Hi, Sherri here, from Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, WA. (I believe this is my first post--I just already goofed and lost some text....) Andrea's post on paraphrasing and quoting reminds me of a topic I'm curious to hear from others about. During sessions, do you talk about plagiarism much? The tutors here in our Writing Center say they don't really think or talk about it too often, maybe just when the writer has mentioned it. But I've found that when I read a passage that doesn't sound like the rest of a paper and I say something about that, the writer and I will often have a really interesting conversation about plagiarism and quoting. ( The most recent interesting conversation I had was with a student in a speech class--he was thinking there were different "rules" for quoting in speeches--and maybe there are?) Just curious.
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Showing posts from November, 2002
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Sure sounds like you had a good season there, Andrea--more than just a little. I wonder why we worry so much about the effects of our sessions? Do lawyers put this much investment into their discussions with clients? Doctors?
Now on to other business, I was thinking of adding a comment feature to the blog. What do you all think?
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Writing Center Journal-November 18, 2002
Sometimes some writing center sessions are just extremely difficult. I have recently had one of these such sessions. An older man came in with a paper on MRI machines. He had quoted everything and wanted to know about paraphrasing. I explained to him the differences, and suggested that he have only a few quotes. I worried that I had not gotten through to him. A few days later, I saw another tutor was helping him with his paper. After the session ended, I asked her about his quotation problems. She said that his paper looked great, and he just had some documentation problems. Something I suggested must have helped him at least a little.
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I am amazed that it is November already. Things are humming along nicely in the WC; there haven't been that many stressed-out students, but I'm sure that some will begin to pop up now that we are closing in on the end of the term. It started to snow the other day, and we all gathered by the window, student writers, peer consultants, faculty, and myself and watched. It was nice to think of the metaphor of a writing center as a warm, inviting place, in the heart of a storm.