Sunday, November 7, 2010

We're All Mad Here!

I think I’m going mad. Well madder, I guess. I find myself in constant fear of accidentally plagiarizing. The reason for this is that is these days I can never seem to remember who said what and where it was said. Honestly, all the class readings and personal research is just starting to run together to the point where I don’t know which way is up anymore. The worst of it is I can’t figure out which ones are my own original thoughts! I mean, obviously all my thoughts, original or not, are invariably influenced by something I’ve read, seen or heard but its getting harder and harder to tell where my collected research/readings stops and I begin. To the point that twice now I have been absolutely positive that I read a really great point in a particular article yet when I look over the notes and couldn’t find it, basically reread the whole article and still couldn’t find it, until I read that one little section that made me realize it was my own bloody idea! It was simply that article that made me think it in the first place! Then of course I have the obligatory moment of existential panic in which I begin to wonder is this really my idea then, if its drawing upon someone else conclusions, should I sight it as theirs?! Its mad I tell you!

Oh BTW, did anyone see this?

http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/love-sex/the-dumpiest-day-of-the-year-december-6th-blog-45-shine.html

I read it an all I could think of is “I wonder what kind of research they used”.

Again madness.

1 comment:

  1. Alisha ...

    Let me tell you how I always feel about citations and plagarism. I feel like presentations like "cite-it-right" are meant to intimidate the slackers who might be inclined to plagarize (so they won't). Unfortunately, all they ever seem to do is terrify those of us who would never ever plagarize, and work hard to ensure that we don't!! I will admit to coming out of plagarism presentations feeling like a criminal (when I've never done anything of the sort). It's not just for plagarism either, I feel like that when I'm in any group that gets warned/scolded for something.

    So don't worry! You're very smart and will get through this small bout of maddness. It happens to everyone :)

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