowledge of what belongs to whom and the practice of citing sources the right way are effective ways to prevent a student from plagiarizing. 

DeVoss, Danielle & Annette C. Rosati (2002). “‘It wasn’t me, was it?’ Plagiarism and the Web.” Computers & Composition 19.2 (2002): 191-204. Web

"Let My Dataset Change Your Mindset" analysis

Rosling’s presentation constitutes him transferring his student’s mindset into a literal dataset. He does this as a means to present their argument in a visual manner. To them the dynamics of world issues are inherently us vs them, the developing world against impoverish countries. Their view has largely been assimilated and structured by the dataset most primed in their teacher’s youth.

Using data compiled by a census, Rosling criticizes the irrelevancy with which his students approach global issues. Their bias is to look down upon third-world countries as divergent and dated. When the dataset analyses individual countries, we see how vast of an improvement has been made by underdeveloped nations like Mexico and Singapore. Further dividing regions into more specific data shows that not all statistics are dependent on economy and development but on socio-cultural circumstances like war and prevalent diseases. An unfortunate limitation faced by this study is the possible inaccuracy of the data collected. When collected as a census, the possibility of pseudo-factual information or incomplete data is of a higher risk.     

Rosling presents the notion that “underdeveloped” countries actually undergo social development much faster than some of the leading powers of the world; a convergence factor that sees conditions escalate on par with U.S. conditions rapidly. Upon viewing his presentation, it seems foolish to divide nations into two categories when there are many traits present within each country.  

1937

The burden of being Haitian weighs upon Josephine. Amidst the backdrop of a fractured history, she struggles to maintain a relationship with her mother that encompasses the larger legacy of Haitian women.  Born at the expense of her grandmother’s life, Josephine is imbued with a great resilience. For her, the Madonna’s sole tear is “too much crying” to express her mother’s suffering. Her inability to connect with her mother is microscopic of the general disconnect between the colonial and native history of the Caribbean.

Danticat’s decision to characterize Josephine by her confusion rather than her bitterness helps the reader identify with her.  Her feelings for her mother’s rituals and traditions are full of wonder and naiveté. Nonetheless, her observations to the situation at hand make it evident that she understands the hopelessness surrounding her. She bears witness to many injustices: Her mother’s imprisonment, the harsh treatment in jails, and ultimately her mother’s death.  As she notes of her mother “she had never talked very much about the future. She had always believed more in the past.” Yet the story ends with a glimpse of hope, as Josephine asserts that perhaps she will see her mother in the afterlife.

            Josephine mentions Americans at one point in the story. They “thought us how to build prisons,” she states, summarizing the foreign affliction in Port-au-Prince. She doesn’t portray men in a very flattering light. Perhaps the best way to describe her is cautious and weary. And in the end the best the reader can hope for her is to look to the future with hindsight of her mother’s culture. 

Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak! NY: Vintage Books. Print. 

Analyzing Nancy Sommers

        In her study, Nancy Sommers defines the revision process as “a series of changes in a composition – changes which are initiated by cues and occur continually throughout the writing of a work.” She advocates the omnipresence of the revision process in writing rather than its current backhanded existence for young writers. Ideally, one should disregard the linear model of speech in which ideas are developed, worded, and written; separating writing and revision.

        Sommers identified four operations of revision from the forty (twenty student writers and twenty experienced writers) subjects she analyzed. Addition, substitution, deletion, and reordering were identified in the discourse of four different stages: words, phrases, sentences, and/or themes. Among the students, there was a primary concern over word selection and repetitive prose. Revising was really redoing, students substituting one word for another. Sommers found them prioritizing lexicon and dismissing conceptual repetition; sentences unconsciously written to repeat subtext and ideas under a different selection of words. As she discovered when she analyzed the procedure teachers undergo when evaluating a student’s text, this concern students develop comes primarily from misconceived notions on how to properly revise. Experienced writers focused on identifying and supporting their argument in a way that would best reflect the reader’s sensibilities. To them, the writing process “Develops like a seed” encompassing all aspects of idea development and revision.

        Nancy Sommers’ theory on revising is particularly beneficial to those who engage in scholarly writing. In such articles it is important for the writer to project his opinions and ideas clearly. Focusing on grammar and technical issues during a draft can distract the writer from identifying his/her discourse as a whole rather than a culmination of words, sentences, and paragraphs.

 Sommers, Nancy. "Revision strategies of student writers and experienced adult writers"College Composition and Communication. 31.4 1980. Web

Responding to "Responding to Student Writing"

                Nancy Sommers analyzes the revision process teachers undertake when proofreading a students text in her article, “Responding to Student Writing.” According to research conducted by Sommers and her colleagues, Lil Brannon and Cyril Knoblach, a common malpractice for teachers is to establish criteria that inhibits the natural progression of ideas of the students in order to better assimilate faculty demands. This process can be described as appropriating and can lead to contradictory statements that confuse the sense of purpose of the writer.

                 Ideally, comments provided by teachers should be essential for the writer to understand gaps in his logic and subsequently reevaluate his expression of ideas; they should “Dramatize the presence of a reader” and offer assistance during a malleable window of the writing process. What Sommers discovered instead was that these comments were mostly made on behalf of grammar or structural mistakes and could easily be interchanged between papers. For the most part, they distract the writer from doing actual writing and hinder idea development. Generic comments also misplace the priority of writing by making the author focus on a minor issue like grammar over the meaning of the text.   

                Sommers argues against a variety of established norms when it comes to the way teachers revise a student’s paper. Her biggest complaints have to do with focusing on the individual parts of a text rather than as a unit of discourse. What Sommers suggests then, is for teachers to approach a text without bias and help students develop their argument rather than replace it. Her theories are particularly helpful not only for teachers grading papers but for students undergoing peer review. 

Sommers, Nancy. “Responding to Student Writing.” College Composition and Communication 33.2 (1982): 148-156. Web.