In the article "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community" by James Porter, the concepts of plagiarism and originality are given a deeper outlook and challenged by Porter's own thoughts and beliefs. Porter uses the Declaration of Independence to shape his ideas. He argues about how Jefferson is considered the author of the Declaration and that it is thought of as completely original, when truthfully, Jefferson retrieved ideas from other theorists and people of his time in order to create the Declaration. Also, Congress made many changes to the Declaration and revised it. Porter also discusses discourse communities, which by his definition is "a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated" (91). He claims how only certain things are appropriate and acceptable within these communities when it comes to a text.
Porter's article is similar to past articles we have read because it outlines common conceptions and misconceptions in writing and talks about constructs, which has been a large part of this class. Plagiarism is a construct we have talked about before, and is one of the main topics of Porter's article.
Pre-reading:
- Write a paragraph on what, in your mind, the difference between an author and a writer is. When would you choose the first term to describe the person/people behind a text, and when would you choose the second?
In my mind, an author is someone who tells some kind of story, and a writer is someone who uses the written language and words to construct some type of meaning in a text. To describe the person/people behind a text, I would choose author in situations where the person writing is trying to make some kind of argument or tell a story. I would choose writer in mostly all situations. An author is also a writer. No matter what the text, whoever constructed the words is the writer.
Questions for Discussion and Journaling:
4. Prior to reading Porter's article, I assumed that writing should be evaluated through more of an opinionated stance. Also, considering how my writing has been evaluated in the past, I assumed that it should be looked at for grammatical correctness.
5. Porter's own work reflects his ideas pretty well. He uses others' ideas and cites examples from other works to portray the message he is trying to get across to readers. Porter is still using his own words, but he is also gathering information from others to form his writing into a new context and make a slightly different meaning of it.
Applying and Exploring Ideas:
2. If I were to rewrite the plagiarism policy, I would make it so that students would be allowed to use others' ideas to form their own ideas, as long as they give credit to those who's sources they use and cite specific sources. This is similar to the current plagiarism policies, but the policy I have written would allow more freedom and breathing room.
Meta Moment:
Anyone can become a true "writer." Porter's study has not really changed the way I have always seen writers and writing. I consider myself a writer, and as a writer I know that there are many different angles and processes to it. It has a lot of meanings. It isn't necessarily someone who just sits down to get ideas into print. It is much deeper than that.
My thoughts:
I really enjoyed the subject of this article. I liked Porter's discussion on the Declaration of Independence and the research he did. He did a good job of providing examples to support his argument. I personally agreed with what he had to say. I think that at least some plagiarism is unavoidable. The English language is used very widely. It is impossible to not use the same words as someone else in something at some point in time. Our own personal thoughts and ideas throughout our lives have arisen because of a past thought or idea. I believe that as long as someone still uses their own words and doesn't copy a text completely and make it look like their own writing, as well as provide citations and credit, it should not be considered plagiarism. It should be okay for someone to use past ideas and texts to construct their own thoughts. If we agree on something someone has said and it provokes something in us, of course we are going to use it as a means of explaining why we agree with it and believe the same thing. It is simply not possible to construct 100% original ideas and words, because they have without a doubt been used at some point in time before us.
On another note, I got a little bit confused when he began to talk about discourse communities and his section titled, "The Pedagogy of Intertextuality." I didn't exactly understand what he was trying to say or how it associated with his ideas about plagiarism and originality within a text.
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