USB POSTS

A USB post or "Unsettled Business Post" is section where I can freely talk about that we have discussed in class or about something we have read in class. Generally this portion gives others a chance to respond and futher carry the conversation outside of the classroom.

USB Post 1:

As we reflect back on this semester, we have had many discussions about multiple topics, but the one that has caught my interest the most is the idea the discourse community. In Ann Johns piece Discourse Communities I and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity, a discourse community is “the focus is on texts and language, the genres and lexis that enable members throughout the world to maintain their goals, regulate their membership, and communicate efficiently with one another.” Generally, discourse communities have several rules that they must follow but the one I am most interested in is “A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. Discourse communities have changing memberships; individuals enter as apprentices and leave by death or in other less involuntary ways. However, survival of the community depends on a reasonable ratio between novices and experts” (John Swales, The Concept of Discourse Community). This rule talks about how that the discourse community always has changing memberships and members leave either by death or by other less voluntary means. My question is if you leave a discourse community for a certain amount of time and decide to rejoin it, are you still considered to be an expert in the discourse community or are you considered an “outsider” or a “newbie” to the community? For example, I am part of the lifeguard discourse community, but since I only work during the summer time and not during any other part of the year I am not always actively involved within the discourse community. The thing is I am very knowledgeable about the “ins and outs” of lifeguarding, all the techniques, and I kept up to date and any new information. Even with my expertise would I still be considered an experienced lifeguard or a new lifeguard every summer? Another good example is back in grade school I was involved in concert and jazz band and after the tenth grade I stopped playing music. In this case, I still my alto saxophone and I do remember how to play it and I have played it every once in a while. Although I still know how to play my saxophone and I still know the styles of both concert and jazz, if I joined back today will I still be considered an expert member or not? Neither does Swales nor Johns talk about a situation like this so what is your opinion?

USB Post 2:

As we were writing our inquiry paper I had a big problem. In our paper we had to cite sources that we used to prevent plagiarism. According to Dictionary.com a citation is “the quoting of a book or author in support of a fact” and plagiarism is “an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author”. Whenever we write a paper in college no matter if it is an informal work or a thesis, we have to properly source ever word or idea that it is not original from our own or risk of possible expulsion from the college. In the paper itself I had a dilemma, I used two different citations. According to the general rules of academia, that any paper you write must keep one uniform citation source throughout the paper. So my question is why is it like this? Why can I not use other citation formats in the same paper? Since this paper was tackled by three different people we had to standardize what format we were using. In portion of my paper I used two different citation formats. The first part of the paper, used MLA format which is a format where you have to site the source if you directly quote from that source. Later on in my portion of the paper I used APA format which is when you use talk about the ideas of the source but you do not directly quote from the source. Due to this, our paper had points deducted from it and hurt our overall grade slightly. In papers that I have done in the past, the teachers did not stress the importance of having a uniform citation format through the paper and so when it we got the grade I was really shocked to know that it is correct to use one citation format instead of multiple citation formats. This also leads to another question. Why do universities not have a class specifically to teach and practice how and when to use citations? Because when I entered college, I know that we need citations but I did not know the severity of what happens when you do not use citations and plagiarize. If they had classes going over citations, then students will have an easier time writing papers and properly citing them.