Porter Response

Summary:
In James E. Porter's article "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community" he gives a very descriptive account of how writers and authors draw information from other pieces of work. In that aspect, no matter what you write, it comes from another source whether you intend for it to or not. He claims that if Thomas Jefferson turned in the Declaration of Independence in as an assignment, he would be charged with plagiarism. He states that when writing we tie in other things we have read and seen before and that our thoughts are not our own sometimes.

Synthesis:
Porter states that writers plagiarize often without intending. He makes a lot of examples with an article about the Kent State shooting and also a Pepsi commercial based off of a Steven Spielberg movie. Michael Klein in an article we read before, states that students plagiarize when they just copy information straight out of the text for their assignment. I think that they both present a good argument but I do not agree fully. I think that students and writers alike use what they know to write, and using something you have read before is not technically plagiarism. I think it is only plagiarism if the original text is copied exactly and not cited.

Dialectical Notebook:

Response	Quotation
I agree with this because it basically is saying that we borrow ideas, but I don't agree how we borrow thoughts. And I don't understand how you can not expand on an idea, without stealing it.	"The creative writer is the creative borrower, in other words." pg 90
This quote is about how texts used phrases and ideas is based off of the audience.	"Each of the three texts examined contains phrases or images familiar to its audience attitudes. Thus the intertext exerts its influence partly in the form of audience expectation." pg 91
This is also like the second quote in saying that the reader is who makes the paper or writing.	"readers, not writers, create discourse." pg 91
The writer has complete control over the sentence structure. By making the wording in a work a specific way, the writer controls the emotion and reaction of the reader.	"the writer has freedom within the immediate rhetorical context." pg 93
This quote states that the statements in other texts affects other texts and things that were previously written.	"Every new text has the potential to alter the Text in some way;" pg 93
I like this quote stating that something teachers need to do is create students like this. It would make students better writers.	"Our immediate goal is to produce "socialized writers," who are full-fledged members of their discourse community." pg 95
I also like this quote because its another thing that teachers need to work on with students. It also gives the promise of better writers in the long run for other students to become better writers.	"Our long-range goal might be "post-socialized writers," those who have achieved such a degree of confidence, authority, power, or achievement in the discourse community so as to become part of the regulating body." pg 95

Thoughts:
I did not like this article at all. I could hardly understand the point Porter was trying to make. He kept repeating himself, and his argument makes no sense. He has good examples to support his argument but I just do not feel that his argument is a valid point. How can we plagiarize thoughts we have based off of other things we have read or seen? Does that mean that expanding on ideas is plagiarism? He just does not have a sound and actual argument.