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.   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.  One major reason people get into trouble with faulty paraphrase, and its cousin, excessive direct quotation, is that they simply have not yet figured out when scholars quote sources. Test your judgment with this brief quiz about types of information that once was someone's intellectual property and still might be today: When Must I Cite vs. What is Common Knowledge?
•         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 before next week if you have a tight schedule!

       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 two stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "My Kinsman, Major Molineaux," 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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