Week 3 Discussion Guide: Tuesday

•         We will return briefly to last Tuesday's "Using Sources" discussion to talk about how plagiarism typically happens, and how NOT to plagiarize (i.e., assume false authority).  Before class, be sure to take the Plagiarism-by-Paraphrase Risk Quiz, answering all examples in at least one of the disciplines (e.g., Natural Sciences or Humanities, etc.), and be prepared to discuss the experience.   Faculty and students typically distinguish quite clearly between "criminal" plagiarism and incompetent plagiarism.  The former is stealing or falsely representing another's words as one's own, acts with clear criminal components.  The latter mistakes the rules for borrowing ideas and language from sources cited elsewhere in the document, or mistakes for common knowledge an idea or fact that remains someone's intellectual property.  The most common cause of faulty borrowing is incorrect paraphrase of sources' language, followed closely by incorrect source citation.  The quiz will help you determine whether your paraphrase skills and knowledge of format are sufficiently strong to keep you out of trouble.  If the quiz tells you to ask for help, please do so!  First-year students are given extraordinary chances to allow them to learn, which includes accepting certain kinds of mistakes along the day, but the time is coming soon when "mistakes" will be considered "criminal negligence," a level of carelessness likely to harm the culture in which they are working. 
•         In addition to helping my students understand this difficult intellectual property issue, I also am willing to consult with you on behalf of other students who are concerned that they may have plagiarized without intending to do so, or even students who realize that they have plagiarized and want to make it right.  If you do not mention names, I can give advice without violating my side of the Academic Honor Code.  For a quick review of the rules defining plagiarism, click here, and for the rules governing reporting academic dishonesty (including self-reporting, which usually greatly reduces the penalties), click here.
•         After discussing intellectual property and the problem of determining what constitutes fair use of it, we will discuss how to properly cite online information.
•         In the second half of the class, you will pair-off in a peer editing session with your rough drafts.  Our first goal is to improve the authors' pictures of their best readers' needs--how will they use the product and what parts of the product matter most to that?  Our second goal will be to help structure the paper's presentation of the evidence so that it leads logically from the readers' needs through a set of possible products' features and toward a "best choice" recommendation.
•         At the end of class, we will briefly look forward to Thursday's class in which we will begin the second paper assignment, a Humanities paper based on short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, beginning with "My Kinsman, Major Molineaux" (1832 / 1852).

 Read Ahead!

       To prepare for Thursday's class, look at the hyperlinked sites in this paragraph for the the Hawthorne Paper project. If you have time to read ahead, get started on three stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "My Kinsman, Major Molineaux," "Young Goodman Brown," and "Rappaccini's Daughter."  They are available in many anthologies, and in the hyperlinks above that connect to an acceptable edition from the University of Virginia's E-Text Library.  If you have time, click here to read two responses to student questions about the upcoming literary analysis paper which may help you read with a clearer purpose.  Click here for a glossary of literary terms and an explanation of how they might be used to explain an insight about literature.

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