week 3

On the subject plaigerizing, I think that the reading, Historians in Trouble, was an interesting and insightful read. I have had several instances where I personally have encountered experiences of plaigerizing and the consequences involved. I go back in my memory to the first semester of my freshman year of college. At that time I was attending Pellissippi State Community College because my application to UT-Knoxville was accepted late so instead of waiting out a semester I decided to get some classes out of the way at Pellissippi State. So I signed up for the basic freshman classes like english 110 and to the lack of my knowledge the professor for that class was a nightmare. She was one of those real old school teachers who was all business and no play. She didn't tolerate any type of distraction to the task at hand which was learning how to write research papers the correct way. The focus of the class was learning how to research and cite correctly while still writing in a way that is interesting to read. Anytime that any of the students in the class, including myself, made even the slightest mistake in citing the material we received an "F" for the assignment. Of course we were allowed to turn our papers in early if we wanted to so she could check it to make sure we did it correctly so that way we wouldn't fail the class. So the importance of ethical research and writing was instilled in me ever since because I couldn't tell you how many people received the dreaded "F" for their assignments which they felt was unfair because it was mostly because of a typo or something insignificant like that. But even though I felt at the time that I hated my teacher back then, I came away with a conditioned sense of writing with purpose and writing correctly so as to not plaigerize no matter what. Now I will say that to this day I still make slight mistakes when citing and, as does many other people when writing but it is the writer's responsibility to be diligent when proofreading to catch those mistakes when they know that other people will be reading your work and placing their trust in your research. It was pretty concerning to me to find out how many proffesional historians or writers in general actually partake in this form of cheating for their own personal gain, to me it just is not worth it when you look at the consequences involved.