Saturday, February 19, 2011

Listen to the pauses in people's speech. There, often, is where the message lies.

I've twaddled the majority of the day away trying to decipher whether copying my own words constitutes as plagiarism. Why? Because my thesis/"Special Project" is a case study. Which involves a case conceptualization. Which I wrote about one specific client twice last semester because he was my longest and most consistent client therefore I've had the most to write or rather, conceptualize about him. I have yet to come to a confident decision on the matter. But considering the thin ice I'm already on, I will tread against the simplistic (read:amazing) copy&paste function and reword my previous papers, some how.

I mean if you think about it, it's a bit unfair considering I finished up my fieldwork last semester and thus have no new clients to write a decent conceptualization on!

I thought about writing about my semi-recent foray into NYC-driven consumerism due to having to buy a new smart phone ( I strongly dislike that term. Just ups the ante of technology becoming too persona-fiable). But that's a whole other sheboggle.

Instead, some interesting reads:

For the anti-scholarly-article-read: Does Insight in Therapy Equal Happiness?

And for the therapy enthusiasts particularly interested in Humanistic & Positive psychology (who would have thought the two "happiest" mediums were at each others throats?) : What is the Good Life?

5 comments:

  1. Hey Michelle! Welcome to the A to Z Challenge.

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  2. I don't want to get into the articles since there is so much to say on these. But as to your question: Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and claiming it as your own. If this be the case you would not be plagiarizing if you were using your own work. If the work you were using had been previously published you might want to cite it as such, but if you are just recycling from old papers and personal note I see no reason to do that. The exception might be if old papers were kept on file or in some database created to prevent reselling papers and such, then you might want to cite it for what it is.

    I think many writers have a tendency to rehash their own words frequently since it is part of who they are and what they know.

    Lee
    Tossing It Out

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  3. @Arlee Bird
    Thank you for that clarification! I have a hunch that my program does keep previous papers on file but it's good to know I can cite myself as a reference :)

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  4. Hi Michelle, and thanks for stopping by and saying hello! It's great to meet new people out there in Blogdom. Have a great week!

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