Title of Article : A War of Worlds
Publisher : The Journal
Date of Publication: September 11, 2007
Author: Jim Patterson
Link: http://www.thejournal.com/articles/2122
Summary of Article
The article talks of a program called Paper tools Pro that helps students organize their notes better so they will avoid plagarism when writing a research paper.
It seems that not all educators are happy with these kinds of programs. Charlie Low the spokesman for C.C.C.C.( Conference on College Composition and Communication) seems to think that these programs label the students who use them as potential plagarizers. He thinks it crosses the line of infringing on their rights. He goes on to talking about opposing computer programs that putstudents papers in a national database called iparadigms that allows teachers to compare student's papers against others.
He feels students should be responsible for their own work and learn first hand about sighting sources properly in their work. I looked at the program and I can understand the opposing views on this topic, but being a special education teacher I tend to lean more toward the proactive approach to the problem. The program is ideal for people with organizational problems. I think it’s a great program as it makes students aware of the process of writing a paper. I downloaded a sample copy. It gives you a step by step approach which I think is helpful for students who have not written a paper before or for individuals who are learning disabled and have extreme difficulties organizing their ideas. It teaches them the difference between plagarizing and paraphrasing. It also shows them how to cite sources and create a bibliography.
I see Mr.Low’s point about being responsible and having an understanding about citing sources. Students should not rely solely on a program like this. Mr.Low also goes on to talk of the issue of keeping terms papers in a data base and using it to compare papers. I believe that is an infringement on student’s rights, but then I do find that a whole other issue of discussion.
If I were teaching older students I would allow them to use this program as a teaching tool. Once they got the hang of writing a research paper I would only allow it for students with I.E.P.s. Writing a paper can be very intimidating to students and you want them to feel comfortable but at the same time you want them to learn to do it on their own.
Whats next? Will we have programs that will write the whole paper for you. What is your ideas about this program and others like it.? Do you think we should be encouraging students to use programs like Paper tools pro?
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I think a program to help students organize their notes for a research paper is great. I think many students do not know how to write research papers. The skill of writing a paper should start early. Teach the simple outlining of an essay first and then get more complex. By high school, students should know how to write a paper, but many do not. I think HS teachers believe they should know how to write the paper too, so when they assign these papers, they really do not take the time to go over the skills. They assume the students already know how. During my student teaching experience, I worked in a class called writing skills. It was basically an extra period of SS for the students. Two of the other SS teachers had assigned research papers to their 11th grade students. I was so suprised when my periods became lessons on how to write these papers. Students have no clue. I think it is important to have this kind of program for those who need to learn the skills, especially when other teachers won't take the time to go over the skill because the student should know it already.
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