Tag: COLL300

Yep. Another post that had been a homework assignment follows:

Review the material in your text on plagiarism (Chapter 30, pages 474-479).

After reviewing the material in CW, examine one of your recent research papers. In a one to two paragraph posting, answer the following questions:

1. Did you follow the chapter’s guidelines?
2. Where do you need to improve? Post your original response in a new thread.

Be sure to respond to at least two of your peers. Original Response is due by midnight Thursday; peer responses are due by midnight Sunday.

Form 10%: Student follows correct format for the assignment, including proper documentation of sources, if applicable, through in-text citations and a bibliography.
Focus/Thesis 15%: Student demonstrates a clear understanding of assignment and assignment goal. If thesis is required in the assignment, it is clearly defined, identifiable, and constructed to help guide the reader throughout the assignment.
Content/Analysis 45%: Student has incorporated all required elements of the assignment. Where applicable, the thesis statement is supported by facts, examples, and statistics. Content is well developed and exhibits evidence of serious analysis and critical thinking.
Style/Organization 20%: Assignment meets the expectations of collegiate writing. The writing exhibits a clear, logical organizational structure and flows smoothly from point to point from general statements to specific details. The writing is engaging, effective, and concise.
Grammar/Mechanics 10%: The assignment contains no grammatical or spelling errors. The student uses punctuation not only for clarity but also for rhetorical purposes.

It has been some time since I have written a “research paper” as an assignment; I have, however, written several research driven responses over the past year—the latest being one telling of a military incident.

For an EDMG230 forum response/assignment I was given the task of seeking out an example of a military incident for a critique of how the situation had or had not been properly handled. For this task I managed to dig up a few articles on a “broken arrow”—damaged missile—incident that took place in 2003 at a Naval base in Washington. As part of my style of writing—and as this assignment leaned on giving an opinion of the outcome—I located a blogger that wrote of the incident as well in a conspiracy-like fashion; normally this sort of “trick” is unacceptable for collegiate writings, however I believed my audience would be accepting of the maneuver.

In my writing I sourced materials from the Associated Press and the blogger, making every effort to balance the story I was presenting until I reached the point where I was to critique the incident. Once my critique began I strayed from sourcing further material, so as I would not be accused of manipulating source material . At one point, I also placed a separate conspiracy-theory of my own in the midst of my critique; as this could have been seen as being written in at an inappropriate section—well ahead of the conclusion—I chose to place the theory in brackets to designate that the thought was in fact separate and my own.

In reviewing what I had written I found one mistake which could have been easily avoided had I carefully proofread the text before publishing—an error in citation. In the fourth paragraph of my response I had mistakenly placed a citation following the period of a sentence; this mistake was made due to the ways in which I write—I “free-write” all of my work without citations first, and edit afterward.

Aside from that one particular mistake, I did not notice any other errors that could be interpreted as plagiarism—intentional or otherwise. As always, the largest area of concern in writing is proofreading.

[To see the response referenced in this response, visit: http://kg4vma.livejournal.com/526907.html]