Porter

Summary

 

The main point that Porter talks about throughout the entire article is intertextuality. This is the idea that all texts ever written have taken traces of previous texts or ideas throughout them. There is no text that is completely original. He even goes as far as saying that the Declaration of Independance, written by Thomas Jefferson, used intertextuality. We think of this wriiten work as an original piece that used new ideas to assert our independence, but Porter says that even Jefferson took words and ideas from other papers or people, and used them in the writing of the Declaration. Lastly, he talks about the discourse community, which is a group of people who communicate and regulate around a common interest.

 

 

 

QD #4

 

In the past my writing has been evaluated on whether it was correct grammar and punctuation and all that jazz, and also if it was an original idea and didn't just summarize other peoples ideas and say it was my own. Porter thinks that it is okay to have other peoples ideas in your paper because every paper ever written has traces of other peoples ideas or thoughts. What really matters is if your points gets across and is accepted by the reader. I agree with this.

 

 

AEI#1

 

This is not really a recent commercia, but it was one that was on during the Superbowl back when I was a kid, and I still remember it pretty well because I liked it. It was a commercial for McDonald's. In this commercial, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan are in the gym shooting basketball. Now for any sports fan, you know that these are two of the top icons in basketball. They proceed to play a game of horse, where the first one to miss has to watch the other eat the Big Mac. I believe this has intertextuality because it utilizes two people that everyone knows and looks up to, and portrays that they like McDonalds so much that they are willing to use their skills to play for it and win the Big Mac. This commercial is directed at the kids who look up to these two players and hope they will say if Michael Jordan and Larry Bird eat Macdonalds, then so should I.

 

Opinion

 

I agree with Porter's views on plagiarism. I find it interesting how he came up with a word for using other people's words or ideas and using them as your own, but not calling it plagiarism, because plagiarism has a negative connotation to it. By calling it intertextuality, it almost allows us to use other peoples ideas to support our ideas. I always hated the idea of plagiarism because every idea that I would have for a paper came from somewhere, whether it was an article I read or something a previous teacher told, and I fel like using these ideas should not be considered plagiarism. I agree with Porter that there is a difference between plagiarism and unconsciously using someone else's ideas in our papers, because everybody does it.