Saturday, January 12, 2008

In which I drop the in whiches

Each year when I teach my students to write research papers, I talk about plagiarism. There are several types of plagiarism of course--out-and-out stealing...cherry-picking ideas, sentences, or paragraphs...incorrectly citing someone else's ideas, or the most difficult to identify and deal with, unintentional incorporation of something you've read into your own work. Tenth graders, of course, have a hard time finessing a research paper. They often unintentionally plagiarize simply because they are inexperienced writers and they simply don't understand how to paraphrase well --once they read something, they can't think of how else to state it!

Imagine my embarrassment when I was reading Knitty the other week and realized that I have been unintentionally plagiarizing the "in which" beginnings to the articles.

Clearly, this wasn't Amy Singer's idea either, as anyone who's read Winnie the Pooh or 19th century British literature knows. But still. In good conscience, I must desist.

On the knitting front: I finished my Stefanie Japel vest from Fitted Knits (woohoo) and wore it today to school. Ended up dancing a traditional Zimbabwean dance in front of the student body in it, so it stands up well to flopsweat. Go Cascade 220!

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