I hope you enjoyed it and learned a little bit. Comment if you have any questions!
Godspeed.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Integrating Sources Continued...
Hello blogging world! I was just strolling through the internet today and came across an interesting video that happens to really help when it comes to integrating your sources. It is about a girl who wrote a paper and had it reviewed and had some minor citing problems in it. She discusses several problems that I have trouble with including hanging quotes and correct paraphrasing. Here is the video for you viewing pleasure:
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Integrating Sources-The most exciting part of writing any paper!
Hello blogging world! Scott Odorico here to talk to you about my prompt for the week, which is integrating sources. I know what you're probably thinking; "Well hey, I already know how to do that!" That's exactly what I thought before I had my memory jogged and before I learned a couple of new things about integrating sources. For those who don't know what this is, it is the use of outside sources and documents in your own work, and citing it correctly so it is considered legal. Some difficult ideas to understand when Integrating sources are punctuation, quotation marks, use of parenthesis, and introduction of quotes.
So what is the first thing I think of when I think about integrating sources? I think about all of those papers I have written, and all of the mistakes marked off because of faulty citing and such. Mistakes such as incorrect punctuation and incorrect parenthesis have really killed me (with grades that is). Since videos and cool multimedia are pretty hard to come by on this topic, I am going to explain and address some major problems most young writers have with integrating sources.
The first problem I would like to address is punctuation. If most writers are like me, punctuation can be fairly confusing when it comes to citing sources. The best way to show you this is to give you an example:
-Scott Odorico stated in his personal diary, "I am simply the smartest man alive, and no one can argue that" (Odorico 3).
So when breaking down this example, one can tell that you simply introduce the quote by giving some outside information or the author and before stating the quote, you must use a comma. This introduction is key to include as you do not want to leave a quote just hanging their with no introduction. This introduction (and comma) introduces the quote following, and brings the reader into the quotation marks. Most writers know how to use the quotation marks, but more problems occur when addressing the end of the quote. In a normal statement, no comma or period is used to transfer into the parenthesis, which is a common problem for some writers. This can be different with an exclamatory remark or a question in a quote. An example of this is:
-Scott Odorico stated in his personal diary, "Is anyone really better than me at anything?" (Odorico 4).
As you can see, when an exclamation mark or question mark is used at the end of a quote, you include the mark as well as end the entire sentence (after the parenthesis) with a period.
As you can see, MLA format is pretty picky when it comes to citing your sources, and rightfully so. When it can lead into legal matters, why not be completely serious about citing sources? For some more information on integrating sources and citing quotes, I have found two pretty good websites for your viewing pleasure:
and
Well thanks for all of those who read my blog this week and come back next week for my next topic on writing! And remember, correctly cite your sources!
Godspeed world.
Work Cited
#1- Purdue OWLhttp://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/1/
#2- George Washington Universityhttp://widstudents.wordpress.com/category/integrating-sources/
Monday, November 21, 2011
Plagiarism continued...
I was just strolling though the web today and happened to come across two pretty good videos that relate in some way to plagiarism. Check them out:
and...
I hope you enjoyed them!
Also, please check out the Question of the Month!
Godspeed blogging world.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Question of the Month
Here it is everyone! November's Question of the Month!
What would you rather have for the term limit for the President of the United States of America: 4 years or 6 years?
Chime in!
Godspeed.
Plagiarism... Oh Boy... Not this again...
Hello big blogging world! How is everyone doing out there? If you're reading this and you should be working on some sort of term paper and were just looking for some website to take some "useless" information from, than leave! No, I'm just joking, you should most likely stay and learn a little lesson here, but you really should start that term paper.
Today my blogging prompt is simply plagiarism. And yes, very annoying, yet very important. Plagiarism, for those who have no gosh darn idea what it is, is the act of making someone's work your own without their permission and without citing their work either. This happens often with students, especially those lazy and forgetful enough to put off that huge term paper to the last day, and have to go online and copy documents completely for their paper! I know this doesn't happen to me in school, and hopefully not for you either.
In my junior year of high school right now, I am currently taking Law and American Society which takes an in depth look in law and other problems that occur from day to day life in our lives. I am telling you all this because we happen to be studying civil law right now, which is the act of one party against another party, usually in attempt to sue the other party. Now this situation happens a lot with conflicts over things like copyright, which is technically plagiarism! Copyright, again for those who do not know what it is, is the legal term for someone's exclusive rights to an object, and no one else may attempt to recreate it at all. This is the first thing I think of when I tumble across the term plagiarism.
Another thing I think of when I happen to be learning about plagiarism is all of those TV shows or movies that may take a line or idea from another TV show or movie. Now I'm sure most of you have either heard of something along these lines or even witnessed something that looked awfully peculiar and similar to some other show you watch. I found a clip that shows a great example of this exact idea. It is a combination of clips from the website College Humor, who actually took these lines and ideas from the movie Inception, and South Park who has been accused of plagiarizing College Humor's work. It is very clever and is actually a pretty amusing clip. Here you go (please excuse the last 5 seconds or so if you are easily frightened or do not like fake blood):
That video is a pretty good summary of what happens often when movie makers or show makers release a new hit.
I found one other video that is pretty funny and is about plagiarism and may actually be considered plagiarism itself. The reason I say this is because if any of you readers have seen the Subway commercials who voice dub all the actors with really high, squeaky voices to make it humorous, this video may relate to it for you. Here you go again world:
That video is pretty educational for being humorous, and as well as stressing the ideas in my opening paragraph for this blog. Well that's all the information and videos I have on plagiarism for my fellow bloggers today! And remember, don't put off that huge term paper to that late sunday night (I know I don't). I will blog with you later friends!
Godspeed.
Logical Fallacy Blog Re-post
Hey bloggers!
Just a quick fix on my last blog about logical fallacies, I wanted to correctly cite the source for the last web page I used.
Work Cited
Oly. "Logic 101 – a Nifty Link « Oly's Random Rants and Ravings." Oly's Random Rants and Ravings. Oly's Random Rants and Ravings, 23` Oct. 2011. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. .
As well as this cite, I have recently found a hilarious ad online that I believe, and apparently so does the owner of this clip, is a ad populum fallacy. It is for Fed-Ex and attracts others to their product by saying everyone makes a commercial this way. Please watch:
Godspeed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)