"Future Writing"

While I was writing the research writing assignment, I realized that I knew a lot more than what I thought I did. I was capable of taking all of my knowledge and writing a 1500 word essay with mostly my thoughts and my research. This type of writing will definitely be used in my field of work. Psychologists have to collect their own research from their studies and sessions on patients, analyze the results from a doctor's visit and use what they have learned from other sources to compile a summarization of the patient and what needs to be done to help the patient. This field is all about research and writing. A psychologist must perform speeches, give presentations and also provide written novels on their research and what they have discovered in their line of work. They conduct their own research for their own work and writings. We used sources in our paper of course, but most psychologists learn their information from other psychologists either by experience, reading another psychologist's book, or going to a lecture from another psychologist. They would also have to cite certain content because some of it is based on certain books, articles or lectures that are not theirs. Psychologists have to conduct experiments or methods to find a way to specifically help that client. This is exactly what we did in our paper. We interviewed people, found out what the problem was, and then we summarized all of our findings and gave an opinion or method on how to resolve the problem. We also gave a picture of how we could better our research for next time. Psychologists go through this same cycle every day with their patients. They may not write 1500 words on every single patient, but they do give a summary and conclude from their research on what to do and it contains research to back that method up from other psychologists. I have learned so much from this paper. It has given me a taste of what I will be doing in the future. I am glad that one of my classes has finally given me a taste of what it will truly be like in the psychology world. When I realized that it was the same process that a psychologist uses, I wanted to do more because it is practice for me. During my internship for psychology after graduating with a bachelor's degree, I will enter an internship that requires these types of skills from me. I am thankful that I got to do this writing assignment. It enlightened me on many things that I did not know about my career and what's coming up next during my college career. 

"Martin"

        In Brian Martin's "Plagiarism: A Misplaced Emphasis," he is describing the different kinds of plagiarism, what each level of writing , and what are the standards on plagiarism for each level of writing. In an education that is placed at a higher level, plagiarism is "grievous sin." In every high school and university, students are warned about the consequences of plagiarism, and teachers, whether at a high school or college level, have a way of detecting plagiarism, but there are no perfect methods of noticing plagiarism (Martin, 448). "Undoubtedly no more than a small fraction of student plagiarism is ever detected and, of that which is detected, serious penalties are imposed on only a minority of offenders," says Brian Martin, but what about community and government leaders (Martin, 448). A student may be punished for plagiarism, but what about the consequences that need to be given to our political leaders. Martin Kuther King Jr. is an example. The plagiarism that Martin Luther King Jr. committed never became a hindrance as a preacher or leader in the civil rights movements of his time. Incidents, such as these, have causes many academics and scientists to hide one's ideas because of "unscrupulous competitiors" who are willing to steal (Martin, 449). To share ideas in this world is absolutely unheard of now due to the dangers of plagiarism. Now, there is also institutionalized plagiarism. This type of plagiarism is when someone else is hired to write for another person. Institutionalized plagiarism is mostly required for the press. When it comes to a politician, sports figure, business executive or movie star, "the actual writing is done by someone else" (Martin, 450). The people that write for these specific types of people are clled ghostwriters because they are either acknowledged in small print, or not at all. Brian Martin calls this "plagiarism of authorship." There are a variety of types of ghost writing plagiarisms from honorary plagiarism which is in scientific research, and political speechwriting which refers to politicians and their speeches. 

        Many argue whether plagiarim laws should be enforced or not. Many scholars and academcs believe that it is a way for students to get ahead without working for it or without the student or person learning anything. Some think that many people plagiarize due to the fact of inexperience. Brian Martin commented that, "In many cases, plagiarism is carried out by undoubtedly talented and experienced people, as in the case of D.H. Lawrence  plagiarizing from various women." Brian Martin believes that plagiarism has been given more attention that what it truly deserves and has caused more distress and turmoil. "Most cases should be dealt with as matters of etiquette rather than "theft"" (Martin, 456).

"Winsor"

        This study is about novice engineer students on whether or not the students have learned how to write by model or mentoring. During her studies, she found that 53% of the students use models. Models are a standard, imitiation or comparison. Some of the students received advice/editing, or mentoring. Mentoring means to advise or train someone. 38% of the novice engineers were given advice/editing from a supervisor. 24% got advice from their co-workers, 14% were placed into a writing technical class that was required, high school training was 7%, classes at work were 5%, and work evaluations were 5%. Some of the descriptions written by the students were more like a sink-or-swim experience. Most students would agree that these methods used are not helpful compared to the other citing methods. In contrast, the students like the experience of models and mentoring because most learn from the interactions that come along with experts as most productive when they are receiving responses and practice.

        In Winsor's article, she receives comments from students that go into detail about the statistics. They have a specific learning pattern that is typical between most of the students; this is to use models by going to a co-worker and seeking advice on their drafts, submitting them to some type of supervisor and then reading and listening to the responses, from the supervisor, so that they can revise their work correctly. This model gives them the ability to choose a format and style for their work. They see formatting as a matter of local convention. There is always a better way to do something but they do not want to hear about it because that specific company has a set of guidelines that they go by. 

        Some students read models over and over again until they get to a better understanding, they take earlier reports and use that as a basis for their analysis, or they use models to know what is expected to be presented on the report format. Many students use the model in different ways, but they know one thing for sure. Communication skills and a students style of writing are learned by experience in the workplace. Overall, most students made the comment that they need to drive instead of watching someone drive. One student commented, "School can show us the reins but we won't really learn to control the horse until we ride it." 

Word Count: 398

        

"Writing, Technology, and Teens: Summary of Findings"

There are many elements that help teenagers, or college students write today and it varies between each of them. Technology is a big help when it comes to writing a paper, especially if a teacher is not there to help us correct our mistakes and to show us why. Teenagers and college students also would like more interesting and appealing topics. Most teenagers , especially, would want to choose their own topic. It makes it more appealing to the student and it motivates them to actually put forth effort and make it a good paper which in turn, gets tgem a good grade. This changes the outcome of the student. It gives them confidence in their writing and to do better in school. it may reveal a skill for them that they never thought they had. A lot of teens have trouble with in-school writing because they are not interested in the topic, or that they do not have the resources to research the topic. That is why technology expands our knowledge and can help us with our writing. If we did not have computers, we would not know half of the things that we know today, but we would be fine without it even though it is very helpful. With technology, I don't think that it has affected how we speak, but how we spell. The one thing that I did not see with instant text messaging is that some people type out every word and do use correct grammer and spelling skills. This includes myself, so I believe that technology has not affected how we talk or spell. Talking in general is not correct. We communicate with people that do not use correct grammer as they are talking and that is what they have grown up around and when someone speaks incorrectly, this will change a person's writing. This has happened before the inventions of technology, and therefore technology is not making it worse. Technology is giving us a choice to better ourselves or to not better ourselves. It gives us that opportunity to learn and to obtain knowledge and if a person does not do that, then that is their choice. They cause themselves to miss out on knowledge that they need in life and opportunities that it could give to them.

"N. Baron & Cullington" pg. 719

"Instant Messaging and the Future of Language"

Mrs. Naomi Baron is describing how computer-mediated communication (CMC) and instant messages (IM) can influence younger audiences by giving them an opportunity to interact with other people and to be social. She focuses on a particular question, "Are email, instant messaging (IM), and text messaging on cell phones degrading the language?" Mrs. Baron tells us that many things that are here in the United States, but are not an issue in Europe or any other country. "Computer-based IM is relatively recent phenomenon to Europe." During the time of Beowulf, there were many different shifts in writing patterns. Shakespeare even spelt his name many different ways, probably around six times, in his time. While the Vietnam War was going on, people did not know how to use a semicolon or how to spell. So, with that being said, many of these problems dissolved with the help and guidance of teachers, parents and professionals. She explains how these worries and problems end up being the conversations and debates between professionals and also a parent and their teenage child. This could cause problems when teenagers replace words with abbreviations of that word like brb, be right back, and U for the actual word you. Mrs. Baron says that they are not any different from "like" or "totally" which are very common in the United States. She compares the abbreviations that adolescents use to contractions like "don't" rather than do not. Mrs. Baron tells us that contractions are only used two-thirds of the time and spelling out the words go to the other third, and she also says, "females are significantly more likely to type full forms than males."

She also proved that instant messages weren't always instant and not all messages are abbreviated, incorrectly spelled, or have grammer errors. Mrs. Baron believes that it can be tolerated and that their is no harm in using technology, but that "traditional writing conventions" be taught as well. She knows that a CMC style is empowering. "However, if today's teenagers are also to master more formal written language style, their parents and teachers must provide good models and, if necessary, even gentle sticks." She wants us to use technology and take advantage of the advancements in our society, but she does not want adolescents to forget and not learn older traditional writing styles, grammer skills, and spelling skills.

"From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies"

Baron Dennis describes writing as a technology today and that it has always been a technology. In the article, he says, "The development of writing itself illustrates the stages of technological spread." He is telling us that writing is deeply rooted into technology because it all started with writing. In the 1560's, John Thoreau and Company developed and distributed wooden pencils to a variety of people such as cabinet-makers, artists, note-takers, and many more. Baron Dennis says, "A tool so universally employed for writing that we seldom give it any thought." Even though Thoreau did not like the invention of the telegraph, he still thought that it was an improvement to techology but it was also an improvement to writing. He is correct in every way. Most people do not see writing as a technology, but it has developed with technology a lot. Everything that we have in technology today was in some form of writing at one point in time before computers, tablets and phones. We had all kinds of writing.We had different utensils that we used to write with, but the pencil, which had a piece of graphite, not lead, encased in wood, was not a writing utensil. It did not become that until the 1560's. The pencil was mostly used by joiners, woodworkers that specialized in making furniture which used the pencil to scribe measurements into the wood. At that time, pencils did not leave permanent dents in the wood. By the time Gesner became familiar with the pencil, it became widely used as a means to sketch, write, or take measurements by note-takers, natural scientists, and others. Then, the telephone came along, which did not go so well when Alexander Graham Bell was trying to sell his product. Samuel F. B. Morse was convinced that no one would want the telephone, Baron Dennis says, "It was unable to provide an permanent record of a conversation." It took a long while for people to find out what the telephone could truly do and accomplish. Once the telephone became established, it was a huge hit. News, and sports broadcasts were mostly passed over through the phone. The phone was a very useful invention. As technology became bigger, the computer came to reality. This opened up a whole new life for writing even though it wasn's meant for that purpose. Baron Dennis is trying to help us realize that even though writing wasn't the first thought when people invented these things, but writing became a huge part of that and that writing grew with the inventions of this world. 

"Comparing Writing Processes"

How does your partner's writing process differ from your own?

My writing process and Gabrielle's are quite the same. The only difference that I have seen is that I spend a lot more time revising and editing than I do actually writing the paper. Usually, all of the words fall into place for me as I am writing and while I edit and revise as I go. Gabrielle also writes a pretty basic outline. My outline is detailed. It covers every topic and almost every idea and thought that I put into my paper, so, it is more like a rough draft and an outline. Other than those two things, Gabrielle's writing process is similar to mine in that we both do not spend a lot of time on our actual paper. It sounds like we throw our paper together, but we do not. We plan our outline so well that when we go to write our papers, we do not have to do much editing, proofreading, or revising. This is more of a non-blocker writing process. I may have more of a blocker's writing process than Gabrielle does, because I take more time on the outline. More than most people would. Some people do not write an outline, but it is very helpful when they have one. An outline helps me stay focused and organized on what I am writing. Gabrielle thinks that if she has a good outline, she can skip around if she gets stuck. We have a few differences but there are a lot of similarities as well.