Blog Post #8

Statement of Purpose:

• I'm doing a research project on plagiarism. I hope to discover if students use the internet as a crutch when writing papers and what they feel is the underlying reason for that.

A more detailed statement:

•  I want to really see if maybe students unintentionally plagiarize because they lack techniques that help them with their writing process or if they think their assignments make it too easy to use information online and just change it around.  I mainly want to focus on what students think plagiarism actually is, how students may plagiarize unintentionally, and why they really think it happens.

A preliminary list of sources:

• So far I have one article that explains all the things I am trying to discover but from the professors perspective. I feel this article is enough for me to help organize my study but in terms of the students perspective so my research is almost the other side of theirs. I also have about 3 subjects who I plan to interview, a former student, and two current students. All different majors.

My Plan for gathering your information :

• I will be studying students, current students, or recent graduates who have taken a variety of classes that required writing papers. I decided that it doesn't have to be all English majors since there are many other majors that require written work. As I mentioned in my statement, I want to  see what they think plagiarism actually is, how they may plagiarize unintentionally, and why they really think it happens. I plan to collect my information from my subjects at a mutual meeting place, such as a coffee shop or maybe even at their homes so they are more comfortable. So far I have 3 subjects but I want to have at least 5 to collect my data and compare. The method I plan on using is strictly interviewing since I don't really see any other way to gather my info for this!

Blog Post #7

In the last class, we were asked to interview another classmate for about 7 minutes. The topic of discussion was Valentine's Day! Before jumping into the interview, we had talked about some ways to "break the ice". Being that I had never spoken to my partner, Nagerrah, I thought I'd incorporate some of the points given in class. With that being said, I decided that my opening questions would be asking her where she was from and how old she was. I quickly mapped out a few other questions in reference to V-day:

• What did you do this past Valentine's Day?
• What were your thoughts on V-day growing up?
• How do you feel about it now that you're older?

One thing I noticed right away, was that my "ice-breaker" question in the beginning, asking  her where she was from, was kind of irrelevant. Although I think it's a good tactic, in this particular discussion, I don't think it played well into what we were talking about and left me kind of jumping from her hometown to what she did on Valentine's day without a smoother transition. One didn't really have anything to do with the other and I realized that I could've came up with another type of question that would set the mood for what we were talking about better. I think next time, I will just go with the flow on a question to break the ice with something pertaining to the subject a bit more. As the interview progressed and I got into my core questions, I didn't really feel much tension between us. I think Nagerrah and I had a good chemistry although we had never met, which was a big plus because that put us at ease a bit more. Our interview was definitely on the conversational side, I feel it got that way when she started to bring up points that helped me to create questions in my head that I hadn't wrote down before. For example, when she told me she went shopping with her aunts and cousins, I automatically thought to ask her if their shopping trip was in tribute of Valentines Day. That wasn't something I was planning to ask, but it made sense to add that in. After that I thought i'd get some of her thoughts about V-day growing up. It was during this answer that I felt our interview really shift into conversation mode! She talked about how she was always excited to hand out Valentines to the class as a kid. This was great because I was then able to relate to my interviewee, I felt this helped the flow of conversation because of that "me too!" moment where we both briefly shared our similarities as kids. My last question was how her view on V-day has changed from her youth, and naturally it is a lot different than being excited to hand out valentines to the class. Although I personally felt it was a good "'ender" kind of question, I noticed we hadn't reached 7 minutes yet! This is when I realized I got stuck. I was stuck because I looked at my paper and my questions were over, and I couldn't come up with another one on a whim because that last question ended things for us. Overall, I thought it was a really cool experience. I never interviewed someone before and now I think I have a better feel for it and what to improve on and what to leave out. I think instead of writing down a bunch of questions to go by I can add in idea bubbles too. This way, when I reach the end of my list, I have some ideas on where I'd like the convo to go and can randomly form questions from that instead of feeling cut off.

Blog Post #6

My topic for our research project is going to be plagiarism (I have yet to come up with a more concentrated title for it). I am currently taking a writing studies course, and read an article on plagiarism and it's role in writing studies that really grabbed my interest. In the article, I was introduced to several new ideas as to why plagiarism is so prevalent in a large number of student's work. The only thing was, that the article didn't have much information on the students perspective when it came to committed acts of plagiarism (both unintentionally and intentionally).


What I'm planning to make my central focus for this is, what student's think is the underlying reason for unintentional plagiarism.. I already know (or at least I assume) that many students would sum it up to laziness, and the convenience of the internet. However, I plan to formulate some questions to really see if students feel they need to use the internet and other sources as a crutch to help them get through an assignment. Maybe they lack a brain-storming technique that works for them or that genre of writing, or maybe the assignments given lack encouragement to really elaborate on the subject matter, leaving students stuck.

So far, I plan to interview a handful of college students (non Kean University students, in case they somehow violate the school's plagiarism guidelines) Some of the questions I've come up with are:

• How would you define plagiarism?
• Do you use the internet as a crutch to help you find ideas, or elaborate on current ideas when writing a paper?
• If so, do you feel you have to cite where you got that idea from, even if you aren't quoting something?
• If not, do you feel your assignments are set up in a way that makes plagiarism too difficult or just plain unnecessary?
• Do you feel you are expected to already have the skills for a successful writing process?
• Do you find yourself not giving credit to sites that some professors find less credible such as wiki, cliffnotes, sparknotes, etc?
• Besides being lazy, what reasons would you give for the rise in plagiarism?

 I was also thinking of incorporating some questions about their writing process, to see if they make drafts or even if they take it back to grade school and use webs. "How do you build on your ideas?" etc. But I'm not sure if this would run me off track a bit, or if this sort of back information would help my focus.

The questions I came up with are still subject to change. I may add some or just delete some completely. In the end, I really just want to learn what students feel are the reasons they refer to  websites more so DURING the writing process. Not just using the internet and sites because they are required to have sources to back up claims, but for the extra stuff, the stuff that no one asked them to use the internet for. I haven't decided if I want to keep this within English majors, or if I want to open it up to several majors and their unique forms of writing. On the practical side of things, I know a lot more people from different majors other than English that don't attend Kean. Most of the English majors I know are all my peers here at the university. I'm not too sure which way would be better in collecting information yet.

Blog Post #5

In our class last week, we discussed ethnography in depth and then we played it all out and experienced it firsthand with an ethnographical activity.

Jottings

• Holly
• Met Amanda
• Ariana - Eng 3005
• Groups
• Nervous body language
• Standing still
• Confusion
• Met Gigi
• Professor knows all names

Headnotes
 I first met Holly who sits to my left, followed by Amanda who I believe sits to Holly's left. I learned that Ariana and I both currently take the same Writing Studies course! Everyone started to form groups and clusters. Many people's body language gave off a nervous/awkward vibe. After all the moving around, it seemed that once everyone found a comfortable group, they stuck with it and started to just stand around. Many students seemed a bit confused, not really knowing exactly what they should say to the next student (More so at the beginning of the experiment). One of the last people I met was Gigi. Professor Chandler seemed to break the ice by knowing everyone and even introducing some people to one another.



Things I remembered later

• I remembered how the sound of everyone's voice and the flow of conversation seemed to be in flux. At first it was quiet, then it got a little noisy but soon after it died down and was pretty quiet again.
• I also remembered a majority of the class being on their phones. Using it to take their notes, and I realized how I didn't notice anyone with a notebook, or maybe wasn't paying attention to that factor.
• At first, everyone was spread out, making it harder to communicate since we were all standing in the exact spots we sit in. Slowly but surely, everyone migrated to the middle of the room and got really close together just before groups started forming.
• I also remembered that I had completely forgot to jot down smaller details to help me remember bigger pictures.

Field Notes

We all just stood there, everyone's eyes bouncing back and forth contemplating who to meet for the first time. "Introduce yourselves to someone you haven't met yet!" were the initial instructions given to the class about our ethnography activity. At first, Professor Chandler seemed to notice the tension so she urged us to branch out into the open space of the class and start talking. We slowly made our way out of our isles and the first girl I introduced myself to was Holly. I immediately noticed her long hair and as I learned her name, it rang a bell in my head as I've read and enjoyed her blogs since the beginning of the course! After meeting Holly, I didn't move around much as we formed a mini group with Jessica, who I speak to every class, and a new girl I met, Ariana. Ariana was really friendly and she broke the ice by letting me know we are currently in the same writing studies class. Our little group stuck together for a short while, sharing some of our observations about the rest of the class around us. I noticed that while even our small group was talking, we were all steadily trying to record any significant observations in our phones. I heard professor Chandler mention "clusters" forming and then heard her say it was time to move around some more. Our little group ventured off to meet new people. As I budged forward to branch off, the room seemed to be at a sudden stand still. Now that everyone was asked to leave their new comfort zones, it seemed the initial tension was back. Arms were folded, and faces of uncertainty, and awkwardness were all around the room. The energy was in constant flux, the noise level would rise and drop. As I moved towards the back of the class, I could hear professor Chandler introducing people by name, maybe as a tactic to break the ice between other classmates. The last girl I met was Gigi, she was in the back of the room and had on black glasses. We introduced ourselves and then asked me what I did before class. We briefly spoke about it, it was a lot different of an approach from the other conversations I had during the whole activity. Before I knew it, the professor told us we could all have a seat. I said bye to Gigi and sat down to discover I hadn't really recorded much in my phone after all.



-This activity was really interesting. Learning about ethnography, discussing it in such depth and reading over the field note examples, made me feel putting it in action wouldn't be too hard. I thought the logic behind jotting and experiencing things first hand, putting myself in the scenario, made perfect sense and didn't think for a second how hard it could get. Once I was actually in that position to jot down things as I went along and met new people, I discovered how hard it could be not just to multitask, but to pull meaningful information from what I was observing. There are so many things going on at once, all the other students talking, body language, even silence, I found myself conflicted on what to actually note. Should I write down EVERYTHING? And if I did, would I actually be paying attention enough to even know what my jottings meant once I sat down and reviewed them? I'm super interested to see how I can better organize my thoughts, or what strategies we are introduced to, to help make our jottings have more significance.

Blog Post #4

How is Professor Chandlers class a discourse community? (As per Swales model)

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
In English 3029, all students have a set of common goals. The ultimate goal is to pass the class with a high grade and complete a successful research paper. Also, all students are English majors, so we all have a common goal of getting our degree in the same major.

2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.

Within English 3029, students communicate with: •email •blogs •group interaction and collaboration •Handouts such as a calendar and syllabus

3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.

Within the English 3029 classroom, students use the conversation and lesson to engage with one other on the particular topic. It is in the classroom which students provide the most feedback and information to one another.

4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.

In English 3029, students collaborate with one another providing feedback to one another and feedback to and from Professor Chandler. Also, as stated above under statement two, the students within English 3029 communicate in various mediums aside from face to face communication.

**NOTE: This discourse requirement can go either way in being a discourse community. Students have a more direct line of communication with the professor rather than among themselves. Why this is seems to be unknown because their are opportunities where students can communicate with one another outside of the classroom. Each personal blog as well as the "hub" blog has a comments section where other students can comment and make conversation. Although this never or rarely happens, most students still look at other students blog to see what they have written but fail to leave a comment, opinion, or feedback. Such observations could make this class on the verge of not yet being a discourse community.

5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.
English 3029 is a research analysis class which requires a large range of technical terms. Without knowing the meaning of terms such as research, analysis, rhetoric, and language analysis an "outsider" or "non student" of the classroom would be lost. Most students go into English 3029 not knowing any terms but because of the classrooms discourse, each student learns the specific lexis in order to conduct and understand the shared common goal of a successful research paper.

6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.

This is also a requirement that could go either way. The members are only in the class because it is a major requirement in order to graduate. Towards the end of the semester, each member of the class will know all the content and be almost experts in the field of research analysis. I believe this requirement is not fully developed yet to be a discourse community.

**NOTE: Also, the community of English 3029 is constantly changing members. The members of the classroom community are not the same from semester to semester. The only thing that stays constant within the community is Professor Chandler. She is like the "hub" to the class providing the right information to each student form semester to semester. She gives the members of the classroom the correct knowledge in order to understand the content of the course. Most students go directly to the "hub" instead of consulting each other as members of the group. Once again, it is little observations like this that could make English 3029 on the verge of being an actual discourse community.
Overall, I think the class DOES have the potential to be a discourse community. I just think we are still in the growing stage of getting to know one another and our personal beliefs. As the semester goes on I can see our class flourishing into more student to student interaction rather then each student connected directly to the hub.
***THESE OBSERVATIONS ARE FROM MYSELF AS WELL AS GROUP MEMBERS BRENDA AND JESSICA. Our observations are not a definite conclusion. ***

Blog #3

In class I was introduced to some new terms, as well as some terms I've heard before but never really thought about in depth. Discourse was one of those terms. What I understood was our language in use, and even patterns in the way that we talk. A brand new word for me was, lexis. A lexis is specific language within a discourse, and that there are also different perspectives within that discourse. We also talked about genres, which is like a category for something, so different perspectives within a discourse could also be because it's a different genre. Genres have their own characteristics. Cultural Knowledge was new to me. It is being part of a group that also shares the same beliefs, or even just prior knowledge in particular parts of culture.