Todays class was spent reviewing the key ideas of academic honesty. We took a quiz that really made the class recognize how some areas that were not as easy to understand. For example, it is alright to use someone’s writing word for word but then it is necessary to give a citation. The citation is the currency of academia so it is essential to give credit where credit is due.  Also, I learned a very important rule that it does not matter whether the plagiarism was purposeful, it will still be directed to the subcommittee for Academic Honesty. I think it was important to know that if there is a case of plagiarism, the instructor and student should not settle it alone. It must be reported to the subcommittee and further action is taken there.

Further on in the class we moved on to practicing the differences between quotations, paraphrasing, and summarizing. It was useful to see the differentiation explicitly on a worksheet and then the ideas were reinforced when we practiced them in our small groups. Each group shared their summaries with others who did not have that reading. In the group that I went to, I learned about the keyword “immigration”. One really captivating point of the argument in that essay was the idea of “social economic checkpoints” . I am compelled to do more research and understand how competition and conflict in particular can affect immigrant families. Does the competition enhance society? What role can conflict give in a positive manner? Negative? I also realized that the discuss of immigrants needs to have not only immigrants involved but those that are surrounding their lives with immigrants or friends of immigrants. I am interested to see what work has developed around that idea.