ENGL 420: Business Writing

This week, there was only one reading from PWONline. In general, all of the sections for this reading deal with ethical and moral problems associated with writing and the business world. In the first section that we were assigned to read, Copyright, Plagiarism and Fair Use of Others’ Writing, the general guide pretty much sums up everything that needs to happen when writing: “Give credit where credit is due.” In some cases this is very easy to do.

This is a subject that has always baffled me as a college student. As undergraduates, we are sort of like lightning - we take the path of least resistance. Usually this comes in the form of referencing Google on whatever topic we have been assigned to research, and then spitting off exactly what we've learned in our own words, with a website address in the "references" section, hoping to God and crossing our fingers that our professors are too lazy to actually look up our references, which 99% of the time they are.

Plagiarism is a very serious issue in society, but especially in the academic setting. The article Social and Cultural Issues talks specially about the issues of plagiarism and gives us some guidelines on how to avoid it. The most important information I learned from the article reinforced the idea that I have been taught in school so far; give credit to the author when it is not your own work. Although this is a simple idea, it is also very complex at the same time since there is a fine line between what is considered your own work and what you borrowed from others.

This week’s reading was about plagiarism, copyright, and ethics. Plagiarism is something that everyone should be fully aware of at this point in college; however, it is still being stressed everyday the importance of not doing so in colleges. The consequences of plagiarism were put into our heads at a very young age. What better time to teach a person about something so important than at the time a child is a learning sponge. Even then, people today are still plagiarizing even after all the warnings and teachings of the matter.

This week the readings were focused on plagiarism. This is a concern with any research and writing a person does. It is so important to remember to cite any sources you use. When you do not cite, it is considered stealing. You are using another person's words as your own. I know when I am writing a paper and using information from a source I try to remember citing. I do not want to try and say someone's words are my own. However, at times it can slip my mind. I have never purposefully left out a citation or source.

I am the sort of person that wouldn't plagiarize on purpose. I believe in integrity and honesty, and claiming someone's work as your own isn't honest. While I may not intentionally plagiarize, I am definitely guilty of doing so rather quite often. When I think of plagiarism, I think of reports, lyrics, and other writings. I don't think of graphics, logos, slogans, phrases, or designs as something to be plagiarized. How many times have I taken a logo or a phrase/slogan and altered it a little and claimed it as my own?

One of this week’s readings discussed plagiarism, copyright, and using the work of other’s fairly. As we discussed in class on Wednesday, plagiarism seems so avoidable with just the use of common sense, but it occurs frequently. Many times, people can plagiarize unintentionally. This could be because they are not fully educated on the exact material that requires citing. Other times, people may plagiarize purposely. I obviously cannot say why people might do this, but it could be attributed to laziness or the thought that they might not be caught.

After reading the Gender in the Workplace in PWOnline I feel like everything is true. The reason why I think it is true is because I am in the construction field. In my senior class there are 5 femalescompared to 55 males. It just feels like most of the femalestry to fit in with the males, but it is hard to crack the personalities of the males. I see even bigger discrimination in the construction field on site. Most of the construction workers are males and I know for a fact that most if not all males don't like having females on the jobsite.

The majority of this week's readings had to do with plagiarism. We where presented with three different types of cases having to do with this. What I believe these readings where trying to convey was that plagiarism can happen to anyone, even well know authors. The readings where also trying to bring up the fact that not everyone knows that they are copying someone else's work and they stressed that you must site your sources in your paper. Other readings this week talked about ethics. These articles talked about having your writing be for good, not harm.

This weeks readings were about plagarism. Though I am aware that this goes on in our madern day world, I find myself wonder how stiff these rules will become. Eventually you would have to think that almost everything you you could write about would have already been writin by someone else somewhere else. Would it not be possible for someone to think the excact same thing that sombody else had at a different time?