kelly’s blog

To me, plagiarism means to steal someone’s work and make it your own. Before all the readings, I thought I knew a lot about plagiarism but after these readings, I realized I don’t. I had no idea that if you didn’t cite something 100% correctly then it can be counted as plagiarism. I did learn that I always have a hard time determining when a piece of information is common knowledge. The whole idea of common knowledge is so complex. I mean, I understand that “an orange is a fruit,” but when you’re writing a Sociology paper, it is common knowledge that conflict theorists focus on the inequalities among different types of groups of people. While this is common knowledge of Sociologists, it is not common knowledge to a lot of people who aren’t involved in the discipline. I guess my question is, how do we determine what exactly is common knowledge when we are writing a paper centered around a certain theme, like this class?

When I am writing a paper, I am so scared that I will cite something incorrectly, and will lose points (if not fail) for making an honest mistake. If someone steals another person’s paper then they deserve to fail, but my biggest fear is that I will unknowingly make an error and be punished for something that I really didn’t mean to do. This actually does stem from a horror story of someone I know. Someone in one of my classes actually did plagiarize and didn’t mind filling people in on it. This was really stupid because this person did get caught. I saw what happened, he failed not only the paper, but the class and then had to be taken in front of the judicial board. Plagiarizing is serious business, so I try to make sure I don’t make any mistakes in citing. While this happened to someone who stole the whole paper, I don’t want to risk anything to ruin my reputation as a serious student and researcher.

While taking notes on my paper and organizing all of my sources, I’m not finding any problems with citing and paraphrasing. I try to never quote in a paper, and if I absolutely have to, I try to make sure it’s just one sentence that is NEEDED for the paper. I typically try to shy away from quotations though. One thing I do to paraphrase my articles is print out the whole article, highlight the main points and re-write what I highlighted in my own words on the margins of the article. This usually helps me pick out what I want in my paper and ensures that I am using my own words and not the author’s.

When searching different topics for a research paper, I have learned that about 99% of the articles I find using google are completely illegitimate. I usually just try using JSTOR because those are guaranteed to be legitimate, peer-reviewed articles that are very useful in my papers. This exercise helped me realize that I don’t just have to use my exact topic wording to find articles that are pertinent to my research. By using “spanking” (in google, I pulled up a lot of “mature” sites) I found a lot of articles about spanking, but I found even more when I used “child beating,” “child discipline,” and “child raising.” I found these by using the thesaurus which I found extremely helpful. I found the most when I used “child rearing practices.” While that not only encompasses spanking, it also provided articles that dealt with other techniques in rearing children. This exercise taught me to use different phrasing, which will help give my paper more quality and depth.

In my family, we all attack each other if someone uses grammar incorrectly, so I have been brought up to try my best to be right. However, this usually isn’t the case. I think grammar is a tough concept to grasp because so many of us come from different places where one word is completely acceptable and other words are not. (ex: the word “reckon.” Coming from Franklin, VA we say it ALL the time- and Keith you do too- but in some places people wouldn’t have any idea what you’re talking about)

A lot of my mistakes were words that I didn’t even know were wrong. I have no idea about the  differences between “who’s” and “whose” because I never really had to think about it. When you talk, no one can hear if you are making a mistake saying “who’s” or “whose.” I think that’s the problem with today’s society. We are so dependent on spell check and the squiggly lines underneath our sentences in Microsoft Word indicating that they are fragments, that we forgot how to spell and use grammar correctly. Enough of the complaining. Long story short: I am worse at grammar than I really thought I was and by taking these tests I now realize it. And I’m glad I now know!

For my research paper, I would like to look at the division of household labor and how if affects marital happiness in three different types of couples:

-newlyweds (defined as couples being married for less than 3 years)

-couples with children living at home (from small children to teenagers)

-couples with children who don’t live at home (children in college, or college age and up)

I want to see who is more satisfied with the division of labor in their home. Who is less affected by the division? And who is more affected. My guess would definitely be the couples with children living at home, but who knows?

From this, I want to tie in the different roles that individuals play in the couple. Are they traditional couples, where one person works and the other person stays at home (typically the husband works and the wife stays at home) or are they egalitarian couples (where both individuals work). I want to see what role this plays in the happiness of the couples with their own division of labor.

I’m not sure how to tie the roles part in, so advice would be appreciated. If I can’t use it, then that’s ok, but it’s really interesting so I definitely want to try!!!

I’m Kelly and I am 22! I live in Newport News, VA and have the coolest apartment with my roommate from college, Laura. I graduated from CNU in 2008 where I majored in Sociology and minored in Anthropology. I am currently working in Hampton as an Enforcement Specialist for the Division of Child Support Enforcement. I have always wanted to go to grad school, but ultimately decided to continue my education the day after my college graduation when I was reading a book and realized I would never take another test, write another paper, or do any kind of research in Sociology. I decided to go to Longwood because my sister is a student there. I am hoping to graduate the same day as her in 2010, when she will graduate with a Bachelors in Criminal Justice and I will (hopefully) graduate with my Masters in Criminal Justice. I guess we both get our love of the justice system from our dad, who also graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice!

My family is really close and means the world to me. I have a puppy named Zip who is crazy but makes my heart so happy every time I am near him. My sister, Katie, is my best friend in the whole world and we are complete opposites, yet exactly the same…it’s weird but if you have ever met us, you would understand. I love archaeology, and being an archaeologist would definitely be my dream job. If I had enough money to support myself, I would travel the world excavating and exploring old cultures. My number one goal in life is to discover Atlantis. I love Greece, and I want to go there more than any other place in the world.

I am really excited about this course because I absolutely love writing. I could write about anything but I love researching, reading articles and incorporating them around my own ideas. I have never taken an online class (nor have I ever even had a blog) so I am really excited to this new approach centered around technology.

As for my research paper, I haven’t had much time to think about it. I guess I would like to do mine on the division of household labor because I have always been interested in the different roles couples take on in the household (breadwinner, homemaker). And I would like to see how these roles affect marital satisfaction.

This is really long and my life is actually quite boring, but I like boring.