Citing Sources to an Audience Who Cares

In high school, no one cared. Just don't make your paper reflect another authors views perfectly, and don't copy your neighbor's word for word. That's all they asked of me and who am I to disagree? They made the standards quite low, don't get me wrong -- if it was plagiarized, you would get caught -- but to be considered plagiarism you had to be pretty exact in your wording.

Now after a summer semester on campus and beginning my freshman year, I see how much higher the stakes are. Quotes have to be perfect, paraphrasing has to be attributed constantly and most importantly, your works cited has to be impeccable. My only concern is not that I might plagiarize but that I won't cite it correctly and get busted all the same.

As a freshman, I understand there is some leeway during the drafting portion of the writing process but as soon as a final copy is handed in, the game is on. Plagiarism can come from so many different places it seems hard to track, but my senior year English teacher showed all of us how quickly a computer program can spot if something has been copied are even tell you how severe of an infringement it is. I know that my professors have similar software and I fear that it will not understand common phrases and assume they are plagiarized.

This fear is probably unfounded and the programs are designed to not detect common words or phrases, but all the same, I don't want to get kicked out of college! I like it here!
I do enjoy the higher stakes though, it keeps everyone on their game and helps push the honor code. This is something I can live with, I don't want to ever have to worry about someone stealing my ideas, or my papers.

Thank you for reading

Elliot

The Second Life Freshman Era

Starting out in Second Life I had some trouble because evidently the wireless network could not handle the amount of information. I started late, after buying an ethernet cord, but I did manage to visit a few locations in the time since. First off I noticed that other people are hard to find! I ran into a few people but they didn't seem to want to talk very much. OK, that initial bias out of the way I would like to talk about the scavenger hunt.

I enjoyed visiting all the landmarks, but the Sistine Chapel was absolutely amazing. The fact that you could create such a replica and be able to walk through it is crazy! Now let me unpack crazy, the initial thought behind it is fairly radical, to take something so well known and redo it to scale on a computer screen might have made some people very mad. The Chapel required a code of conduct, to prevent people from making anyone else mad while visiting. The second part of crazy is the fact that they could recreate all of the images from the actual Sistine Chapel so well on a screen. Also while I was in the Sistine Chapel, I noticed something peculiar. There was a man and a woman in the Chapel as well with whom I tried to initiate conversation, but was not rudely ignored but clearly shown that they did not have time to talk. It was not obvious but I believe that they were having a quarrel. When I stopped by orientation island, people were having conversations in the local chat mode and welcoming other people to join in but in the Sistine Chapel the pair were just standing there facing each other, not saying anything that I could read or hear. Then I realized that the avatars must be mimicking the actions of the emotions of the people controlling them. The two avatars were looking at each other, not at the world around them. Then the man turned away and walked a few paces and the woman turned her back as well and it wasn't until he returned that she turned back around. During this they only responded when I asked if I could take a picture, other than that I might as well have been invisible.

Less exciting I also visited the Men in Bronze and had quite a good time flying through the buildings there. One thing that I really enjoyed was the fact that each location had its own time of day or night so when I was at the Chapel, the day was bright but as soon as I teleported to the Men in Bronze, the Moon was full and high.
This could be my favorite picture, even if it was not my favorite location. One thing that I did not like about Men in Bronze was I couldn't find anyone to talk to!

I can't wait to continue my time in SL and look forward to visiting all the sites I haven't had time for yet on Iggy's list, and then the ones he didn't list!

Avatar Choice

Choosing my name was probably one of the harder parts, despite the lack of availability for many of the last names. This part confused me, how is it that a company can create a world in which thousands of people can interact across continents and test out business models but can't keep an up to date listing of names?

For my first name I choose Thumper because that was one of my nicknames as a kid. Always making a scene and now I try and make those scenes to point out things that I believe need a second look.

My last name was less complicated, Starsider was one of the many last names I tried and it was simply the first to go through as acceptable to the server. Here again the designers could have done a better job. Instead of simply making you choose another last name, much of the form data was lost every time a name was rejected. This added to the time, making you retype your email address and password and a few other parts of the application.

I expect to enjoy second life but I have yet to get back online after my first setup. The program seems to me too large for wireless. I must go out and buy the cable to connect to a wired network before any more work can be done on my avatar.

Thank you again for reading

El

I don't want to transition to college writing

If I just spent four years learning the tools I needed to write a worth while paper, and now my professors have told me to forget all of it, what happens in another four years?

I want to put aside the notion any future or current employer will ask for an in depth analysis in a certain form or layout. I will be writing memos and reports, and I need to know how to write like a professional. The world is moving away from long documented reports and files, so teach me how to communicate effectively in the grand scheme of things.

I was wary of blogs, second life and other online resources because I find it hard to imagine a CEO blogging, but it seems every other teenage girl I knew was on twitter. Then I started paying attention, I see Dick Cheney on twitter and businesses on facebook. So maybe the fear of the unknown is just a fear of the uncertainty but the Internet is the newest form of information transfer and the more ways we have for communication the better!

So please don't transition me to college writing, help me transition to real world application!

I have only seen a small snippet of the world, based on prior jobs and other experiences and the use of blogs and other new forms of communication are the new information highway. Will someone please tell me if this is the right track? Academic or any other industry please confirm this. I don't want to be told to forget everything I've learned again in four years!