I have learned plagiarism is more complicated than just rewriting what someone has previously written. I am always a little concerned I will unknowingly plagiarize. I realized one had to cite a work, but I did not know to also mention the person in the beginning. I am not very good at rewording what someone has already written. I do not seem to have a broad enough vocabulary. I try to use different words, and I have become friends with the thesaurus, but I still have trouble. This week I learned I do not need to put off my assignments. I did not start working until Wednesday night and now it is Saturday night, I am not finished. So, next week I will start my assignments on Monday. I have to be careful with my time. Since, I am not actually attending a classroom environment, I am having problems dedicating a set time for this class. Winter has also made me little lazy. I did enjoy looking up the vocabulary words. The vocabulary section will help me to broaden my knowledge of knowing what words are appropriate to use when summarizing or paraphrasing.
My only question for now is , what if I do plagiarize my work? What if I cite my work and believe it to be done correctly, and it is wrong; what happens?
I kind of feel the same way about the plagiarizing. I learned with the vocabulary test that I am very limited in my wording and I may come off as childish when I rewrite. I had a friend use the word juxapose in a statement and truly had to google it to see what she was talking about. I am still uncertain about the consequences of plagiarizing;espicially if it's unintentional.
ReplyDeleteI am with you on paraphrasing. I cannot seem to get someones writing in my won words very easily. And when I do eventually do it, it either sounds ridiculous or too much like the original. I do not ever intend to plagiarize, but like you mentioned there are so many rules and it is not a fun process.
ReplyDeleteI also had a lot of trouble with the paraphrasing exercise. Not as much because of my vocabulary though. More due to trying to find my own language. My mother sent me a set of books not to long ago that really helps me with my vocabulary. It is a Merriam Websters Everyday Language Reference Set. This set has a dictionary, a thesaurus and a vocabulary builder.
ReplyDeleteI think that as long as it is clear that you are trying to avoid plagiarism, most teachers won't be too hard on you about it. Effort and understand are the main things we are looking for.
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