so i have used image editing software frequently for minor works, such as birthday cards or raw image editing, but i have never created a major project digitally. this should be an interesting assignment since i am totally software savvy but believe myself to be artistically challenged. it is said somewhere that as we age we progress in most things we do. it seems that my artistic skills as well as mind set have declined from my younger years in which i was known as an artist.

i did not understand the assignment at first since i could not make clear how to make an argument out of a piece of art and especially a collage. after the example that was shown in lecture, i "re-realized" that all pictures and art are arguments. pictures are a 1000 words right?

i have not yet decided or even brainstormed any ideas for a topic; not to mention my argument. this is an open assignment which makes it flexible and invites more interest (if i am wrong and we are given a topic already someone please let me know). this should also be interesting since i have never used images or pictures in an English class before.

on Wednesday we spent the class in the writing center mimicking instructors in search of plagiarism. i think either my group did a pretty good job at concealment or perhaps my first attempt at plagiarism spotting did not go so well. when Scot and the other instructors came in to speak about plagiarism, they made it seem so easy to detect and find the source. i definitely had a hard time and found nothing for about half an hour.

at first i was searching entire sentences with quotations as Scot had suggested. that returned very few results if any at all; in any case none which proved plagiarism. then i figured i'd shorten the sentences to phrases and sometimes even just words. this improved my search results slightly, but now i was getting too much material. my final trick was to keep the longer phrases but take out the quotation marks, and was finally able to find a few sources.

i can now see the ethics behind plagiarism from the grading instructor's point of view. we looked at only a couple papers, whereas a TA porobably looks at 60+ papers. imagine taking my struggles in searching for plagiarism and multiplying that by 60+. i can see now why some instructors get mad at students for plagiarizing, on top of the fact that it is just plain wrong.

after reading the syllabus about a plagiarism paper, it took me a second to let it sink in. a plagiarism paper for an English class? was our professor serious? i was a bit shocked, but i figured it would be a "first one and only" thing. as with the ghostwriting experience this proved to be much more difficult than i had anticipated.

i actually found the ghostwriting experience less challenging than the plagiarism experience. for the ghostwrite, my client was present at the writing so i was able to write accordingly, but with the plagiarism paper what i had were just a bunch of sources. plagiarizing definitely took a lot more time and thinking than did the ghostwrite or if i had not plagiarized. i believe i can attribute the extra time to going back into the paper to fix and conceal the plagiarized content. at times i couldn't decide if i should just let something slide or change it, so making the decisions also took valuable time.

as a compliment to physical difficulties, i believe that ethical and emotional issues strew in also to make the experience that much more difficult. all of our lives we have been trained to not plagiarize, so it was a struggle to go against the just. i certainly did not feel accomplished after completing this paper, and it did not feel right putting my name on it.

the ghostwriting experience was a lot more difficult than i had anticipated it to be. there were so many factors of ghostwriting that i had not thought of prior to commencing the project that i would soon find out later to affect the writing and the persons involved. ghostwriting is usually done for someone who has less literature/language skills by someone who excels at expression. if that isn't a clash of styles and thoughts then i don't know what is. for this project, i had definitely overlooked the style shift. another difficulty was the process of getting into the mindset of the client. at times i felt i was writing more of my opinion than that of the client, which makes me question where most thoughts and ideas of ghostwritten literature come from. it was difficult to stay on track. another issue that came up was the structure of the writing. my client uses a less formal voice and inserts two spaces after each sentence; two things that i do not do. the challenge was to either adapt to the client's style or employ my style.

my original thoughts about ghostwriting were pretty harsh; the sole unethical, non-righteous view. that has changed a bit due to the ghostwriting experience and just through learning more about it in general. i did learn something about myself that makes me a little more accepting although i am still opposed to ghostwriting in general. i learned that i can express myself a great deal better in writing than i can in speech. i could see how this problem could affect people in the opposite manner, which would signal the need for a ghostwriter.

i do believe that the ghostwriting experience did challenge my authorship. i did not feel so comfortable putting someone else's name or ownership on something that i had produced. it did not make me feel proud or satisfied to complete a piece that i knew was going to a cause other than my own.

if there is one thing that i got out of all my English classes up until now, it is to not plagiarize. it is like the equivalence to not looking at another's exam when taking one. "do not copy someone else's work, do not copy someone else's work, do not copy someone else's work." the message has been ingrained. i have yet to take a class that involved any writing where i did not hear "do not copy someone else's work," but it's a good thing teachers are doing their job.

i have been accused of plagiarizing once. it turns out that one student that i had helped out had taken a passage out of my paper and plugged it into their paper. fortunately i did not get into any trouble. it is difficult because plagiarizing does come in different forms, and one could be plagiarizing and not be aware of it. unfortunately most or almost everyone has probably done some form of plagiarizing already, and some will even more in the future.

ownership is a very important aspect of authorship. without proper ownership, plagiarizing and property rights would be chaotic.