Monday, March 24, 2008
difference in writing
The way of the writing in China and the United States are quite different. Briefly, they are mainly different in the formats. Compared with American writing requirements, the standard of format of writing is much lower in China. Of course, every professor wants to see a paper with excellent format. However they don't pay much attention to format requirement as long as the format we present is acceptable, because in Chinese education, most people believe content values more than the format, no matter how beautiful or professional-looking your papers are, your writing abilities and ideas and the way you express them are the main elements that they concern. Therefore, we don't divide the sources into so many categories, and we don't have so many distinct ways to site the reference. we do paraphrase or summarize in China, but in most cases, we don't consider the use of a few same words from the source as a plagiarism, because people may think these words are the best to describe their ideas, and probably you got the same idea before you read the source, so they may think: why should I have to do so much to avoid the so-called plagiarism, that's not a big deal. However, it's such a big deal in America. You will not be allowed to simply rephrase the ideas with your own words. All you got do is "Work Sited" with a standard format-MLA or APA. At the beginning, I don't know how to do the reference, which troubled me a lot when I write essays. However with the help of teachers I learned to do it well. and I think I need to learn it and it's important to learn because plagiarism is so bad indeed, if I can't show it's my work, then what's the point? and if I did it on my own and people feel impressed by my work then I can be proud to say: yeah, that's my work.
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4 comments:
I have to agree with you!! That must be pretty nice that China doesnt really focus on plagarism as we do in America. It's important to do our OWN writing but then again I can see why Chinese writing doesnt really emphasize on plagarism, because sometimes things are best described and talked about when it comes from the author.
We understood that the students in ENGL 396 would have a few issues with MLA/APA formatting, so that is why we sat down with everybody to explain it. We didn't expect the formatting to be perfect; we understood it is a new concept.
I think it's important for those who teach international students to understand the differences in writing conventions from culture to culture.
I agree that content is most important! Properly paraphrasing, quoting, and documenting just assures the reader that it is your content in your essay instead of someone else's content. Also, when the format does not look good, it sometimes distracts the reader from the paper's wonderful content.
Great post!
I agree with you. I would like to gave you an alternative suggestion. Writing English in the American way and writing Chinese in the Chinese way. Using format in Chinese made your Chinese boring and useless. Do not using format made your English unclear and useless. So you have to have two different space in your brain.
It is hard but we have to do it because we want to feel the differnt cultre.
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