Now it's time to take a retrospective look at the past 11 weeks.
This semester has flown by, and I can't believe our class is over. The first assignment for WRIT 340 was about plagiarism, and my paper discussed the relationship between psychology and plagiarism. Through my research for that paper I learned quite a bit, from the fact that copying your own work is plagiarism (who knew!?) to the idea that what may motivate an individual to plagiarize has a lot to do with their mental state of mind rather than pure laziness. As a student I've always been told not to plagiarize, and I remember the first time my middle school teacher had us turn in our work on Turnitin.com. There is so much more to plagiarism than what meets the eye, and my research for the first paper allowed me to gain a better understanding of the ethical responsibility educators have in making sure their students don't plagiarize. I also learned that plagiarism is an issue outside of academia, even authors such as J.K. Rowling are accused of plagiarism!
Through my research for the literature review and the final paper, I learned so much more about Psychology and its relationship to the Criminal Justice System. While the law is very black and white, Psychology allows for a grey area, much of what is studied is up for interpretation. As a result, the law can pick and choose what it likes from these studies and apply psychologist's findings as they see fit. It's interesting to note that psychologist's adhere to a strict code of ethics in their research, while individuals within the criminal justice system (i.e. police officers and detectives) are more willing to manipulate the law to work in their favor.
Research can be a long and arduous process, something that was confirmed by the extensive research I did for my final assignment. While google scholar is a great resource, it doesn't compare to the databases provided by the USC library. I can confidently say after the last 11 weeks, I am more confident now with my research abilities than I was at the beginning of the semester.
One aspect of the class that I really enjoyed was the experience of collaborative learning within the classroom. Peer-editing was very helpful for me, as it gave me the opportunity to flesh out my ideas a little more with other students before writing my final draft. I also thought the worksheets we received in class were helpful in allowing me a chance to further process my ideas. While I'm definitely not a blogger, the experience of self-publishing through this blog was a lot of fun as it gave me another forum to present my ideas, process where I was at in my research, and even post funny videos related to my topic. In fact, the process of blogging for this final assignment gave me an excuse to continue searching for more information on my topic, and showed me just how interested I am in the criminal justice system.
Next semester will be my last semester as an undergraduate at USC, I can't believe I'm going to be graduating. Over the past 11 weeks I've learned quite a bit about my writing style. I applied to law school a few weeks ago, so I know my future will be filled with several opportunities to apply what I've learned in WRIT 340.
Thank you for a great semester!
Sydney
