Aaron Whiteman 9/22/11

The Beginnings Of Change Journal 5

1) Games Responding to Academic Articles Using Others Work (Plagiarism) Expectations / Reponses Roles / Roleplay Language Vs. Literacy / Culture Shock Creating Unique, Original Writing Authority Fluency Make It Look Good

Honestly, the games mentioned in Casanaves article are quite particular to a specific set of students: the Japanese students at her university. However, if we were to generalize some of her games (as well as some strategies), we can see a relation to student life in the States. For me, the most common games are Make It Look Good and Expectations / Responses. Making it look good is following formalities, not necessarily those of citations, in order to have the correct form of writing. Paragraphing, sentence structure, headings, memos, introductions, etc. all play a part in the perfect paper. This is good to an extent, but at a point I feel it hinders my ability to write freely and thoughtfully when I must plague my mind with so much extra fluff. Expectations and responses is wherein specific teachers expect and respond differently to different writing styles. One teacher may love dogs. Write a paper on dogs, get an A. This is an unfortunate situation which occurs more often than would perhaps be expected, though sometimes much more subtly. This is on the part of the teachers, and small amounts will always exist, however at times its simply a game of catering to the teacher to get the A as opposed to real, independent thought. Honestly I do not play many games anymore. I have taken so many college-level composition, writing, poetry, literature, and other courses that I have found a way to not play the games anymore. I write what I know is good but is my own work. Citation and structure come near second hand to me. This does not mean that the games do not exist, but simply that they are in the back of my head, not nagging at me when I write.

4) Construction of Plagiarism Plagiarism is not considered theft in many countries outside of the United States. To them, taking the work of others is just using pre-existing ideas as opposed to taking them. In places like Japan, where Casanave did her research, students used plagiarism as a tool to complete work that to them was very foreign, despite their deep understanding of the English language. They knew the language, but they did not know the customs, the laws, or the concepts that go along with Western culture. It is as though the entire literary construction of the West is one large idiom.

5) Plagiarism as the Major Issue According to David, the real issue lies in the ability, or inability, of the students to own their own words. Instead of taking the words of others, which they mostly did because they knew little of topics which existing articles explained fluently and confidently, they needed to blend their readings with his teachings and their own voices. He considered this to be their writing, which was merely influenced by the words of others, and the Western ideals of anti-plagiarism were not in play.

1) Citation Casanave uses integral citation when she is talking about interviews with individuals, for the most part. This gives it a conversational feel, and provides fluency when talking about the most important parts, not weighed down by hefty citation. In her parenthetical citation she typically references research studies, more hard data, which she can summarize and parenthetically cite, using it more as fact, which happens to be derived from a source other than the ones which are directly important to her paper. I typically use mostly integral citation because I like to get my point across in the paper without distraction. Like Casanaves integration it makes the text almost conversational, with he said this, she said that. I am able to work others work into mine smoothly. I did this most recently in my Psychology 100 final research project, commenting on the relation between Schizophrenia and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I frequently cited in text after an initial parenthetical citation to allow the use of et al in the documents with lots of authors (I think 16 was the largest). It all came together in the list of works cited, and it came together well at that (it was an A paper).