January 11th Homework

"Intertextuality and the Discourse Community" Summary:
In the article "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community", James Porter argues that many of the texts we read today are "traces" of other texts that have already been published. He uses a good bit of examples, such as the Pepsi commercial (pg. 90), the Declaration of Independence (pgs. 89-90), and the Kent State shooting (pgs. 90-91) that all show that the original writers used ideas from other things that were already published and mixed it around with their own views and made it theirs. According to Porter, Discourse Community is a group of individuals who are basically bound by a common interest. I have to agree with Porter when he says that all texts are "traces" of other texts because when we write research papers, we're getting information from all different sources who all basically say the same thing, so to me that just makes me think they're all using the same ideas from each other to make something known as a "fact."

GRR #2:
Whenever I'm trying to get research, or "help", for my papers, I usually check out a couple different sources on the Internet to see if all their information matches up, check out books at the library, and after I'm done with my rough draft, I usually have a friend proof read it to make sure it's a good paper. My ideas for my papers usually come up as a random thought, or they're something that I'm really interested in. When I was in high school, I was in a Speech class and we could choose any subject for an informational speech, and I chose Autism because that subject is really interesting to me and I wanted to find out more about it. I did a lot of research and I had a friend and my teacher proof read it to make sure I had it where it needed to be.

QD:
2. I don't think that intertext makes individual writers less important because although they do have to go and maybe take some ideas from different sources, they are still being unique with their writings and putting their own thoughts into it as well. I don't really thing that anyone's writings aren't "plagiarized" because they had to find their information the same ways as writers have to today.
3. Porter calls the idea of an autonomous writer "romantic" because, as he states on page 94, these types of writers are "exercising a free, creative will through the writing act."
4. I've always believed that writing should be evaluated on the writer's content and how true the "facts" are within the text. With my experience, I've always been evaluated on how well I wrote and the skill level I was at based on where I should have been at the time, which I don't seem to think is very fair, just for the simple fact that we weren't really taught how to effectively write a "good" paper.
5. I feel like Porter kind of fails to reflect his own opinion because he is taking ideas from other sources and he uses examples from other sources and then he ties his opinion in with it. An example of this, which is on page 90, he talks about the Pepsi commercial and how they took ideas from Spielberg's movie to make that commercial.
6. The problem in imagining writing "as individual, as isolated, as heroic" is that no one's writing is really original. Writings are usually a bunch of other people's ideas and things that have already been said and are mixed together and have their opinions thrown in there to make it seem like their "own" idea.

MM:
Porter's study has pretty much changed the way I imagine writers and writings because it really made me realize that not very many writers are original and they all seem to use each others ideas, mix it around, throw in their views or opinions, and call it theirs. I'm definitely going to take what he's saying and try to use it into making me be a better writer by being cautious of how much information I take from sources and just try to be more original.