April 16th, 2008 | English |
Plagiarism is using someone else’s work in a project you have created and not giving credit for that person. Plagiarism can happen anytime, from using information from a person’s website to using a song produced by somebody else in a project of yours.I have not had a big history of plagiarism, the only thing that comes close is downloading production music. Many of my friends know about my show online. I do not produce music of my own, so I turn to the internet. I use a website that allows you to download production music from it for free as long as it is for a nonprofit cause and you give credit to the website. I have used many songs from this website, but have never taken the time to cite it. One of the reasons is that I do not get enough viewers to make it matter.
I think people plagiarize because it is so easy to take random information from books or websites and put it into an essay. When I use production music in my videos and do not cite the source, I have a theory that the internet is so vast that it would be impossible for the person I used the music from to find out I took it and included it into a project of mine.
To avoid plagiarism, I think we need to be educated on how to properly cite sources. We can find out that citing information that we used is not as hard as we thought. Knowing how to cite information properly could actually encourage us to cite anything we use in a project, avoiding plagiarism.
March 25th, 2008 | Uncategorized |
The last research paper I did was last year; it seemed to go well. One of the few problems I had was procrastination, I kept putting it off, but I got all of the tasks done at the last minute to complete the paper. I found that it was important for the paper to be organized so that it flowed well and a person listening to my speech or reading the paper would understand the information I was giving them. I really did like sharing something that I worked hard on for the past few weeks with the class, that made it a little more worth doing.
March 3rd, 2008 | Uncategorized |
I actually have the feeling that we are still reading A Separate Peace, even though we have finished it. The ending was just not as great as I thought it would turn out since there are different characters with completely different attitudes on life, you would think there would be an excellent ending. I think Finny was the main point of the story, so when he died at the end, I felt that there was no point reading any further. Then Gene did not really care about Finny’s death and just moved on with his life. I think there needs to be an alternate ending where the story is more conclusive and everything is not wrapped up in one paragraph, or even better, take Mr. Sheehy’s idea and make “A Second Peace, Finny’s Revenge” (Sheehan Productions ©2008 “Finny’s Revenge”) and make the ending we want. Another thing I did not like, is how this book was fiction. It would be more interesting if this actually happened to an individual.
What I did like was the different outlooks on life. Each character was diverse and thought differently about real world topics and made different choices. I did not like that this was concluded in a paragraph at the end of the story just because it gave me the feeling that the book was not worth reading.
A lot of odd things happened in this story that many of us have not had to go through, such as going to an academy, which makes it kind of hard to relate to. I know I had problems relating to choices Finny made-Finny was a weird character-going to the beach, jumping out of trees. One of the things I could relate to Gene with is that he was concentrated on school, as I am.
February 19th, 2008 | English |
What does the war have to do with these kids?
World War II affected the citizens of the US more than the current Iraq War. People had to conserve and help out in the war effort, making the war a part of their daily lives. Men had to really consider joining the military, as A Separate Peace shows when Gene and his friends are deciding whether to join or not. This had an affect on everybody. Lepillear joins, thinking it will be neat, but later finds out it is a nightmare. Gene comes after Lepillear and finds out the experiences he has gone through.
Also, Mr. Sheehy mentions how when Finny was around, the war seemed to never exist, but while he is at home, after breaking his leg, Gene steps into the real world and finds the war intruding into his life.
Is Finny a conspiracy theorist?
My opinion is that he doesn’t theorize about conspiracies, but likes to joke around. He makes things up and tells them to his friends. Perhaps, he likes to put things out there and see other peoples’ reactions and how they respond. We learn that he likes to be convincing and be the leader of different things throughout the story, so maybe this is another one of his ways of doing just that.
February 4th, 2008 | English |
While reading A Separate Peace, I noticed that it was very slow paced and there is a lot of description on little things, but finally I’m to the part where some action happens. Finny and Gene are climbing the tree that they always do for the Secret Suicide Society or whatever else it is called, when they get to the limb to jump off of into the river below. Gene purposely shakes the limb so Finny will fall to the ground, injuring him with a shattered leg. The thing that sticks out to me is that he did it on purpose. In my mind, the only motive he could have is jealousy or perhaps a grudge. But it could not be a grudge because they have a pretty good relationship, until Gene suspects that Finny is trying to take advantage of him and ruin his excellent grades so Finny will come out on top with a academic scholarship while Gene has nothing.
So my prediction would have to be that either Gene is trying to disable Finny so he can no longer participate in sports, ruining his chances of an academic scholarship, or he wants something from Finny. It could be that he just wants some time away from Finny so he can focus more on school, rather than their club and sports that they come up with. It seems that Finny is a really distractive individual who does not have any real care about school work. I do not think this is as likely, though. Gene seems like a pretty responsible person who would not injure anybody.