FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, Comic Strip, and Live Performance! But no Plays?

Chapter seven of Envision explained how to properly document sources in order to avoid plagiarism, whether intentional or not. It began with discussing why it is important to give credit where credit is due. One of the parts I found most interesting was when it talked about how, in ancient times, students would copy a speech word by word before they analyzed it. This was in order to further study the organization, rhythm, and other such factors of the writing. This is what helped them become better writers themselves and help the world of literature evolve. The other section I found particularly helpful was the section about avoiding unintentional plagiarism. This, I feel like, is probably the number one issue that student have. Ho do we know if we are plagiarizing? The two practices they gave to help are to “Always keep in mind that you are contributing to a conversation with other writers” and to “Develop effective ways of note taking while reading through your sources.” The first put into perspective how thinking of writing as either responding to another’s works or quoting them in order to include them in the dialogue. The second gave me the idea of, when copying a quite, taking note of how I might use that quote. The section of the chapter that I found myself a little frustrated with was when it went through almost every single way to document almost every single type of source out there… except for how to document lines from a play. It even had visual sources and facebook and twitter. But, because I am writing a textual analysis of a play for a different class right now, I referred to the book for help on how to cite lines from a play, but there was nothing to help me. Although, it did go into deep detail that will probably help me on different projects. But I was a little disappointed.