Intertexuality and the Discourse Community

Before Reading: I first start off with reading material, teacher's assistance, then the internet.  My idea's I receive are mainly from my teacher's and sometimes from my family members. After taking in their help, I put it to use and seek feedback from fellow friends and different family members who have had nothing to do with my paper.

Summary: In his article "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community", James E. Porter attempts to explain to the reader what intertextuality is and how it has been used in other important documents, specifically the Declaration of Independence. He argues this by using Jefferson's Declaration and showing specific examples as to how he's a great "creative borrower".

Synthesis: This article is like Sarah Allen's "The Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer" because in her work, she goes on about imitation writing styles and how it can better your writing abilities. In Porter's work, he shows how there is a lack of originality in the papers because of the intertextuality people use in the work by borrowing other ideas from other people.

QD
4: The way acceptability seems to be more important in texts actually shocks me. To have an effective writing piece, I understand how there has to be other who would be swayed into reading it, but you need to have a certain foundation and build in the writing. My writing has always been evaluated on structure and the basics and was never used for acceptance.

5:  Porter, in my opinion, showed that his work reflect the principle's he's writing about. He goes into great detail about how they picked up on past work and placed them into whatever it was they were using. Whether it be commericals, documents, or magazines. He provides examples of what was used and points out where you can find the intertexuality in them. He gives the names of people he uses in his article and writes more elaborately on what they mean.

A&E: The best way to avoid plagiarism is to not just take different writings and put them into your paper from different sources and call them your own, but elaborate on what it is that they are saying. The main difference between my version of plagiarism and the original is that I say to elaborate on the meanings of what it is the authors are trying to say. Leaving it as is and turning it in is just taking paragraphs that are cleverly put together that flow well, then turning it in as your own work.

MM: Porter's article doesn't change the way I view writers and writing in any slight bit. In a sense, it doesn't change the way I write, but it does. The only reason as to why my writing would be different, would be the elaboration I would put into my paper instead of the simplicity.

Opinion: I thought that how he put his writing could be confusing and could show others that he may not be practicing what he was preaching, but I had to re-read it a few times to understand how he was actually writing his article. He was showing how others were doing the intertexts and how they lack original ideas with an explanation. He didn't just leave it as other works, but he included what he thought and what he discovered by reading other articles as well.