mannn my laptop got stolen. oh well. i had some fun during this research. our part was demographics and i didnt really find a relationship between the two except for the pressures for plagiarism. if there was any relationship it would be that the pressure of stereotypes played its part to keep students to try and work hard to maintain the outlook of being smart or proving to other people that they are smart. the interviews was pretty funny too. i did not do one but reading the ones that my group members did was entertaining

Reading

yay powers back on.. so i haven't read any books in a while. i wish i had the time and the attention span to read like i used to. the last book i really read for enjoyment was "the lost symbol" by dan brown. he is one of my favorite authors and was the once who wrote "the Da Vinci code". "da Vinci code" and "the lost symbol" were okay but i liked the book that preceded the two. My all time favorite book is "angels and demons" by the same author. i read it before the tom hanks movie came out and i believe it to be much much better than the film. the film wasn't bad for people who really aren't into reading but it killed it from my point of view. idk the film kinda ruins the whole imagination part of reading for me.
Basically its about this symbologist who gets entangled with a war between the Vatican aka the Catholic Church and a secret anti-Christ cult called the illuminati. The Illuminati are perceived as terrorists in this book and are trying to blow up Vatican city with some sort of futuristic superbomb. Its pretty much a scavenger hunt around Rome trying to locate the bomb and find the secret headquarters of the illuminati.
i liked this book because it tied religion and science well. I just found this book in my brother's house when i was a freshman in high school and got really into it. its more of a mystery thriller type novel. there's a lot of codes and cool ambigrams in this book too.
the chapters in this book are really short too so it goes by pretty fast. it makes it feel like you accomplish more when you're reading it haha. but in all seriousness if you want to read an interesting book that will make you feel smart once you get done with it. i recommend "angels and demons".

wikipedia

I think wikipedia is a great source of information and has become one of the most used websites on the internet. For my stance, I wouldn't really know where to side with. I use it frequently for school and know why many other students would also use it. Like if a person were to google a subject, the first link would most likely go to a wikipedia article. So its very understandable that most students would use it.
As for universities trying to limit students from using it, I believe it to be a necessary action to prevent student laziness and temptation to plagiarize. Considering how many ignorant people can just alter someone else's work into something fictional makes wikipedia a very unreliable source at times. It is much simpler to just look at the references and see legitimate sources. There is no guarantee that the information is correct on the articles unless you crosscheck with other places.
I consider wikipedia a great starting point to find better analyzed information on a particular subject in its references. I think making wikipedia a source is a dumb idea to begin with. The information could change the next day. Students will always use wikipedia because of its simplicity and authenticity of the articles. Maybe professors should teach students how to use to better.

essay

An essay is a structured form of writing that revolves around a certain topic. In most cases it has several paragraphs that either explain, question, or analyze a thesis or idea. An essay is taught to having three sections to its format. The three sections are are made up of paragraphs ordered as the introduction, body, and conclusion. An good writer makes an essay easy for the reader to transition from idea to idea. A bad writer will have an unorganized manner of writing where ideas tend to pop out of nowhere.
From a young age American children are taught to knowing the concept of the essay. Every year after fifth grade an English teacher will ask for atleast one essay that is graded. Most of my experience with writing essays have been bad ones. I just seem to not like my own writing. I usually will not get bad grades on things but I tend to procrastinate when writing an essay.
I have no idea what to essay is. I assume its writing an essay?
I recently found out that to essay is to "attempt or try". I never hear it used in that manner. So I shall essay harder to finish my essays on time.

my word! intro & ch1

Plagiarism is an issue that will never truly go away. This book tries to identify the background behind the college culture of plagiarism. Although plagiarism is not a new subject, it certainly has become a hot topic around our technology-based lifestyle. The book pushes the idea that students and teachers have the problem that information is so easy to copy nowadays.
I was shocked to read that Martin Luther King Jr. is accused of plagiarizing. That’s certainly not something I learned as a child. I find it hypocritical that professors and teachers aren’t held with the same severity as students when they are caught cheating.
Anyways I liked this book much more than I expected to. I enjoy how this book takes both perspectives of plagiarism into account. I agree on how the readers could benefit more from the material if a writer uses another’s work. It did drag on a bit but the facts that it presented were good. The China exams were interesting because it displays how people will just adapt when new challenges are presented. And the book only talked about the failed cheaters. I wonder about all the other people who managed to pass without getting caught