Monday, November 25, 2013

Plagiarism

I think that if plagiarism is such a huge issue now, then the professors and other teachers should be aware of it to see it coming. If they believe that it's the students fault, it might not always be, however, I don't agree with it. They could be unaware of the fact of there being no credit given to websites, that it's okay to call it their own. With the technology and knowledge growing everyday, there will always be things that are confusing and not understood. The quote "everything can belong to you really easily," explains this perfectly when speaking about plagiarism because it's true that you can copy anything from the internet and make it yours. Without the knowledge of how to cite properly, I believe that plagiarism will continue to come about. When you are cheating, I do believe that you're cheating yourself. You are trying to get others' information to only better yourself, but in all reality you aren't learning anything for yourself. I know that if someone wanted to see your paper or ask you for an answer, you would want to say no because you worked hard on it, where as they didn't do anything. I don't think that is fair because everyone should be honest about their work and how much they really applied themselves to it.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Reading Response #6

In The Hunger Games, where I currently am, Katniss is still alive and doing well in the games. She does have one incident where she is hit with a fireball that comes towards her and it hits her upper leg. While she is in a very large amount of pain, she comes upon a small water pool where she can cool her scalded leg off. She would have stayed in the water if she could, but she heard footsteps and figured that it probably wasn't a good idea to be out in the open. As she finds a new "home" she sees the five tributes walk under her and she sees Peeta with them. they look up and notice her and begin to attempt and climb the tree. With their failed attempts, along with shooting arrows at her and missing, they just decide to wait it out saying that she can't stay in the tree forever. As she sits there, she hears a rumbling in the tree near her and it's the tribute from District 11, Rue, who points to a large nest above Katniss. She recognizes it as a tracker jacker nest which she then realizes that it could be her only way of escaping safely. She decided to saw the branch off which would drop the nest straight onto the five tributes below her.
As she is getting out of the tree, she sees the bow and arrows that one of the dead tributes had and decided to take it for her own. Later, she comes across Peeta and all he tells her to do is run because Cato was on his way towards her. She thought that Peeta was against her, but in all reality he was actually going to help her. After that happened, Katniss realized that she could actually have a chance in the games, she has a more healed leg, a bow and arrow and Rue by her side. Where I am at this moment, Katniss and Rue are coming up with plans to get rid of each one of the tributes left. They are working together and they have become very good friends in this case. I am anxious to read what happens next, in a more descriptive form than the movie was.
A quote that stuck out to me was from Katniss where she says, "..and suddenly I'm not thinking of Gale but of Peeta, he saved my life." I believe that without Peeta helping her in that moment that he did, she might not have still been alive. She thought differently of him in the beginning as he was with the others, but has new realizations about him. Katniss is still very curious as to why he did help her, but is very thankful that he did.


In the few chapters I've been reading I was introduced to the character of Rue. When I first read it, I was really excited because it's my middle name! It is also known in France and is on many street signs, and that's what came to mind. I think it's neat that there is a tribute who has that name, I like her character so far a lot as well.

Project Four Proposal:

Technology plays a huge part in our society today. There are not many people in the United States that can say they go a full day without using some sort of technological device. So are people too dependent on technology? There have been studies that show keeping cell phones in your pockets can actually cause future damage, and although it's very helpful to people, is it worth it? I use technology everyday whether it's waking up to an alarm or going to sleep with music on my phone, I am constantly using it. As time goes on, people will become even more dependent on technology as it is getting more advanced each and every day. Are there times when people are more dependent on their technology more than anything else? I will be researching it to find out.